The sunshine year

We wrote our last update blog post in 2023 and at the time of writing this blog (summer 2025), we’re calling it the sunshine year as it has been just that.

This blog is somewhat of a progress log to detail things we have done on site over the last few years, including things which have gone well and not so well, lessons learnt along with some of the decision making process behind various bits and bobs. Somewhat of a behind the scenes look at running a site such as Bolehill and a perspective on the things we do on-site, in the aim of keeping it a special place for you to visit now and in the future. It’s nice to be able to share with past, current, regular and future guests alike.

Bluebell and Lathkill Refurbishment

Our winter shutdown period of 2024 focussed primarily in Bluebell yet also in Lathkill amongst other smaller works around site.

For anyone reading this blog who has not stayed in Bluebell before, it’s a lovely yet cosy 2 person cottage, which has a dual aspect view over both guest garden and courtyard; it sits above Honeysuckle Cottage.

Despite the walls in Bluebell being covered with a wall-paper-style insulation, it was beginning to perish and with that, you are back to cold, wet walls, particularly on the elevations which catch the brunt of the wind and rain. Other wall sections had just the old sand and cement render applied which was vulnerable to moisture. Furthermore, you have the potential upcoming changes to EPC’s (building efficiency) which we were mindful of – the old methods would just not provide the rating which we needed nor provided the long-term solution to keeping the walls dry and warm. Old stone rubble walls are brilliant but a continual challenge as there is no cavity to protect from the elements and as such, you have to work hard to keep the buildings warm and dry.

Therefore, we removed the old insulation and then filled, tanked and insulated the affected walls – very much in the same way as we did in Honeysuckle (below) in the previous year. As with Honeysuckle, space was an important consideration in Bluebell so we fitted the thickest insulated boards etc we could to achieve the original aims whilst maintaining the feel of the cottage/keeping the space usable.

As part of the works we treated exposed timbers, enhanced electrics (extra sockets, a new kitchen extractor fan as well as a new ambient light in the kitchen area). The carpets had to be lifted for this work so an ideal time to try and fix any annoying floorboard squeaks and acoustically reseal the floor – we’ve done our best.

Once this stage of the works completed, we moved on to fitting the new kitchen. We relocated the dishwasher and fridge. The old dishwasher was not ideal, being one of those small table-top type dishwashers and altering the position meant we could fit a proper slimline dishwasher in, whilst also being able to keep all the kitchen plumbing in one part of the room. It also meant we could fit a slighter wider fridge which hopefully will be of benefit to guests (every inch of space helps with a cottage such as Bluebell).

The challenge with Bluebell is that you’re not able to find a level section of wall nor floor and so it requires you to come up with all sorts of interesting solutions – for example, standard kitchen plinths would be fine at one end of the kitchen and not wide enough on the other so we had to trim down panels instead to fit and also add sections to the base units so that they ‘sit’ on the floor. That said, the olde-worlde charm of Bluebell is not something you would wish to change even if you could, it’s brilliant or as our builder says to us, “they’re not built like this anymore!”.

We’ve managed to separate the kitchen and living area in Bluebell even if it’s just a small distinction. Prior to completing the works, the living room carpet continued all the way into the kitchen. We’ve added an L shape lino floor section in the kitchen to provide a discreet separation between kitchen and living area and to be honest, we’ve never been the biggest fans of carpet in a kitchen area considering it’s a food area.

Once the kitchen had been installed, we put down the sound matting once again (as Bluebell sits above another cottage) and then did the final bits of sealing and caulking. We also exposed the kitchen window cill which is a fantastic piece of chunky stone – a painted piece of plywood had been put on top so we levered this off then sealed the stone to lessen its absorbency (still wet in the photo below).

Aside from Bluebell, we also stripped back part of the bedroom wall in Lathkill Cottage which had similar issues to those issues faced in Bluebell. The wall section has now been filled, tanked and insulated and as such, is now warmer and dryer.

