Broadway Manor Cottages

At Broadway Manor Cottages in the Cotswolds we encourage wildlife and wild and native flowers in our grounds, avoiding the use of  insecticides and pesticides, so a few weeks ago when Help Save Bees appealed on Twitter for favourable locations, such as orchards, for beekeepers to keep honey bees, we replied to see whether we could help. 

British bees are dwindling at an alarming rate and their extinction would have a disastrous effect on our flora and fauna. Help Save Bees was set up by Damian Grounds to raise awareness of the plight of British bees and highlight ways in which their survival can be protected by providing suitable and sustainable habitats for honey, bumble or solitary bees. Within a few days of our ‘tweet’ we were contacted by a local friendly beekeeper to see whether our grounds would be a suitable location for one or more beehives.

Our guests are invited to enjoy the grounds surrounding their holiday cottage during their stay, including our orchard of pear, apple, cherry, greengage, plum and damson trees, which all bear beautiful fragrant blossom ideal for pollen collecting honey bees. Siting one or more beehives in the orchard would be ideal, but the more isolated spot in the middle of our adjacent field is a better option leaving the bees alone and away from any disturbance.

The field is on the edge of Broadway in close proximity to a number of gardens with no great expanses of wheat or oilseed rape nearby which will hopefully mean that the bees will produce a fragrant polyfloral honey. But before a beehive can be sited we need some honey bees!

The beekeeper, who will be tending the hives and looking after the bees, placed a swarm box on top of one of our sheds. The wooden box contained a small piece of honeycomb and a pheromone attractive to bees. Within a few days some scout bees took up residence and we were hopeful that a swarm would follow. Sure enough early one evening a swarming cloud of honey bees descended on the garden but the bees did not make the box their home, they headed for a branch of a nearby Leylandii tree!

The following morning to coax the swarm out of the tree, a rope skep was placed on the ground nearby.  The beekeeper then cut off the branch that the swarm was hanging from and covered it with the skep. By that evening, all of the bees had moved from the tree to the skep and he packed it up and took it away to transfer the swarm to an apiary to check them for disease before introducing them to a hive in our field, maybe with a newly introduced queen that he has been breeding.

It seems we have been very lucky in June: the following day a much larger swarm of honey bees moved into the swarm box. This has now been collected and we hope the swarm will populate a further hive.

Cotswold Holiday Cottages in Broadway, May 2009. 

May is a great month to visit The Cotswolds.  The weather is warm now spring is well and truly underway, the skies are often blue, the grassy wolds are green, bluebells carpet the woodlands and the fields are full of frolicking spring lambs.

Our three delightful Cotswold holiday cottages, The Willows, are located in a secluded courtyard in the peaceful rural grounds of a historic manor house originally built in 1539 in Broadway, in the Cotswolds Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. 

Two of the cottages, 1 and 2, The Willows, have 2 bedrooms and sleep 4 guests. Each cottage has a double bedroom (with four-poster bed) and twin bedded room. Both cottages have fully-equipped kitchens, sitting rooms furnished with comfy leather sofas and bathrooms with over-bath power showers.

Our third cottage, 3, The Willows, sleeps 2 in its romantic galleried double bedroom with ironwork four-poster bed accessed from the cottage’s living room by a spiral staircase. The living room is spacious with a fully-equipped kitchen area, dining space and comfy leather sofa to curl up on in front of the cottage’s energy saving flat screen digital TV.

All of the cottages are furnished and decorated to a high standard. Crisp white linen, fluffy white towels and complimentary toiletries are provided to ensure that our guests have a comfortable stay.

The grounds surrounding the cottages are a haven for wildlife. It is not unusual to see badgers, foxes or a number of different species of birds and their offspring all of whom make the grounds their home albeit in a set, den, nest in the eaves of the barn or in a crack in a Cotswold stone wall, on one of the ponds, or in one of the many trees. Children staying with us will love our friendly pet Dorset sheep and lambs.

Our guests are invited to enjoy the gardens surrounding the cottages and for the more energetic there is a tennis court in the grounds. A footpath crossing our adjacent field leads to the centre of the village which meets with The Cotswold Way National Trail opening up a number of lovely walks in the area.

Broadway is ideally located for exploring the beautiful Cotswolds renowned for its picturesque ancient villages with their honey-coloured stone buildings, rolling hills (wolds), miles of Cotswold stone walls and acres of beech woodland. Within a short distance of the cottages are a number of wonderful gardens, historic houses and country and farm parks to visit. Stratford-upon-Avon, Cheltenham,Oxford and Bath are all within easy driving distance.

More information and photos of our 4* rated Willows Cottages can be found on our website www.broadwaymanor-cottages.co.uk.

What a fantastic weekend for sledging on the Cotswold hills.  The snow has lasted and it looks like more will fall in the next couple of days.  The snow is so deep on the hills around us that neighbours had to use a quad bike to get out and about on Saturday afternoon.     

The walk up to Broadway Tower (located at the second highest point on the Cotswold escarpment at 1024 ft/312m above sea level) via Coneygree Lane (the old main road to London opposite St Eadburgha’s Church on the Snowshill Road) in the snow and ice was worth the fabulous view from the top down across Broadway covered in its white blanket of snow towards the Vale of Evesham where there were huge patches of green where the snow had already melted.

Walking back down Coneygree Lane I wondered where the name had come from.  Did it have anything to do with rabbits?  A little research later - it seems that it does.  A ‘coneygree’ was a Medieval domestic rabbit warren (to house rabbits farmed for their fur and for the table) usually found close to a manor or monastery.  The coneygree, looked after by warreners, was built in a mound in a ‘pillow’ or ‘cigar’ shape with a flat top often surrounded by a moat (as rabbits will not cross water and therefore escape).  Some examples still exist in England and next time I walk up Coneygree Lane I will keep an eye open to see whether there are any signs of them in Broadway.