Bosinver Farm Cottages – a family weekend in Cornwall – video

Teenage boys can be notoriously difficult to please, so I wasn’t quite sure what my sixteen year old son and his two friends would make of Bosinver Farm Cottages in Cornwall. We arrive in darkness, having made the Friday night dash after work, driving down from Bristol with a car full of wellies, walking boots, plenty of chocolate biscuits and the Monopoly board.

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Turning into the  Bosinver drive we follow the lane through a hamlet of cottages and houses of different sizes which seem less like converted farm buildings and more like a small residential enclave.

Our house, Cherry (next to Apple and Pear) is a single storey bungalow which comfortably sleeps 6 people, and we’re soon unloaded and making ourselves at home. Before you can say “Put the kettle on”, the boys are watching football on the flat screen TV and have the music on full blast through the iPod Dock. So far so good.

I hope you enjoy the video below of Bosinver Farm Cottages:

If you can’t see the video below, you can view it on my blog here and on YouTube here.

Download the Bosinver Farm video [MP4]

Bosinver Farm Cottages- first impressions

First impressions are positive. Our cottage is spacious and well-designed, with every home comfort you could wish for, and someone has obviously had great fun putting together the colourful furnishings.

There’s a mixture of modern and vintage furniture, lots of Designer’s Guild, and funky ornaments all around the place that give our cottage bags of character.

I’m in the master bedroom with lime green patterned curtains and duvet cover and an en suite bathroom so that I don’t have to battle with the boys for mirror space first thing in the morning.

The three boys disperse themselves between the two twin bedrooms, one in bright yellow and green, the other in pink and red stripes with cheerful bunting strung above the beds, as if we’re at the village fete.

Our cottage at Bosinver Farm

The living area is open plan taking up half of the ground floor, with a well-equipped kitchen at one end, a pine table which is laid out for breakfast, an open fireplace with a stove and leather sofas positioned to watch the flat screen TV.

It would be a great place to stay for families who want to holiday together or multi-generational groups who want a bit of their own space in different cottages but the chance to easily gather together.

I wake up the next morning to find a pair of black and white horses munching the grass in the field outside my window. Eventually the boys emerge and set off to try out the indoor swimming pool which was only built this year. The glass walled pool area gives onto a terrace with oversized curvy outdoor chairs, overlooking the tennis court.

If only we were there in summer, rather than chilly October, we’d be lounging around with a cold drink, pretending we were in the South of France. While the boys alternately splash around then sit under the hot showers, I take a look around the rest of the farm.

I discover a colourful play barn for little ones, with a couple of exercise machines too – now dad can keep fit on the running machine while the little ones are wearing themselves out on the slide and climbing equipment.

An idyllic Cornish coastal walk

I pop into the reception area at the top of the drive to get some suggestions from Bosinver owner Pat Smith (known to younger farm visitors as Nanny Pat) for a walk to keep us busy for the rest of the day. I have in mind a couple of hours along a cliff path, a stroll on the beach and a nice café or pub to have lunch or tea at the end.

Pat takes in my requirements, digs out a book of 35 Cornish coastal walks from the pile that are available to borrow and sends us off to Polkerris beach, about 20 minutes drive from Bosinver.

Parking a little way up the hill from the beach, we walk down past the pub and pretty cottages to find the sheltered cove, with cliffs rising on either side and a sea wall making a protective arm to shelter small boats.

We take the footpath up the hill through a beech wood to the top of the cliffs and follow the path through the fields with the sea on our right. Every so often there’s a gap where you can peer down to a rocky cove although the cliff edge is protected by a hedge of brambles and gorse.

Gribbin Head to Polridmouth cove

We reach Gribbin head with a red and white striped daymark tower that sailors use to take a bearing and guide their boats into the Fowey estuary. It looks like a red and white lighthouse and is open on some Sundays for a climb to the top, I imagine it’s challenging on the legs but the views must be amazing.

We walk down through a herd of cows towards Polridmouth cove, close to where the writer Daphne du Maurier lived at Menabilly. She leased the large Georgian house from the local Rashleigh family and lived there for 25 years, using it as the setting on Manderlay in her famous novel, Rebecca.

We walk past the gate to the church at Menabilly where the blue hydrangeas are blooming, a flower of Cornwall that I always associate with dried flower arrangement in old country houses.