Brochures and Leaflets

Our Bolehill ‘walks from the door’ brochure has been a popular item since we introduced it in cottages during 2019. Several years on we thought it was time to review it so it’s had a small revision and reprint. Whilst we were tempted to change the walks, we decided against it as the walks we have are classics, the sort of walks which take you through pretty local villages and spirituous pubs. That said, sections of the walks were reworded to make them easier to follow and parts updated to accommodate any notable changes.

We have several old physical Bolehill Farm Cottages advertising brochures dating back to the early 1990’s. As such, we’ve been wanting to carry on the tradition of producing a paper advertising brochure. We wanted to create it once much of our initial refurbishment of the site had been undertaken and therefore, 2025 marked the ideal year to do it. We leave it in our brochure area (leisure area) as well as reception for guests to take away should they wish and we also post it out on request.

A paper brochure in 2025?! Is it not all on your website? The answer to that is yes it is, however there is something tangible about a brochure which can’t be recreated with a website. We want to promote options and customer choice for our guests. It’s been a great success so far and also somewhat of a digital detox to ‘everything being online’.

We found it challenging to produce a printed brochure which can go in standard paper home recycling. Much information and misinformation out there. After speaking to various printing businesses, we decided to opt for a silk paper yet non-laminated brochure as we were assured this could be placed into standard household paper recycling. We’re delighted with it and we hope that you like it too.

New Cottage Carpets

New cottage carpets have been fitted to Shippon, Lathkill, Derwent and Dove. Whilst we’re chuffed with these new carpets, it was a difficult expense to face as we’d previously replaced these carpets in 2018. The issue we faced is that in several cottages, the carpets had a defect where the carpet backing was coming away from the carpet face, meaning it was not gripping properly at the edges. Sadly for us, the guarantee route was not successful meaning we had no other option than to replace these carpets which is not ideal considering they were only approximately 5 years old at the time of needing replacement. We’d describe the original carpets we fitted as midrange – essentially the best we could budget for when we first took over and expenses were coming in from every angle imaginable.

The new carpets however are of a much higher range and we hope they will certainly last longer than 5 years! Anyway, the new carpets feel soft and warm underfoot; hopefully to be enjoyed by guests for years to come – onwards and upwards.

Leisure Area Wi-Fi

During 2018-2019, we asked many guests who’d booked the group dining room – “Would you like to have Wi-Fi in the Leisure Area block?” The resounding answer was “No”. The principal reason being, it was seen as a social space for conversation and the like. Over the last couple of years, we’ve noticed a noticeable difference on guest feedback forms, with many guests asking for Wi-Fi in the Leisure Area. Clearly requirements move on with the times and in fairness, it’s a relatively straightforward facility for us to introduce and therefore we bought in the necessary (wifi access point, cables etc).

It was one those jobs that kept being pushed back as other things kept coming up so the equipment sat in the cupboard for a while. Then, a family who are regular guests at Bolehill had booked the group dining area for their son as a study space to revise for his GCSE exams (nice big table and space to think – what a great idea!). He had everything he needed to study aside from one thing, internet! That was that, this job then became the priority job for the day. Therefore, we spent a morning on the network front (it’s amazing how many hats you need to wear with a site such as Bolehill). Out came the long bore SDS drill bits and the loft crawling began – we ran a network cable from the router in our cleaning cupboard next to reception through the loft space above reception and out along the wall to the Leisure Area, clipping the cable as appropriate, aiming for as neat installation as we could muster.

The Leisure Area now has Wi-Fi which is available for all guests to use, free of charge and so far, feedback has been positive.

Dove and Derwent Bathrooms

Dove and Derwent bathrooms were the final two bathrooms on-site to be refurbed/refreshed.

Derwent was fairly straightforward or at least, roughly what we had planned for. We decided to replace the shower/cubical/tray with a like for like 900 quadrant but this time fit some shower boards within the cubical for appearance and ease of maintenance (we hope). We kept the existing tiles, bath and sink as is yet refreshed the loo and associated boxing as well as replacing the flooring and chrome bits (towel holders etc).

