I am used to hollow apologies at hotels for inconveniences, but at Coombeshead they made amends with goodies from their farm shop, including a ton of malt loaf (which I’d already tried fried in butter at breakfast), a jar of pork rillette, jams, honey, dried flowers and frankfurters. It took me several minutes to find the device in the dark and wrench it from the wall.
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Yes, I know we still have amped-up cleaning procedures as part of Covid theatre, but what was going on before the pandemic? A quick spray of some Febreze and a glide of a feather duster over the bedside table?Īs it turned out, getting up early wasn’t an issue, as the previous guest had set the radio alarm in my room to 5.50am, and it was still primed. That said, check-out is at 10.30am, so I was poised for annoyance. They make their own soap from beeswax and the fat from the Mangalitza pigs in the nearby field, which makes the likes of Molton Brown look painfully pedestrian.Įveryone seems to be having the time of their life working at Coombeshead, too – and it comes across in the service. But in a way, this underscores the fact that it is, of course, madly cool.
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The beauty of Coombeshead is how unfussy and relaxed it all is, as well as its low-key cool. Most of what you eat is harvested or slaughtered a few feet from the kitchen where it is prepared. It’s part of a growing trend that is no longer new – an old property and an attached farm, with what was previously agricultural architecture converted into a restaurant with fancy rooms. “That’s when the cleaner comes,” I was told by way of a fait accompli.Ĭlearly, some English hospitality hasn’t moved on since John Cleese and Connie Booth nailed it to the wall in the 1970s with Fawlty Towers – except now it comes with “Prosecco O’Clock” artwork in the hallway.įor my second night in Cornwall, I moved to Coombeshead Farm, which several local foodie friends have been trying to get me to visit for years. “That’s before I usually get up,” I politely explained. But when I went to visit some friends in Cornwall recently, for my annual jaunt to the cliffside beauty of Boscastle and its Museum of Witchcraft and Magic, I struggled to find a B&B that wanted to take a booking for anything less than two nights – and the only one I could find wanted me out at 10am. No matter who tells me otherwise, check-out time at a hotel is midday.