Steve and Vicki
We (Vicki and Steve) moved to Holestone Moor Farm on 1st May 1998, with our Irish Water Spaniel, Rags. We had found an old three bedroomed farmhouse with some interesting almost derelict farm buildings and just under 6 acres of upland, most of which had been used for grazing by the previous owner. Our two sons, Adam and Neil, then 19 and 17, were living not far away in Nottingham.
The two farm buildings consisted of a two-storey stone barn with huge grain silos at one end, and a building that had variously been stables and pig sties in a previous life. The Barn already had a slate tiled roof, but The Stables was sheltered under ancient and dangerous corrugated asbestos. It took 8 months to convert the two farm buildings into holiday cottages ‘The Barn’ sleeping 12 and ‘The Stables’ sleeping 4. During that time we planted around 4,500 trees and hedging, and we started to plant our own garden.
Just two days before we opened for our first guests, we had a bit of an anxious time, when we tried to move furniture into The Stables living room, the settee would not fit in. No way was it going to go through the front door. Fortunately our builder was still around and within an hour he took a window out, got the settee in, and put the window back!
It’s very much an owner run business; team work is very important. Vicki does all the administrative work and Steve does the maintenance on the cottages and our land. We couldn’t manage without our two brilliant and loyal housekeepers; Louise, who has been with us from the start, and June has been here just a couple of years less than that. The ‘girls’ not only help with cleaning, bed changing and restocking in the cottages, but they also do our own house, and all the ironing for the cottages. No mean feat when there are 15 bed spaces in the cottages and 5 in the house! We manage to meet occasionally for coffee breaks and meals, and we keep in touch by means of a Walkie-talkie!
Now, some things have changed a lot, others just a little. The trees have grown … the wildlife pond and wildflower meadow are flourishing. Décor and soft furnishings are changed … we regularly discard, move and renew things so that there’s always something different for our returning guests. (The record is 17 visits since we opened at Christmas 1999.)
Floss, our Bedlington Terrier
Some of our hens
The first of our 3 eccentric Irish Water Spaniels, Rags has long gone … and in 2008 we lost Dilly – the youngest of the three at the age of seven. Sadly, in November 2010 we had to have Parsley put to sleep, at the grand old age of 12 years 4 months! In 2009 we bought Floss, a female Bedlington Terrier. She is absolutely gorgeous and is exactly what we wanted in a dog in our advancing years. She is easy to handle because she’s small, and travels well in the car. There’s only one downside to her .. at bedtime she manages to get upstairs without us noticing, and so she now sleeps on our bed, or anyone else’s if they’ll have her! She is quickly filling the space that Parsley has left. We get a regular supply of eggs from our flock of approximately 30 hens, which are a mixture of Black Rocks, Warrens, White Stars, Blues and Suffolks, and other hybrids. Hens often don’t lay during their second winter, and we lose some from natural causes so we supplement our flock with regular influxes of new hens.
Two of our 4 alpacas - Rupert & Domino
Last, but not least are our alpacas. Three male alpacas – Cappucino, Barnaby and Domino, arrived in March 2008. In September of the same year, we bought another slightly different kind of alpaca called a Suri. He’s called Prince Rupert, but Steve insists that he will only call him Rupert! They are primarily to guard our hens, but are also a huge attraction for our guests. Information about alpacas can be found on our Alpacas page.
We have a huge amount of wild and birdlife, including some rare species – water voles, bats, and badgers, skylarks, woodpeckers swallows, wrens, lapwings, owls etc., to name just a few. There are walks from the door … seats where you can just sit quietly and relax, barbecues, play areas and so on.
Our eldest son Adam now lives at Whitley Bay in the North East with his fiance Angela and their dog, Bertie the Bassett Hound. Our youngest son Neil, lives just half an hour from us in Mansfield with his wife Gemma, and their Weimaraner Pippa. There has been great excitement this year as Gemma has just become a Doctor of Clinical Psychology. Neil has just embarked on a 4 year Primary School teaching course at Nottingham.
Both The Barn and The Stables have been awarded 5* Gold by Visit Britain’s Quality in Tourism department. We want to give our guests a 5* welcome too .. we hope when you visit our cottages that it feels like home from home. As part of this welcome, we try to give our enquirers and guests a personal service, so although we have an availability calendar on our website, we don’t have an online booking service. We prefer to have more personal contact with you, and use our land line or email.
We look forward to hearing from you.
Vicki and Steve
January 2011
