Little Ranch Glamping

Giving your family a taste of the good life is easy thanks to Little Ranch Glamping in the Cheshire countryside. Hosts Rod and Vics have created two family-sized, family-friendly boltholes so you can enjoy a stay on their 20-acre smallholding. It’s a lovely place with goats, sheep, chickens, ponies, and the Llangollen Canal running through it all. You are welcome, your kids are definitely welcome, and dogs are welcome too.

Accommodation is in a handcrafted shepherd’s hut or a cabin, which is a more-solid-than-it-sounds little annexe. Both have been lovingly put together with lots of reclaimed materials and plenty of taste to provide self-contained, en-suite places to stay that happily straddle the line between glamping and self-catering accommodation. The shepherd’s hut sleeps four, with two double beds stacked together in a bunk, while the more spacious cabin has two double bedrooms—plus an option to accommodate two more in a sofa bed in the living space. Both also have a shower and loo as well as a kitchenette. Outside, each has a space to eat alfresco and a fire pit for toasting marshmallows.

Lovely as the indoor spaces are, it is the outdoors that really makes this place. In addition to those evenings out under the stars, there are other things to do right here on site. The canal meanders through the paddocks and you’re welcome to launch a paddleboard or kayak into it. The canal towpath is also a lovely place for a walk. Vics runs an outdoor kids club, Little Ranchers, a few mornings a week, which younger kids are welcome to join (for an extra charge). There are walking and biking trails in the surrounding countryside and Nantwich is not far away. Within 20 miles, you’ll find enchanting family fun at BeWILDerwood, mountain biking at Delamere Forest, sailing at Manley Mere, and sightseeing in Chester. So, there’s plenty to do beyond the farm gates—if you can bear to leave the good life behind for an hour or two.