Campsites are great, obviously, but when you can also share someone's life and vision, doesn't that just make your back-to-nature trip that much more meaningful? Welcome then to the Lincolnshire countryside, where artists Alex and Azra have created a craft and camping retreat designed to connect you with the natural world.
From your off-grid yurt on the family farm — there's only one, so peace and solitude are also guaranteed — you can try your hand at silk-screen printing with Azra or lathe-turning, carving, or wood-working with Alex, before a night by the campfire under dazzling starry skies. The sunsets are magical in Lincolnshire's Big Sky Country; at dusk, the barn owls swoop down into the long grass on the hunt for mice. Beyond the farm, roll the Wolds, an ancient landscape of chalk downlands, medieval villages, and half-forgotten market towns. It's a county with a rich past in an England that's lesser-known, and it's utterly compelling.
Your base is a simply furnished, rustic yurt in its own little mown-grass compound, set against the backdrop of a sprawling hedgerow and with nothing but fields and woods in view. It's designed for a couple — there's a proper pine double bed, with tree-stump bedside tables — though families can add a couple of blow-up mattresses too if they wish. There's no power at all, which means a wood-burner for heat, solar lights inside and out, and torches provided to light your way after dark. There's cold water supplied to the adjacent kitchen shack, where there's all you need to make simple meals. You can heat water on the gas rings, or in a kettle on the wood-burner, and you might well need to do that as the open-air camping shower only supplies solar-warmed water. The loo is in a separate shack again, just a few steps away. The firepit becomes a focal point for the evening — if you want a barbecue, bring your own, but just make sure it's one you can raise off the ground.
Simple facilities, then, but perfect for the simple pleasures to be found down at Alex and Azra's place. Scratching chickens and hedgerow birds, walks in the woods and sunset drinks, marshmallows, and star-filled skies — you can see why the pair of them are living the dream, creating an artistic life in this dramatic landscape, and why they want to share it with visitors.
The Yurt Retreat is set in our 1.5 acre field with far reaching views of the countryside, approximately half the field is used by guests and the other half is used by us with a large cut flower patch, our Pygmy goat enclosure and a veg patch. The Yurt is off grid but does have an outdoor water tap, it has its own undercover outdoor kitchen, open air shower with changing area and a compost loo. There is also an area for sitting around a campfire and a picnic bench for eating at. The yurt is surrounded by long grass on each side which attracts various wildlife.
https://www.instagram.com/floral.farm/