A hearty lunch on the beach

For a little way we follow the Saints’ Way, an old pilgrimage path that crosses from the south coast of Cornwall at Fowey to the north coast at Padstow. Crossing the field we walk down through the wood to Polkerris and settle on one of the outdoor tables at Sam’s on the Beach.  

This informal cafe is an offshoot from their popular restaurant at Fowey and occupies a prime position right on the sand in an old lifeboat station with a glass wall overlooking the beach. With perfect timing, the sun breaks through the clouds and we sit in the sunshine eating very good pizzas cooked in a wood fired oven, which pretty much defeat us in their size.

Alternative places to eat in Polkerris

There are some alternative places to eat in Polkerris at the Rashleigh Inn which is right opposite Sam’s and the Polka dot café with a small “bucket and spade” shop and and art gallery, the Gribbin Gallery above. I imagine that in August the place is heaving, but out of season with the sun shining it’s just perfect for me.

We drive on the short distance into Fowey, a small harbour town that hugs the hillside, overlooking the sheltered estuary that offers a haven for sailors. It’s full of those shops that sell you pretty things for the home, gifts with a nautical theme that you never knew you needed and plenty of Cornish clotted cream fudge.

The water taxis are heading back and forth across the estuary, and we eat our ice creams watching the sailing boats bobbing up and down, before climbing back up the hill to the car park and heading back to Bosinver.

Back at the cottages the boys enjoy another swim and try out the sauna, while the cottage is a pleasure to spend the evening in, like home only nicer, cleaner and fresher.

Feeding the animals at Bosinver Farm Cottages

On Sunday morning we join a large crowd of parents with their toddlers to feed the animals in the small farmyard beside the swimming pool.

Farmer Dave (Pat’s husband Dave Smith) has the routine sorted and the little ones squeal in delight as the ducks and hens run around them, although there are a few tears when Chalkie the goat grabs at his milk bottle a bit too hard. Even my hard to please 16 year olds have a great time, with the ducks and geese pecking grain from their hand.

Farmer Dave gives them the task of keeping Chalkie the goat under control on his lead, which is easier said than done as he has the strength to pull you off your feet if he thinks there’s food to be found.

We all troop over to the field and finish the session by watching Dan the moorland pony be fed from his bucket, while the younger ones hold him on a leading rein. We rather wish we could stay another day to have a ride on Secret, the white pony who’s kept in the next field and likes to have his nose stroked.

The Eden Project in Cornwall

We pack up and leave Bosinver Farm Cottages by late morning, stopping at The Eden Project for a few hours on the way home. I’ve always wanted to see this most popular of Cornish attractions, with its much photographed biomes, built 15 years ago on the site of an old china clay quarry.

The project is all about the way plants and crops are used to create the world we live in and is run as an educational charity. We walk down on winding paths through the hillside gardens and spend our first hour in the Rainforest biome.

The hot and steamy atmosphere soon has us stripped down to t-shirts and we follow the paths through the lush tropical plants, past pools and West African totems, a Malaysian wooden house and along a walkway that take us up through the tree canopy.

There’s a waterfall cascading down the side of the rock and we climb up on swaying metal steps to the platform that hangs high above the biome, where it makes you dizzy to look down.

Exploring The Eden Project

We stop in the outdoor café to refuel with a Cornish pasty before tackling the Mediterranean biome where the climate is much more temperate and there’s another small café serving paella and other food of the region.

The exotic pink protea is flowering in South Africa, while the Harley Davidson is off on a road trip through California, and the Dionysus sculptures of a bull and revellers are dancing in an intoxicated celebration of the wine god.

Before we leave we stop at The Core, an educational hub where a mechanical contraption demonstrates how it literally does take a sledgehammer to crack a hazelnut and we walk around The Seed, a 75 ton egg shaped sculpture carved from a single piece of Cornish granite.

By late afternoon we’re heading back to Bristol after our very enjoyable weekend in Cornwall. Bosinver Farm Cottages has given us a wonderful base to explore the cliff paths and beaches of South Cornwall and proved that you’re never too old or too cool to feed the chickens.

Bosinver Farm Cottages: Stay, Play and Discover the magic
Trelowth, St Austell, Cornwall, PL26 7DT, Tel: 01726 72128

There are 20 separate cottages on the farm sleeping between 3 and 12 people. We stayed in Cherry with 3 bedrooms for 6 people. Short breaks are available from mid September to mid May.

My thanks to Bosinver Farm Cottages who hosted* our weekend stay.

* More info on my policies page

This article is originally published at Heatheronhertravels.com.

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