Fentafriddle

If I were to be reincarnated, I’d like to come back as one of the donkeys living at Fentafriddle. What’s not to like? You’d spend your days in a paddock filled with the sort of lush grass that looks as though you could bounce on it, stopping between mouthfuls to gaze contemplatively at a 180-degree view of spume-topped waves pounding the craggy Cornish coastline. When the sun glints on the water and makes the meadows as green as a bottle, it’s beautiful. When dark, silver-fringed clouds loom down over torrid sea, and shafts of light pierce through like fingers pointing at the clifftops, it’s beautiful. Those donkeys have got a good deal. And we call them asses.

If I don’t come back as a donkey, I’d at least like to be reborn as someone with enough spare time to come and spend weeks and weeks at this gorgeous barn conversion on the rocky North Cornish coast. Fentafriddle has got it just right. Owners James and Lucy, who have turned what was a tumbledown working farm into a collection of impeccably restored upmarket holiday lets, have gone out of their way to ensure the main house and its two smaller sister cottages have lost none of their original character.

Walk into the main building and, alongside the gleaming modern kitchen, flatscreen TVs, Bose iPod docks and other luxurious trappings of 21st-century living, you’ll see an antique Cornish dresser loaded with the county’s signature blue-and-white pottery. And that’s just the start. Walk in further and you’ll see a wood-burning stove, scuffed leather chairs and a door, reclaimed from Bodmin Hospital, upon which you can still see outlines of the words ‘Operating room’. All the amenities any group could possibly want are there, but James and Lucy have thrown in their own possessions – paintings, bureaux, cabinets – to cleverly create an atmosphere that is homelike and comfortable.

It’s the views that make Fentafriddle extra-special, though. And west-facing French windows in both the kitchen and the roundhouse – which serves as an extra, sofa-filled living room – look out directly onto the vista. On a clear day, says James, you can see as far as Lundy Island in one direction, and to Padstow and Rock in the other. But it’s the sunsets – big, fat, cloud-illuminating ones that send spears of orange light through the glassed-over pigeon holes in the main bedroom – that will most impress. Relax on the wooden furniture on your terrace, steaks hissing on the gas barbecue, and watch a real bona fide star sink into the Atlantic Ocean.

Little Fentafriddle and Tremanon, the two smaller cottages that both sleep four, are equally well-situated. Designed so that no one’s outside space overlooks anyone else’s, each cottage retains an air of privacy while still sharing the same beautiful view with its neighbours. They may be more intimate than the main house, but they still exude character. Each comes with an open-plan kitchen and living area, leading onto two atmospheric bedrooms filled with the owners’ winning combination of characterful antiques and high-spec modern amenities. The showers and baths alone would put many a boutique hotel to shame.

Fentafriddle’s setting also means that, despite being able to see other farms and villages dotted around, you feel wonderfully isolated in your hilltop idyll. Though gorgeous Trebarwith Strand – and its pubs and cafés – is just a matter of minutes away down the hill (it’s a steep climb back, though), the tourists who head to the beach for rock pools and rambling will pass the end of your drive and never know you’re there. Though Fentafriddle is ideally placed for Padstow, Rock, Port Isaac, Newquay and all those places we sit at our desks dreaming about, it’s enticing enough to keep you within its grounds for weeks at a time. Take a book and sink into the enormous kilim sofa in the lounge, fire up the coals on the terrace and throw some fresh sardines on the grill or just lie on the lawn listening to the seagulls caw overhead. Either that or walk across the field to pet the donkeys. Be nice to them. With a bit of luck, one day it could be you.

Reviewed by Rufus Purdy