Broadmeadow Glamping

Private planes and heated swimming pools are more often associated with high-end luxury villas than rustic glamping cabins but Broadmeadow Glamping has managed to combine the lot. This glamping site in Herefordshire sits alongside the local flying club’s grassy airstrip so while you may not get to take to the skies, you’ll have a great view while they do. And when it comes to the pool, you can dive right in; we weren’t teasing you there. Glamping guests are able to book private sessions in the afternoons and, as there’s just one off-grid cabin and one shepherd’s hut, you won’t be short on splashing about time.

Situated just three miles outside of the county town, Broadmeadow Farm feels surprisingly distant from Hereford, surrounded as it is by open fields dotted with sheep as far as the eye can see. Yet the wooden walls of its Billy Goat Cabin are almost an ode to the Jacobean buildings that pepper the heart of the town centre. Like a strange hybrid between a beach hut, Scandinavian lodge and Hereford’s timbered Old House, the cabin is a wooden wonder. At the other end of the site’s small woodland, a little shepherd’s hut is completely different but shares a charmingly timeless feel.

Each is off grid but insulated for year-round use and has its own composting toilet outside. The shepherd’s hut is a dinky hideaway for two or three while The Billy Goat Cabin has a family feel. There’s a mezzanine bedroom above the main space (with a sofa bed) which is warmed by a wood-burning stove and, outside, there’s a couple of cute extra cabins kitted out as twin bedrooms. They’re perfect for older kids or friends to sleep in while sharing facilities. Both cabin and shepherd’s hut are stocked up with cooking kit and have a fire bowl and picnic space outside.

The real treat, of course, is that warm swimming pool, a short walk away in a beamed building by your host’s farmhouse. It’s the perfect place to spend the gap between returning from the day’s adventures and your nightly campfire or barbecue. And the adventures here are plentiful: there’s the Forest of Dean, Hay-on-Wye or nearby Hereford with its mighty cathedral. It’s there that you’ll find the famous Mappa Mundi, a 13th-century map of the world with all its centuries-old eccentricities. While it’s rather different from the way we see the planet today – sprawling open spaces with just a few, sparse settlements plotted on the old parchment – there's a pleasing symmetry with the peaceful world of Broadmeadow Glamping; a rural escape on the modern-day map.