We thoroughly enjoyed our week in Bren's Barn. Arriving on a cold, wet Friday evening in February, we walked into a bright, warm, immaculately clean and beautifully presented barn conversion. It has been tastefully furnished with comfortable sofas and even an electric reclining armchair and we found the mattress on the double bed extremely comfy too - something we're very fussy about! The kitchen was probably the best equipped we've come across in many years of renting holiday cottages, and the owners clearly take note of the comments left by visiting guests to continually improve an already excellent home from home. We enjoyed making use of the Amazon device for background music to the meals we cooked and ate at home. The barn itself is perfectly located, next to the owners' home, within their small farm but just a short walk from the charming town of Bedale where there are good local shops including baker, greengrocer and butchers and also a decent sized Co-op. We also found a couple of lovely eateries in the Sprouted Kitchen and Tom and Nellie's, and there were a number of pubs which looked nice but we didn't try on this occasion. The owners were friendly and available for help if we needed it but didn't intrude on any way. Nick kindly offered to set the "party barn" up for us if we wanted it one evening, with the fire going etc and although we didn't make use of that I'm sure it would have been very enjoyable. We loved seeing their collection of animals each day - chickens, peacocks and kittens all wanted to inspect the barn for themselves and the sheep and goats kept an eye on us from their field just beyond the barn windows!
Further afield, the barn is perfectly located for all kinds of activities in North Yorkshire. The East coast is near enough for a day trip, fascinating Fountains Abbey and Studley Royal are not far away and Harrogate for the Turkish Baths, Betty's and RHS Harlow Carr is also near enough for a thoroughly relaxing day out (or good shopping!) There was so much that we didn't manage to do on this holiday - brewery tours and a gin distillery in Masham, fell walks in the Yorkshire Dales or North York Moors, for instance, that we'll just have to go back, and would be delighted to!