Some stories involve a journey from A to B, and others involve leaving Hong Kong, honking around Robbie Williams’ pile in Wiltshire, 600 sheep and nights in the pub having fun with maggots. This isn’t one of those trips from A to B. But it does explain how an unsung Somerset town of less than 3,000 inhabitants ended up with one of the most impressive hotels in the country, all in a former cowshed, with a gastropub down the road the street. Welcome to Bittescombe.
A cowshed that now, it must be said, has a spa, a padel court, its own private chef, a staff of about thirty people, with rooms dressed in silk and gilt and Hermès carpets. The aim is to offer Londoners a slice of country house life without the usual hassle. Not that this was all strictly planned, as Bittescombe started out as a house hunt. “We had been in Hong Kong for eight years,” explains Samantha Campbell-Breeden – “we” being her and her financier husband Richard, “but the children were in England.”
Thus began a search to match Campbell-Breeden’s vision of a country house, “but everything we saw had an urban feel. There was always something moving in the distance.”
Robbie’s now sold house was considered and rejected one spot – the much-discussed landfill a mile away may have had something to do with it – until the Bittescombe house was found, a little outside Wiveliscombe, itself a little outside Taunton. , where Glastonbury is located. “I thought, wow, I finally found it. You are in a disconnect, another world. But it is a 45 hour train ride from Paddington,” says Campbell-Breeden. Add a car transfer and it’s a maximum of two hours-15 hours.
This isn’t the side of Somerset that usually attracts attention – that’s Bruton, or Frome, where Soho House has Babington House. “People who want to be seen go to Bruton because they want what they have. But I never understood that. Because actually the unknown is much sexier.” That is what Bittescombe responds to.
The family went from settling in a new house to building a hotel and pub after taking up sheep as a way to integrate more with the local population (“It does mean talking to people about things that you have in common. You know, like maggots”). The resulting need for more land meant they also inherited some outbuildings. An idea emerged, prompted by a phone call from a friend, who explained that the area was an important shooting range . ‘I asked her, ‘Does this mean everyone comes in the winter?’ She said, ‘Oh yes!’ I thought, ‘Shit!’”
But the call sparked an idea. “We were opportunistic and we realized that there is virtually nowhere for people to stay other than their private homes.” The outhouses were the answer.
Although the shoots are becoming increasingly customised, Bittescombe is now open all year round and no gun or tweed is required for anyone. And the build was quite a transformation: one of the old cowsheds is now a club room, complete with Chesterfields and a snooker table; an abandoned barn has a roaring fire and a staffed cocktail bar; a stark, corrugated shop is now a dining room, all rich reds and candlesticks; the spa with pool and treatment room takes over a concrete block that was previously filled with old barbed wire and rusted buckets. There is a library, hot tub and fitness room. There is also a meeting room for those who are not on vacation, but on business. One shed is for padel and badminton courts, table tennis.
It seats 20 people and includes activities including deer park safaris, paintball, target shooting, both walking and electric bike tours, and trout fishing (but the Campbell-Breedens can arrange everything from clay pigeon shooting to horse riding, polo lessons and yoga). One family recently got involved in karaoke.
The Lodge’s Chef Nick Pyle, who tailors the menus, cooks with meats and vegetables from the estate; the deer is perhaps a highlight, coming from the enormous deer park, with its eight miles of fencing. Pyle is a veteran of estate cooking and with a total staff of 30 people, all locals, the aim is for everything to feel personal and homely. It helps that almost all of the furnishings come from the Campbell-Breedens’ nearby personal home, which was later refurbished and hand-finished for the Lodge. “I learned how to gild on YouTube,” laughs Campbell-Breeden. “I sewed 80 pillows myself.”
She adds that the goal is for people to feel welcomed, rather than overwhelmed. “You can have that country experience, I think, without feeling intimidated – like in a stately home, where you feel so out of place and think, ‘I don’t belong here.’ That’s a terrible feeling. But here it is cozy and hospitable and there is none of that.”
It is therefore no surprise that this entails costs. The lodge and the bedrooms are to be considered as one whole, meaning it is suitable for families holidaying together, for large parties or for companies handling their teams. At full capacity of 20 people the price is £475 per person per night but this includes meals, house wine and all activities. But it is by no means affordable for everyone. And so came the Bittescombe Inn, where en suite rooms can be booked individually, for £130 a night. Campbell-Breeden says it is “an extension of Lodge, in the sense that it is a little sister”, where the same service and local and internal ethos continues.
But, she says, “it’s accessible to everyone.” As with the Lodge, everything was completely overhauled for the project, with the pub being redecorated, and the feeling that it’s all personal pervades. The stalls feature art from Campbell-Breeden’s grandmothers, with her mother’s horse tack as decor.
But food is the thing here. The head chef, Olivier Certain, previously worked at Exmoor’s only Michelin-starred pub, The Masons Arms in Knowstone. “It was always his dream to run a pub,” says Campbell-Breeden. “So when this became available, we thought it was a perfect marriage.”
Despite its Michelin pedigree, sure’s aim has been to keep the menu ‘very traditional’ – in other words, real pub food: fish and chips, steaks, venison shanks, a prized burger, although duck confit is not. unusual. As at the Lodge, most of the meat served is “all estate produce”, with local suppliers used everywhere else and listed on the menu. Scallops, from Brixham, are an outlier; the rest of the fish is closer to home. “We have the coast, so we fish a lot. The man gets off his boat and says: Olivier, I have this. And so that is what we do.”
The pub has just been named one of the top 100 in the country – not bad for about six years old
Certain has experience in this style and knows the area well; his career has taken him through the best of Somerset. The now closed Clavelshay Barn won critical acclaim and awards, and before that his time at Woods in Dulverton saw it twice named Somerset’s pub of the year. It’s hoped that similar fame will be achieved here, and that seems likely: last year it was a semi-finalist in the National Chef of the Year competition, and the pub has already attracted the attention of Estrella Damm’s Top Gastropubs list, having was just named one of the 100 best in the country – not bad for someone who is just six months old.
Ultimately, Campbell-Breeden says, whether guests come for the Lodge or for a night at the Inn, what they get comes from the setting. “Someone asked if we were doing something closer to London. But that’s the whole point: this is an escape.
“We don’t lock our cars, we don’t lock our houses here,” she says, raising an eyebrow. “It’s extraordinary.” That’s more than an escape, I say. It’s time travel.
bittescombe.com/thebittescombeinn.com