Dove bathroom was not as straightforward and certainly more extensive than we had planned for. On removal of the exiting shower tray and tile sections, we noticed a whole load of pipe/joins which were not looking in the best health. The issue with the pipework around the shower in Dove is that to access it, you would either have to remove a section of the kitchen or pull out the soon to be installed shower board. Essentially, pipework and joins which are not easy to access. Therefore, we took the decision to rid all the exiting plastic pipe and joins around the shower which were not easily accessible and replace with copper (we hope this will give them a much better chance with longevity). Replacing the pipework was quite the job but gave us greater confidence as we’d added the shower board and new shower/cubicle/tray.

A small detail yet something which has been commented on repeatedly over the last 8 or so years we’ve had the site is that the shower in Dove is ‘small’ or ‘tight’ in feel. From a cleaning perspective it was also a pain! Interestingly the shower put in to Dove was a 800 quadrant whereas the one in Derwent was a larger 900 quadrant; having the 900 sized shower seemed to make all the difference – guests enjoyed using it more and it was also easier for us to clean. Therefore, we decided to install a slightly larger 900 quadrant shower in to Dove (as in Derwent). To do this we had to move the loo over an inch or two towards the bath but it’s fine, still a suitable gap between loo and bath. Then, we had a lot of fiddling getting the bath panel to refit and bits of trim around the bathroom fitted. Naturally with Bolehill, as not much is straight and level, we have to make things look right and therefore closing trim is extremely useful to us.

Finally new flooring was installed. We decided to keep the existing tiling in most areas of bathroom as it was still fine aside from areas which we may need to access pipework in the future – for this, we installed sections of fascia board (the type with the rounded lip to one of the sides) which has worked a treat.

Painted Bedroom Furniture

The tops of our painted bedroom furniture were starting to look well used and so our winter shutdown period was an ideal time for a refresh.

We sanded, filled and repainted the doors and revarnished the tops – light and fresh. In addition, we added new brass handles which needed a few additional washers to get them to fit snuggly. We love simple wooden furniture for this purpose; with a bit of time and effort you can refresh it how you like and one of the main reasons we try to avoid buying mdf furniture for any pieces we might want to rejuvenate in the future.

Regrouting (did we say far the most exciting thing to do or talk about!)

A hard lesson learnt for us – the ready mixed brush in grouting products do not last or at least they didn’t for us. We regrouted the stone slabs outside of reception and at the top of the guest garden around the BBQ’s in 2020. Less than 5 years later, we had gaps in the pointing, clumps missing and as such was starting to look shabby.

At the time of application it seemed like the ideal product for its ease of application and appearance along with the added bonus of being quick to apply (a useful attribute when you consider the BBQ slabbed area alone is not far off 100m2). Perhaps the ready-made brush in type pointing products are too good to be true for longevity? Well certainly not a product to be reused by us anyhow. The painful job of removing all the grout between the slabs was grubby and time consuming work using an SDS drill with a chisel bit as well as some hand tools for the harder to reach areas. Much time on hands and knees. A good vacuum after to remove all of the old bits of hard to reach mortar.

Once all the old pointing was removed (if 4 years can be classed as old!), we repointed the BBQ area slabs and reception. This time around we used a product called Flowpoint, which is like a type of slurry – many good things have been mentioned to us about this product. On application all felt right with this product. A year or so on, it’s still looking fresh and intact – we’re feeling much more optimistic about this product and we’re hoping it’ll last longer this time around.

Shippon Wall

Shippon Cottage, with it’s log burning stove and decorative bedroom arch is a special space. It is set low down, with some of the external walls running partially underground. Therefore, anything we can do to increase natural light/view out of the cottage is of benefit, even if just by a small margin.

Our waller was doing a week or so of work around site and jobs ran ahead of schedule so he had a spare day (wish this happened every day). Therefore, he had a day to work on the old stone wall outside of Shippon kitchen window. A job we’ve been wanting to do for a while.

We’d often thought it be a good idea to lower this wall and the reason is twofold: firstly it allows more natural light into the kitchen/living area and secondly, it increases the view of the beautiful large trees to the rear of the guest garden.

