Stowford Manor

We got married at Stowford Manor Farm this year and had positive and negative experiences. The campsite is a beautiful setting and the facilities are basic but adequate. We were able to decorate the barn just how we wanted and could have a very personalised wedding here. The Bed and Breakfast is great and the owners of this are really warm and accommodating. We had a lovely wedding day here but unfortunately we did have a couple of issues with the owners. We booked and paid for the whole campsite for the whole weekend so our friends could camp for free which we thought would be ideal. The ceremony was on the Saturday and many of our friends arrived on the Friday night. There were a couple of our friends who got a bit carried away and were swimming in the river near the main property and were quite noisy until around 3.00am. This was unacceptable but I didn’t go and stop them because I thought as we had booked the whole campsite for the weekend so it wouldn’t be an issue, I also had other things on my mind...I was getting married in the morning. It turns out there are residents who live on site (whom we weren't aware of) who complained about the noise and the owner was incredibly angry, we were very sorry. Both myself (the groom) and my bride tried to apologise in the morning and promised this would not occur on the Saturday and everyone would be much quieter. My friends also apologised and promised to remain quiet that evening and asked if there was anything they could do to make amends. Unfortunately these apologies did not seem enough for the owner and he threatened to call off the wedding which was very stressful and upsetting on the morning of our wedding day! He never went through with this thankfully but it added tension between us and the owners and made us feel very uncomfortable with them. I feel considering how apologetic we were, they were unreasonable. No damage was caused and we had never had any terms or conditions from the owners relating to noise from the guests, only verbally informed that we needed to stop music at 12pm on the Saturday. We feel it was really unfair to add this extra stress to us on our wedding day and has spoilt our memory of the day. We hope this element will fade and we will remember the good parts. Another small issue we had with the owners was the communication in the weeks and months before the wedding, they are not very hands on. We would send them queries by email and they would never respond or reply with very short answers. We would then ring them but they would never give adequate answers and then suggest we email, which was very frustrating. Despite informing them by email some weeks before we had booked a wedding ceremony there and not being asked for any further details, the bride was told on the Thursday before the wedding, by the owner that they had no idea we had planned to get married there! The owners agreed we could use the barn on site from the Monday before the wedding so we had time to decorate. However, the barn was filthy and someone had been doing woodwork in there which added to the mess, everywhere needed a good clean down. We had started cleaning on the Tuesday however the barn was still in use by the woodworker until Thursday so we had to clean it all again. This is fine as long as you are willing to do this, we hadn’t taken this into account in time planning and it would have been good to know it would be a mess. Overall, this site is rough and ready, great if you want to do it all yourselves but don’t party too hard and make noise after 12:00 or you will have issues. This is difficult to achieve if you have a lot of guests. Our parents literally had to be on patrol Saturday night to reassure the owners! I realise that our guests were disruptive on the Friday, but we were all very apologetic and pleasant to the owners and they were really unpleasant back to us and our friends. This was uncalled for bearing in mind we had paid a considerable sum to hire the venue!
2 7 years ago (01-08-2017)

The best cream teas in the world. Official.
5 7 years ago (03-08-2017)

Went to the glass hub. The area is beautiful.
5 7 years ago (20-07-2017)

The site is fantastically situated and very clean. Staff all polite and the facilities were very good. If I was being picky then I would have to ask the owners to look into the quality of food that is on offer, it is top money and not very good for quality, on the two occasions we did eat in the restaurants we were not impressed. This said the holiday was fabulous but come on Stowford get your food better quality !!
4 9 years ago (11-08-2015)

Stopped overnight in my camper before photographing a wedding there the following day. Couldn't find any staff, so ended up parking up in the car park and not paying. Apparently not being able to find anyone to help is quite common. Quite a nice spot though, road is a tad noisy. No mobile reception (EE) but was able to connect to their (pay) WiFi from the back of the van. It worked very well through the evening.
2 8 years ago (19-09-2016)