The Newt in Somerset

Set between the golden-stone villages of Bruton and Castle Cary, The Newt in Somerset is a working farm and country estate in the rolling green heart of South West England, and one of the most celebrated country-house stays in the United Kingdom. The honey-hued Georgian Hadspen House sits at the center of 2,000 acres of orchards, formal gardens, woodland, and grazing land, and the whole estate feels built for slow, curious days outdoors. Guests wander kitchen gardens planted with hundreds of apple varieties, swim in the bathing pond, tour the cyder cellar, and follow woodland trails past the deer park. Accommodations are split between Hadspen House and the converted Stable Yard, with a growing number of rooms configured for a farm stay with children. The Hadspen Family Room sleeps two adults and two children across two bedrooms, Stable Yard rooms can take up to three children, and a self-contained cottage adds its own living space and kitchen. Roll-out beds and cots are added to any room on request, so bedtime logistics stay simple.

Families settle in quickly here. Children receive a gift on arrival, under-8s stay free, and a daily holiday program folds them into Forest School sessions, tree climbing, and garden trails at no extra cost while parents book a treatment at the spa with its indoor-outdoor pool, steam room, sauna, and hammam. Accredited babysitting can be arranged for a proper evening off, and children's menus run through every restaurant, from farm-to-fork dinners at the Farmyard Kitchen to gelato and daily cream teas between meals. Rainy afternoons have their own fixtures: the Beezantium honeybee museum, the interactive Story of Gardening, and a full-scale Roman Villa reconstruction. Because it is a working farm, there is always something to see, whether that is podding peas in the kitchen garden, scrumping apples in the orchards, or watching the cyder press roll into action in autumn. Bikes and buggies ferry everyone between Hadspen and the Farmyard, and the estate's unhurried rhythm means parents actually get to exhale.