THE BEAUTY OF STAYING PUT

 

This summer, we’ve been celebrating the beauty of staying put. After all, with heatwave after heatwave, it’s been hard to do much more than slow down, switch off, and settle in. 

It’s been all about slow summer days, long al-fresco meals, doors and windows flung open, blankets laid in the garden, and nothing else to do but simply just be.

So, when it came to the ultimate place to stay in, Wood Farm House ticked all the boxes. Impeccable interiors, a peaceful village ambience, and a sense of calm that’s hard to beat. The team took a little trip to the Cotswolds to make the most of it – by doing very little at all…

 

We cooked together in the vast country kitchen, summer playlist on the speaker and plenty of time to linger over recipes.
An overhead view of a marble kitchen island laid out for baking, with mixing bowls, wooden spoons, butter, eggs, berries and stone fruit gathered around a dusted pastry board.

Lunchtime was an event in itself, the table laden with food, the rosé ice cold, and the conversation stretching on for hours.
An overhead view of a garden lunch spread — pesto pasta, sliced sourdough, meringues with apricots, blueberries and raspberries — with hands reaching in to serve.

We leaned into childlike joy with garden games, only occasionally losing the ball in the bursting abundance of lavender.
Two women in motion play garden games with wooden bats beside a honey-stone farmhouse, a lavender bed blurred in the foreground under bright summer light.

An when the ultimate in relaxation was on the cards, this was just the thing.
A hand holding an open book rises from a bubble-filled bathtub, lit by a sunlit window with sheer curtains and a playful painting on the wall above brass taps.

We set up camp in the beautifully tended gardens, reading, painting, and relaxing together, a picnic of treats readily at hand.
Overhead view of a woman reading the Financial Times on a picnic blanket beside watercolour painting supplies, playing cards, apricots and a magazine.

Explore Wood Farm House

A woman reads on a made bed reflected in a tall rattan-framed mirror, while in the foreground another figure sips from a patterned cup while reading a paperback novel.
Two blurred figures walk beneath a honeysuckle-covered archway on a brick farmhouse facade, a lavender hedge filling the foreground in warm sunlight.
Framed through a paned window, a woman in white loungewear stands at a marble sink pouring ingredients into a glass mixing bowl in a soft-hued kitchen.
An al fresco dining table set with green taper candles, sourdough, garlic bread and glasses of rosé, backed by an orangery and wildflower borders in evening light.
Two women sit in a sunlit doorway framed by trailing greenery, looking out over a lavender-filled garden and stone boundary wall, viewed from the shadowed hallway of a stone cottage.
A woman in motion sets down glasses on a garden dining table lit by taper candles, blurred with movement against a backdrop of dense greenery and soft blossom.
Cone-shaped pendant lights hang above a long wooden dining table set with a carved bowl of pine cones, framed by an open stable door revealing a lavender garden beyond.
Close-up of tall lavender spikes swaying against soft green stems, sunlight catching the purple blooms.
A woman in white pyjamas pours coffee from a cafetière at an outdoor table, framed by dense hedging and climbing roses in early morning light.
Open French doors frame a distant wooden dining table set beneath an arched hedge, surrounded by hollyhocks and cottage garden planting.