A husband and wife team, the couple have both grown up here and have a back-of-the-hand understanding of the surrounding Black Mountains, the scenic borderline between England and Wales. Francesca herself was brought up in Old Great Marlborough House, a 17th-century farmhouse that now offers top-spec self catered accommodation, but it’s their love of the great outdoors that has led them outside to pursue our more preferred form of hospitality.
For now the fields look surprisingly bare. There are no tents, no cars and no to-and-fro of family campers. The reason, though, is that this is no ordinary campsite. Bespoke By Nature exists purely for exclusive group bookings, accommodating anywhere between 12 and 24 people, so each weekend it’s almost an entirely new campsite that pops up into life. A few things are a happy constant – the large communal tipi with a welcomingly warm firepit, a BBQ area wafting a tantalising aroma across the site and a wood-fired oven awaiting Ed’s perfected homemade pizzas – but most other aspects of your stay are tailored entirely to you, with a trio of weekend menus to choose between and a handful of guided offsite offerings you can take up if you so wish, like mountain biking, horse riding or hiking the local trails.
Bordered by Olchon Brook, the campsite itself is a spacious, luscious duo of meadows, fringed by trees that foot the surrounding hills. If kids are involved then sunny hours can be lost dabbling in the stream (young at heart welcome too!). Bikes are available to hire and if you don’t fancy dragging all the mud and damp into your tent then there’s helpful storage for muddy boots. It reflects the real bonus of being the only campsite occupants – you decide what kind of holiday you're after. Cycle groups, hiking groups, foodies, rock climbers, kayakers and literature lovers are all well located to make the most of local spoils. And at the end of the day, you have your own patch of the countryside to crawl back to. The “power of good food, good wine and good company” is what Ed and Francesca tell us it’s all about. Add in the power of enjoying the great British countryside on your own, private terms and you’ve got Bespoke By Nature down to a T.