It was no more than a day’s work for a competent waller and therefore, waller Mike confidently lowered the existing wall as far as he could (the limiting factor in lowering was a concrete footing) and he made good the wall afterwards.

Now there is a noticeable increase in natural light entering the kitchen/living area and the views of the rear trees are enhanced. Whilst not a large adaptation, we feel it was worth it, considering it provides long term benefit of guests for a single day of work with minimal materials being required (we’ll use the stone from the old wall elsewhere on-site). Stone is a very precious and sought after commodity at Bolehill! Top photo shows before and bottom photo shows after.

BBQ’s

Over the years we’ve continually tried to find a way to provide BBQ’s for guest use whilst keeping it manageable for us in our busiest time of year. Whilst we’ve tried various ways of doing it, we just can’t get the balance right – we tried leaving cleaning utensils with the BBQ’s in the past and when that didn’t work out, we cleaned all the BBQ’s ourselves. The issue is that BBQ’s tend to be most used when we’re at our busiest and as such, it just didn’t work out. Our drum style BBQ’s were at the rust stage of renewal and so we made the decision not to renew them but rather leave a ‘BBQ base’ in each cottage outdoor area for guests to use. These bases consist of two concrete blocks and a stone slab for a BBQ to sit on. The idea is the guest brings their own BBQ to use on-site. Whilst we appreciate and do not try to pretend this is an upgrade in guest experience, we at least try to be honest when something isn’t working out and at least provide somewhat of a solution (i.e. BBQ base). In fairness to the new bases, they have been well received on their first year of use. They can be moved around cottage outdoor areas which can be useful.

At the top of the guest garden, we’ve left large metal racks in the stone BBQ enclosures which again can be used by a guest brining their own BBQ to site.

The bottom line is you can still very much enjoy a good BBQ at Bolehill, whether in your cottage outdoor space or by use of the BBQ enclosures at the top of the guest garden. A new way of doing things, we’ll see how it goes.

New Trees at Bolehill

The fruit trees planted around the car park area in 2021 are getting on very well indeed and at the time of writing, are starting to produce the first pieces of fruit! We had to remove and replant two trees: a Ribston Pippin tree as it had severe canker in its stem and a rare Scottish heritage pear tree, Grey Benvie, which really wasn’t doing anything at all. We replaced the pippin with a new apple tree, Red Falstaff (on a guest recommendation) and the pear with a new type variety called ‘Pear Invincible’ – hopefully it’ll be as the name inclines!

We’ve replanted two of the ornamental trees at the bottom of the drive. We are ambitious with the types of tree we try and grow at Bolehill – plant and see what happens! In terms of replacement, we’ve planted a whitebeam tree of which the leaves are standout. In addition, we’ve planted a special white/cream berried cotoneaster tree which should be a real boon for the winter birds and guests who stay during the winter period. A year after planting they’re getting on just fine so time will tell.

Farm Update

Since our last blog post, Fay’s parents across the road at Melbourne Farm are now semi-retired and have ceased operation of their dairy farm. When a farm starts the process of winding down, a farm sale is held which makes for a full on day. Essentially, all the items being sold on the farm are placed along fields and one by one, they are auctioned off. All items from tractors through to troughs (even children’s tractors!). The auction company will often bring items from other sellers too. The day of the farm sale was a fairly wet and windy day but it didn’t spoil the day. It was a very successful day with most items selling although a sad day too seeing tractors and equipment being taken away by their new owners. A mixed bag of a day.

Any regular guests reading this may have noticed that the cattle grid going into the main car park at Bolehill is no more, with the void now being full of stones and as such, now part of the car park. We decided that it was time for the cattle grid to go as there’s no real need for it now and it’s a bind when we’re gritting during winter (pulling a salt spreader containing 40-60kg of salt over an icy cattle gird was not ideal). Anyway, the cattle grid was a popular item and sold although not as easy to take away – it was manufactured from old rail track and weighed in like an elephant!

