Farm Glamping on UK Working Farms

What is glamping on a farm, and how is it different from a pod?

Most glamping sites put you in a heated glamping pod, a cabin, a bell tent, a yurt or a shepherd's hut on a camping field, with a plug socket and maybe Wi-Fi. Glamping on a farm with Featherdown works the other way round. You get a spacious tent with wooden floors but no mains power, so the wood-burning stove heats the lodge, boils the kettle and cooks tea, and the light after dark comes from oil lamps and candles. The farm carries on around you, which is the whole point. The tractor rumbles past in the morning, the farmer feeds the livestock at set times and the kids get invited along.

It's closer to camping than to hotel comfort, but you don't pitch anything or sleep on the ground.

Inside a canvas lodge

A standard lodge has a double bed, a cupboard bed tucked into a wooden box and a bunk bed, enough for five adults and a child under 12, plus a fully equipped kitchen, your own flushing toilet and a private shower. Outside there's covered decking and, on most farms, a fire pit by each tent, so it feels more like a timber cabin or a roomy hut than a safari tent on a campsite. It's luxury in the sense of real mattresses and proper crockery, not room service. Stays start from £176 for the two-person tent at East Shilvinghampton Farm in Dorset, and most six-berth lodges start between £230 and £480.

Life with no electricity

With no screens to charge, evenings fill up with card games by lamplight, toasting marshmallows and looking at the stars, and College Farm in Norfolk sits in an official Dark Sky area. Bring a power bank and head torches, and see our off grid glamping and glamping with a wood burner guides if switching off is the appeal.

Farm glamping with animals: what kids actually do

Every farm here farms for a living, but they don't keep the same livestock or offer the same jobs.

If meeting the livestock is the main reason you're going, start with New Barn Farm in Bedfordshire. It has the longest list of any farm we cover: sheep, lambs, goats, pigs, ponies, donkeys, ducks, geese and chickens, plus guinea pigs in a cuddle barn and pony grooming sessions. Our farm stays with animals page sorts every farm by what lives there.

Bottle-feeding lambs

With luck, you'll see lambs taking their first steps in early April. College Farm, Moor Farm and Lunsford Farm list bottle-feeding lambs as a highlight, and at Hidcote Manor Farm the farmer may ask if you'd like to help. Lambs keep their own timetable. The Easter holidays give you the best chance.

Milking, ponies and alpacas

At Hollings Hill Farm you can watch the cows being milked, and Billingsmoor Farm in Devon runs farm walks with visits to the milking parlour. East Shilvinghampton is the only Featherdown farm in the UK where you can walk the alpacas. Upper Shadymoor in Shropshire runs 45-minute pony care sessions, and Foxglove Farm is a care farm in rural Berkshire with rare breed sheep and a trail through the meadows.

Rainy-day back-ups

College Farm has a hay barn to play in, Warren Farm has a play fort and a games barn with table football, and Moor Farm is the only farm in the group with its own indoor swimming pool, open from 18 April to 27 September. Up in the Scottish Borders, Chesters has a treehouse, fishing and an old walled garden where you pick your own veg, with plenty of nature on the doorstep.

Billingsmoor Farm, DevonMeet the calves, cows, dogs. Sleeps up to 10. Stays from £450.

Check dates

Shower, hot tub or dog: choosing your lodge

Once you've picked a region, three things change the price and the feel of a stay.

Where you'll wash

Farmhouse

Your own private washroom in a farm building a short walk from the tent. It's the cheapest way in, with College Farm from £230 and Heydon Grove from £240.

Outdoor and private

A private hot shower just outside your tent, lovely on a summer morning with views over the fields.

En-suite

A bathroom inside the tent. It costs a little more, with Moor Farm from £260 against £250 for the outdoor version. Book it with toddlers or for an October weekend.

Hot tubs and saunas

Eight farms have lodges with their own hot tub: Berthlwyd, Billingsmoor, Chesters, Gwel Teg, Hollings Hill, Layer Marney Tower, Manor Farm and Pant y March. At Hollings Hill every lodge has one; elsewhere the tub adds roughly £45 to £60 to the stays-from price. Pant y March adds a sauna pod and a wild swimming lake on the edge of Eryri National Park, and East Shilvinghampton has a sauna you book by the hour. Our farm stays with a hot tub page has the full list.

"Light the fire, let the water warm up and enjoy the soothing heat in the fresh air." Hollings Hill Farm on its wood-fired tubs

Bringing the dog

Thirteen of the 21 farms are dog friendly, including Billingsmoor, Fountain Violet in Devon, Gwel Teg, Moor Farm, Warren Farm and Pant y March. Eight don't take dogs, among them College Farm, Hollings Hill, Lunsford and Treganhoe. With sheep about, keep your dog on a lead near livestock, as the Countryside Code asks. Our dog friendly farm stays page lists every dog friendly farm.

Still not sure? Here's how we'd match farm to family.

A day on the farm, from the tent door

No two farms run the same timetable, but a typical day looks something like this:

1. Light the stove for tea while the kids help feed the sheep, pigs and goats (at Treganhoe Farm that's twice a day).
2. Join the farm tour if it's running; Moor Farm's covers Richard's regenerative farming.
3. Head out for the day. At Hidcote Manor Farm you get free entry to the National Trust's Hidcote garden, and at Layer Marney Tower you can climb the Tower itself when it's open.
4. Pick up supplies from the honesty shop, which most farms stock with essentials and local food.
5. Pizza night, when the farmer fires up the wood oven; at New Barn Farm it's every Wednesday and Saturday.
6. Campfire, marshmallows and bed by lamplight.

Can't face cooking on day one? East Shilvinghampton, New Barn and Treganhoe take orders for homemade meals, and Hollings Hill does arrival meals with 24 hours' notice.

When to go

The farms open from spring to autumn, so check each farm's dates when you book. Easter and the weeks after are best for lambs and quiet countryside. The summer holidays are the busiest, with long light evenings and pizza nights in full swing. October half term is underrated: the stove earns its keep, the tub feels like real luxury under a cold sky and a peaceful weekend for two is easier to find.

Book school holidays early. Most farms have only four to nine tents.

What to pack for an off-grid lodge

Unlike normal camping, the kitchen comes with pots, pans and crockery, but bed linen and towels aren't always included, so check your booking and then add:

Where in the UK can you go glamping on a farm?

In the South West there's Gwel Teg and Treganhoe in Cornwall, Billingsmoor and Fountain Violet in Devon, East Shilvinghampton in Dorset and Warren Farm in Somerset. The Cotswolds has Hidcote Manor, Hollings Hill and Moor Farm, while Foxglove, Manor Farm, Layer Marney Tower, Sunninglye and Lunsford are an easy run from the capital (see farm stays near London). Norfolk has College Farm and Heydon Grove near the coast, and further afield there's Upper Shadymoor in Shropshire, Berthlwyd and Pant y March in Wales, Chesters in Scotland and New Barn Farm in Bedfordshire, all deep in the countryside.

Want them side by side? Compare all the farms, or check live dates on Featherdown's farm list.

Compare the farms

Guest scores and review counts are from Feather Down's own farm pages. "Stays from" is the lowest price in Feather Down's feed for a sample stay; your dates will differ.

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