How CHB came to be

Part One

In 2011, we lived in a semi we had fully renovated in a village 5 mins from here and were vaguely looking to take on a new project. Tim maintains he didn’t know we were, but I’m sure it was discussed!

This farm had been on the market for months apparently, but with 80 acres and therefore way out of our price bracket! We weren’t even aware of it’s existence; I must’ve driven past it hundreds of times. Then the sellers decided to split the land from the house and it suddenly popped up on our search. Unfortunately Tim was overseas at the time with work, so I came to see it alone and fell in love. 

Thankfully Tim was fully on board, and after a very tense few months of bidding, we moved in 2012 and got to work. The main house hadn’t been touched since the 1980s so we began some serious plumbing and ‘un-browning’ to create a cosy modern home. The land, pond and outbuildings were a wonderful playground for the children but we had little time, energy or funds to do much with them until 2016.

The assorted outbuildings, once home to the bull and 10,000 piglets, were now full of lawnmowers, tractors and spiders! We stripped them back to bare bones and planned to convert them into a guest suite/granny annexe and playroom/office. When Tim took voluntary redundancy we had the much needed time to complete the work ourselves (in between raising 3 patient children!)

In the spring of 2017 we decided we should see if we could get a few paying guests a month to help us have a holiday. We popped The Cowshed on booking.com and were blown away by the interest and feedback. Guests loved the home from home feel and having a big, light filled space all to themselves. The 5-star reviews were a great confidence boost. Many of those first guests returned over and over and still come now. We accepted one night stays and I did a changeover everyday, ironing a set of bedsheets every night on the landing while the children were going to sleep. We did indeed get to Italy that summer and thoroughly enjoyed a rest and change of scene!

Running a B&B had not been the grand plan all along at all. We had toyed with lots of ideas for the property (Christmas tree farm anyone? Too many bunnies!) and almost sold the land around the pond at the start. 

Having Joe Bloggs come into our home was a big deal for us, I think it’s fair to say Tim and I are introverts and really value our privacy (that is why we’d bought a house surrounded by 5 acres!). Inviting strangers onto our property was a big step into the unknown and we were both pretty scared of what could go wrong and whether we’d feel like we lived in a goldfish bowl!

Read Part 2 in June to see how it panned out…