It’s far from doom and gloom on Melbourne Farm however. Fays parents still live there and a local farmer has several children who want to farm so they have their cows in our fields. You will still see cows in the summer yet a bonus now is that we also often have sheep around us in winter too. Thankfully we still have access to the mighty red tractor (Massey) for our jobs at Bolehill – from snowploughing, to moving bags/pallets, topping fields and splitting logs.

Fruit Tree Area Sleepers

The small picket fence around the fruit tree area was installed during the dark covid years when money was tight and supplies or timber were far from plentiful. Nevertheless, the small fence we put in gave us a good few years of use and considering the thickness/construction of it, it lasted 5 years which we were happy with.

On receplacement however, we wanted to install something still rustic yet more durable. It’s a fairly expansive span at over 25m in length. We considered various options from metal fence to a more substantial timber fence. We wanted it to be durable but also blend into the background, especially as it’s one of the first things you see when you enter the guest car park.

We opted for rustic bark sleepers. In a nutshell, they are tanalised timber sleepers which have two natural, uncut sides (they sort of look like a tree stem from the side). They’re good to work with as you can stack them on the flat, cut face. For our installation, we stacked them one on top of the other and then used needle type landscaping screws to attach them together. For extra rigidity, we then attached steel pins between the horizontal face of the top sleepers to keep them bound together. Probably the luckiest part of the job was that they fitted perfectly and required no cutting – saved a great deal of time, cutting blades and also beneficial as we didn’t have to cut through the wood preservative layer.

Flue Sweet Flue

The need to adapt things for life in a more exposed environment i.e. top of the hill in the Peak District National Park, is something we have come across repeatedly. An example of which since our last blog post revolves around the flues which have been added during the log burning stove installs at Bolehill.

The standard kit comes with a sort of rubber sock which is the weather piece to prevent the elements from getting inside the cottages. Whilst fine 90%+ of the time, during a fruity storm, we may find water getting in to the enclosures below. Therefore, modification was required and in a nutshell, the rubber type socks were replaced with a sealed piece of engineered lead. So far, they’ve done just the job and have kept water out of the cottages.

Solar Panels

We’ve joined a hearty proportion of the UK population in having solar panels installed. The installed panels blend in nicely and look similar to roof slates. The install was pretty straightforward and so far, the results have been better than expected in terms of sunshine captured and used. Of course, the amount they collect during the winter is pitiful yet so is in the nature of solar and suppose they’re never going to be optimal for a typical British winter. Nevertheless, in our experience and to date, certainly worth installing and payback is expected within approximately 8 years (this can fluctuate as various factors come into play). A worthy introduction in bringing an element of renewable energy on to the site.

Hazel Hurdle & York Board Fencing

Hazel hurdle panels look just right should you want a rustic type of fence panel/screen. We’ve put a fair few around site over the last couple of years. As anticipated, their biggest weakness is longevity. In our experience, 2/3 years in an exposed location and up to 5 years in a less exposed location. It’s really what we expected but suppose at the back of our minds thought they may defy this and last to 10 years (wishful thinking!). Despite the longevity aspect, they are a product we’d consider using again yet only in very sheltered parts of the site.

In several areas of site, we’ve replaced the perished hazel hurdle panels with treated Yorkshire boards from the local farm & country shop in Bakewell. Still rustic yet more durable. We needed a fencing system which was relatively easy to install (i.e. could be installed by ourselves), could be added to existing timber posts, rustic to the eye and this time, longer-lasting. In the longer term, we would like to replace future timber fencing with hedge.

Thank You

If you have made it to the end of this mega(!) blog post, well thank you for reading and that if nothing else, it is an interesting insight to running a holiday cottage site in the countryside such as Bolehill. Perhaps even read something that may be useful to you?

Our plan is to write a blog post such as this every couple of years detailing our work on the site. As always, our intention is to maintain this holiday cottage site, to keep it moving with the times yet preserve its character wherever we can – it is our aim that it is a special place for people to visit on holiday for years to come.

Dan & Fay