Wild Wellingtons Glamping

It’s easy to see what drew Sinead and Tom to buy this three-acre plot in West Wales. It’s 10 minutes to the nearest beach – a National Trust-owned gem approached through an enchanting wooded valley – and the views from the hilltop down the Ceri Valley are sublime. Yet while location, as daytime television presenters will tell you, is everything, it’s what they’ve done with the place that really marks it out.

Delicately balancing the wild with the luxurious, Wild Wellingtons is an off-grid family getaway, where campfires, ball games and hide-and-seek remain the norm but parents can still kick back in king-sized beds at the end of the day. The site has just two geodesic domes in total, plus a hilltop cabin built in the corrugation-clad style of an old shepherd’s hut. Inside expect proper beds, cosy furnishings and sleek new wood-burning stoves, as well as thoughtful touches that show the couple’s attention to detail: The four-poster bed in Cromen Ddôl (Meadow Dome), for example, was crafted by a local carpenter using Welsh ash trees grown less than half an hour away.

Along with the accommodation, extra structures make life more luxurious. The wash block has plush, wet-room style showers, big enough for families, and there’s a beautiful raised kitchen cabin with large windows and a glass veranda that makes the most of the views. Two sinks, two fridges, two hobs and all the cooking clobber you need means no one’s going hungry, though a better place to cook is over the flames in the octagonal campfire cabin, a Hobbit-esque structure where you can happily cocoon away the hours.

With so much space, Wild Wellingtons is a particular hit with families. There’s a climbing frame, see-saw, a field for ball games and Sinead and Tom’s two children are happy to share their trampoline. It’s nature, though, that usually wins the day. An ‘activities box’ in the kitchen cabin includes nets and a guide to all the bugs in the glampsite pond, while the long grass and a woven willow dome make great hiding spots. Such wild spaces have been truly nurtured by Tom and Sinead since they took over the place in 2016. In the first couple of years alone they planted 25 beech trees and over a kilogram of wildflower seeds.

A welcome hamper of Welsh goodies seals the deal. You can perch beside your wood-burner eating Welsh cakes and perusing the folder of local recommendations that Sinead and Tom have compiled. To the beach, a local castle or a walk in the Preseli Hills. What to do first?