CELEBRATE FAMOUS FIVE’S 75TH BIRTHDAY WITH A BLYTONESQUE ADVENTURE
12/06/2017
To celebrate the Famous Five’s 75th birthday this summer, Premier Cottages picks five properties that provide the perfect setting for Blytonesque escapes.
For multi-generational families keen to holiday close to the places that inspired Blyton’s books, Court Close is ideal. It’s located in the picture perfect village of Litton Cheney in Dorset, which could have been plucked from a Famous Five novel and welcomes dogs too. A week’s stay this summer arriving 25 August costs £3000 for 10. (www.premiercottages.co.uk, 01305 889338)
Another Dorset option is Dove House and Swallows, which offers an idyllic setting that’s ideal for a holiday that harks back to simpler times. Here children can run free, solve mysteries, build dens and have the obligatory picnics with lashings of ginger beer in around thousand acres of working farmland. A four-night stay for up to 13 in Dove House arriving 17 July costs £2200 and a week for four in Swallows arriving 21 July costs £1050. (www.premiercottages.co.uk, 01305 89338)
Both properties are within easy reach of Corfe Castle, the inspiration for Blyton's Kirrin Island and, with ruined walls, secret places and a history of treason and treachery, the ideal place for treasure hunts. Also nearby are steam train rides from Corfe Castle to Swanage (the start of many Famous Five tales) and families can take the ferry from Poole Quay to Brownsea Island, the model for Whispering Island in Blyton’s books.
Beyond Dorset, Croft Farm & Celtic Cottages is nestled in coastal West Wales and, surrounded by green fields and rolling hills, making it perfectly placed for ripping adventures. The original stone and slate farm buildings provide accommodation in ten cottages, sleeping two to twelve.
Families can unveil the mysteries of the Pembrokeshire Coast National Park and have fun on a wealth of beaches and bays along the nearby coastline. Cardigan Bay, home to the largest pod of bottlenose dolphins in Europe, as well as many seals and a variety of sea birds including puffins is not to be missed. A week’s stay in sleeps four property the Dairy arriving 7th July costs £1325 and a week arriving 1 September £995. (www.premiercottages.co.uk, 01239 615179)
In Cumbria, the appropriately named Goodies Farmhouse with its ancient oak beams and floors could feature in its own Famous Five novel. The 17th century property has an acre of garden for children to have adventures in, nearby woodland to explore and wonderful walks along the glorious River Lune can be enjoyed straight from the door.
Plus, with the Lake District on the doorstep, there’s lashings of family fun to be had with lake sailing on Ullswater, rowing on Grasmere and GoApe Tree Top Adventures in Grisedale Forest. Goodies main farmhouse, which sleeps six, has a week arriving on 1 or 8 July or on 26 August for £1650. (www.premiercottages.co.uk, 01539 621087)