What a find, what a steal. Just within the Essex border with Suffolk was my highly-awaited weekend break at The Hatchery. Brand new with only half a dozen guests to-date, and very upmarket with no expense spared, this plush pad of a converted stylish contemporary barn has everything and more.
Indeed I had only to turn up with my suitcase for all else to be taken care of. For, accommodating eight within its four en suite bedrooms, it’s equipped for every conceivable eventuality, with all the mod-cons and latest devices.
It’s uber-chic and a perfect setting for friends to meet and catch up and hang out in pampering luxury, especially after two years of Covid isolation, and it’s ideal for formal gatherings like family reunions and Christmas. You can cook and eat together, and socialise or take a country walk shoulder-to-shoulder catching up on that precious time away from each other.
Outside, the building has its own quirky and humorous stamp with butterfly and spider sculptures on the wall and roof respectively. Within the rooms reference the building’s origins with names of chicken breeds such as Orpington and Burford. And The Hatchery has an ‘indoors-outdoors’ feel with three large patio doors that took me directly out to the state-of-the-art hot tub and the latest style of barbecue on the landscaped patio.
The interior is open-planned and designed for modern living, with a kitchen kitted out with a Miele cooker and an LG fridge, and where you can cook yet chat across to others. The layout is on two levels with a bridge across the upstairs bedrooms, which have fans and walk-in wardrobes and one with wonderful French windows that look out across the pond and beyond.
The living room has wooden flooring that’s softened by braided rugs made of Jute, a massive 75-inch cinematic TV and intriguing aerial photographs overlooking three huge sofas and a lovely wood burner around which to gather. There’s even under-floor heating and an electric car charger.
Steeple Bumpstead, the local village, has links to Edith Cavour, with a number of moated houses, a church perversely having no steeple and, not far from ‘Balance Wood’, a field called 'Bloody Pightle’. There’s something about the purity of the open country with its endless folds of cultivated fields, and I loved the small, jolly, pargetted cottages with their Union Jacks proudly already celebrating the Jubilee it seemed.
The Hatchery is perfectly positioned for a range of exciting excursions, with Audley End House a short drive away and, closer still, the picturesque market town of Clare, the smallest in Suffolk, is a county of village greens, old-fashioned petrol pumps and red phone boxes, cottages of bright pinks and yellows topped with thatch, large manorial halls presiding over vast fields and rolling hills.
For a change I ate out in the village of Bartlow, at The Three Hills (thethreehills.co.uk) named after three local Roman hills. Inside are a number of rooms including the main restaurant which is within a spacious barn that’s decorated with classy frames of dried flowers, with old milk crates nurturing flower bulbs secured to the slabstone flooring, and with rattan bulls adorning the white-painted wooden walls. Here I enjoyed grilled mackerel with apple, miso and horseradish, followed by corn-fed chicken with tomato and red pepper orzo, chorizo, baby spinach and Parma ham. It was highly atmospheric the night I went, with a jolly crowd full of locals which is always a good sign. It was only on the way out sadly that I spotted the warm, snug tearoom-cum-library with its roaring fire.
From The Hatchery I drove the half hour to Cambridge where, in the last century, I had been an undergraduate, and where now interestingly students try to cycle their way through the tourists whose shops now dominate the Kings Parade and beyond. If you’re lucky you might just peep inside a college door onto its first court, or else gaze fully upon Kings College Chapel and Trinity Great Court, visible at least from The Backs and its the road south of the river.
At the timelessly chic boutique Graduate Hotel perfectly positioned along the river Cam is the hotel’s restaurant the Garden House (graduatehotels.com). It focusses on grilled food and where better I thought, after a truly delicious rich creamy mushroom soup, for a Sunday roast with its seasonal produce cooked over a fire? It was from this warm and cosy, spacious and light dining room that I looked out of the glass fronted windows humorously to observe people negotiating the punts for the first time and footpaths trodden by the more knowing or less ambitious.
After much walking (for I had forgotten how spacious this very special city was, with its large green spaces that include Jesus Green and Parkers Piece) I sat down at last at the University Arms, the city’s old favourite of a traditional town hotel, to have dinner at the hotel’s Parker’s Tavern (parkerstavern.com). You go through the library and its roaring fire, past the bar and tearoom to this classy spacious brasserie. Overhearing the international clientele putting the world to rights I sat on my red leather banquette surrounded by paintings out over the University’s colours of light blue adorning the lanterns across Parkers’ Piece. After my roasted cep toast with garlic, herbs and ricotta, I enjoyed smoked salmon served with crème fresh and young herbs, then a baked walnut goats' cheese on crouton with roasted pears, honey and thyme and then by a nostalgic couple of scoops of raspberry ripple. All thoroughly thought through. I was totally taken care of … just as I was at The Hatchery.
Need to knows
The Hatchery: originalcottages.co.uk
Price: £2,622 per week for up to eight guests
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