A farm holiday in Derry offers all the charms of camping but with cosy treats, including a box bed, writes ROSEMARY Mac CABE
‘NOW, MAKE sure to open this every day to check for blockages – and fiddle with this to clear the ash.” Fiona Stevenson is carefully explaining how to use the wood-burning stove in the kitchen-cum-dining area of our Feather Down luxury tent to me, while my “camping” (in the loosest sense of the word; more on which later) companions are gleefully rooting around. It’s a testament to my powers of concentration that, 10 minutes later, I remember nothing.
But I have an excuse! Behind Fiona, out of the corner of my eye, I spy something I have dreamed of since I was a child – a bed in a box.
To explain: Dudley Moore's Santa Clause the Moviewas my poison of choice, and Mr and Mrs Clause slept in a canopy bed, a mattress carefully placed and fitted within a wooden cabin, with carved doors and the brightest bed linen.
Though the linen I spy through the cracks in the door is white, I am no less excited than had I been eight years old and in the film itself; John Lithgow’s terrifying presence notwithstanding.
I have been on Ash Park Farm in Dungiven, Co Derry, for less than 10 minutes, and I am a younger, more excitable version of my former self. I could get used to this.
The concept of Feather Down Farms, which originated in Holland, is to provide a rural experience to travellers who want to escape to the wild but with some home comforts standing by. They are run by individual farmers but the accommodation is standard in Feather Down Farms which are dotted across the UK, France, Germany, Holland and the US. Ash Park Farm is the first in Ireland.
We are greeted on arrival by James and Fiona Stevenson, the farm owners, and their children Alethea and William. Alethea, who is six, soon spies the one board game in our arsenal – Scrabble – and sets about spelling her own name, before taking each one of us down with her canny knowledge of three- and four-letter words.
The car is parked behind the barn (“the chicken coop is in there; you can go down in the morning and look for eggs”) and our belongings are taken out of the boot and placed in wheelbarrows for the short walk to the tent.
Despite carefully scouring of the website and poring over photographs of luxurious-looking tents, we have little idea about what to expect.
One thing soon becomes clear: camping this is not. The tented residences more closely resemble log cabins, with wooden floors, wood-burning stove (not all that complicated in the end), large wooden table, hanging oil lamps and candles, and an inside toilet. An inside toilet, for crying out loud. Things have changed.
But for all of its modern luxury (toilet, pillows and duvets, not a tent peg in sight), there are enough vestiges of traditional camping to satisfy those among you who love it – in our group, this comprised the lone man and the Stevenson children.
Lighting the wood-burning stove and gathering firewood (and kindling, which he seemed to view as a welcome relief from talk of Sex and the Cityand which dishwasher tablets are best) are but one part of the Feather Down experience; learning to cook on it is quite another.
By the end of our weekend we had just about managed to fry an egg (22 minutes) but Feather Down does packages whereby you can buy the ingredients for a slow-cooked beef or chicken stew, enough to feed four, and revel in your success, should you achieve same.
There’s also an outdoor stone oven, and you can pre-order wheaten bread that James will cook for you (rising at 7.30am to get the oven going, so be prepared to feel a certain amount of shame when you roll over in bed and spy him from your window). You can then eat this with hen’s eggs collected from the chicken coop, or Cumberland sausages from the Feather Down honesty shop (take what you need and write it down, pay upon departure).
Feather Down Farm Days are both a new and old concept in holidaymaking. Designed with families in mind, the theory – and practise – is to take a break from modern living, from multitasking, from a life of “always on”, and embrace farm life: slow cooking, rising with the dawn and sleeping with the dark.
Wheelbarrows for transport are just the tip of the iceberg. There is no electricity in your tent, for one, meaning your BlackBerry or iPhone will need to be – shock, horror – switched off.
Candlelight will see you through an evening of chatting, quaffing wine and snacking on, um, foraged foods (not crisps, no sir, not us) but it won’t be strong enough for you to read by. Come sundown, socialising will be top of the list. Campfires outside your tents allow you to share the evening with your neighbours, toasting marshmallows over the open fire and inhaling the country air.
It’s in the shared moments that Feather Down really comes into its own. There were four of us and, though we enjoyed our time reading, playing (and losing) Scrabble, we couldn’t help but see how perfect the experience would be for families. Acres of space means children can be free to run around, play with Jack the terrier – who made Tyra Banks proud with a series of poses for our camera – the sheep, two pigs and, at the time of our visit, three sheepdog puppies. Or children can just explore the outdoors, while parents can take a break.
Living doesn’t have to be confined to the farm; Ash Park is located in the glorious Sperrin Mountains and the views, not to mention the walks, are breathtaking.
Ask nicely and James will take you on a tour, through fields of sheep and a beef suckler herd – but don’t limit yourselves.
The Giant’s Causeway is less than an hour away, while 35 minutes’ drive will bring you to the north Antrim coast and Castlerock blue flag beach.
You can also – if you’re feeling more ambitious than (ahem) we did – do some hiking around the Sperrin Mountains, or go for long walks in the beautiful countryside of Feeny (keeping an eye out for wildlife).
At the end of the day you’ll retire to your tent, light the wood-burning stove and cook yourselves up a storm (in a mere seven hours), before retiring to your canopy bed and arising with the dawn to do it all again. Carlsberg don’t do camping holidays . . .
Farm holidays for all
For children
Younger kids will love Micheal and Mary Lydon’s former dairy farm in Lush, Co Meath.
These days the farm is given over mostly to sheep to free up time to concentrate on a thriving crop of kids’ activities. These include summer camps for local kids and residents of their self-catering accommodation, play areas, and donkeys to ride and vegetable patches to plant. Twice a day a gaggle of little ones trails around after Micheal milking cows and goats by hand, feeding calves and lambs from bottles and scattering meal for hens. Accommodation is in a converted milking parlour.
A week in a two-bedroom house, sleeping four, in high season costs €395.
- Kiltale Holiday Homes, Dunsany, Co Meath, 046 9436679, meathselfcatering.com.
For teens
Paul and Georgiana Keane’s private island estate, Inish Beg, in west Cork is a hive of water sports activity in a beautiful setting covering everything from forest to walled gardens to foreshore. It even has a heated indoor pool.
The self-catering idyll is also a working sheep farm with a stable of miniature ponies and farm produce, from free range eggs to vegetables, herbs, honey and fruit (the orchard has a apiary in it).
One week in a two-bedroom cottage costs €980 in August and €770 in September.
- Inish Beg Self Catering Holiday Homes, Baltimore, Co Cork, 028 21745, inishbeg.com
For grown ups
If there is a more picturesque farmhouse in the country than Jack and Kathleen Mernagh’s Killiane Castle, three miles from Wexford Town, we’d like to see it. It is on a leafy country lane and accommodation on the 230 acre dairy farm is in a well-preserved 17th century farmhouse adjoining a 15th century castle.
Guests are free to ramble the farm, watch the cows being milked or play a variety of sports within the grounds: from pitch and putt to tennis and croquet. There is also a 300m floodlit driving range.
A two-bed garden apartment costs €500 a week in high season.
- Killiane Castle, Drinagh, Co Wexford, 053 9158885, killianecastle.com
By Sandra O’Connell
Go there
Feather Down Farm Days has expanded to 24 farms this year-including Ash Park Farm in Dungiven, Northern Ireland. They are open from April 2nd- October 31st and a stay in a tented unit for up to six people (maximum five adults) costs from £235 (€283) for a midweek stay (four nights) and from £275 (¤331.50) for a weekend (three nights). For more information visit featherdown.co.uk or call 0044-1420 80804