Family-run Buildings Farm has seen the full
agricultural spectrum over the years. It’s gone from pigs and cows and herdsmen
out in the fields, to modern day tractors and a working livery yard. Today, most
of the 180 acres have been sewn for crop production – golden barley and oats
ripple in the breeze and peas grow green in summer – but a picturesque
four-acre patch has also been set aside for something very special indeed… A
brand new glamping site.
Brambells Glamping is managed by the current
generation of farmers, Tom, who tends to the crops, and Holly, who also looks
after the livery yard, aided by their four young children. The meadow space
plays host to just three specially designed Lotus Belle tents, each in their
own private space. One sits tucked in the edge of a patch of woodland, with
splintered views across an open wild-flower meadow, while a second is hidden
deeper among the tees, dappled shade dancing across the tent’s creamy canvas.
The third tent is in an open meadow, beside a small pond and has been specially
designed to make the most of the dark Norfolk skies. Roll back a section of
canvas in the roof and in-built ceiling windows provide views of the stars
above. When the sky is clear it’s spectacular.
For extra seclusion, the site also has a
fourth, ‘secret’ pitch overlooking the marshes and reached via a short tractor
and trailer ride. Once there, you’re unlikely to be disturbed and the wildlife
watching is tremendous. It does require a slightly longer walk back to the
shower facilities, though – each tent
has its own private, luxury shower room – but since, like all the tents, it has
its own toilet directly alongside, a walk to the shower is a small price to
pay.
The tents themselves are furnished with all the
essentials you’ll need. There are beds (bedding and linen supplied), blankets,
hot water bottles, a wood-burning stove and re-chargeable lighting, while the
outdoor kitchen comes with all the pots, pans, crockery and utensils required.
Fire up the gas barbecue or light a campfire and you’ll be whipping up some
camping cuisine in no time.
For those at the main three pitches there’s an
easy 10-minute walk out to the marshes, emerging from the woods into a vast
area of open plains, overlooking the Norfolk Broads. By car (or bike) you can
head north into the national park itself and rent canoes to really explore the
landscape or, if you don’t want to over exert yourself, take a boat tour from
nearby Beccles. While there, the market town deserves a spell of your time. The
church’s 16th-century Gothic bell tower dominates the main
high-street – The Walk – with a cluster of pleasant, independent shops and cafés,
while further afield the beaches of the Suffolk coast await.