In 2002, we took a leap of faith, leaving behind home and businesses in Dorset to follow a dream. We discovered a derelict farm called nestling on a hillside overlooking the Afon Teifi near Lampeter in West Wales, and converted the old farmhouse and ranges of barns into six cottages.
After taking possession of the property in late 2002, and with the help of local builders and tradespeople, we embarked on a crazy six month programme of work that culminated in opening five of the cottages as holiday lets and moving into the sixth.
The ambitious programme was only achieved through dedicated hard work, a great building team, and freakish good Welsh weather over the winter and spring of 2003.
We ran Coedmor Cottages until 2008, many hundreds of guests every year before selling two cottages in order to lighten the load of hard work!
We also entertained children and grandchildren, raised a variety of animals, hosted a wedding and many
other many family events, before leaving Coedmor in 2017. During that time we also found time to walk the Wales Coast Path and all the Welsh National Trails!
Can we really do this? Of course, we can, lets go for it! Not daring to look behind, we were looking out at the wonderful view over the Afon Teifi Valley from an old Welsh farm perched on the hillside. It was the spring of 2002, and we were living on a narrowboat, having sold up our house and businesses in Dorset the previous year. Knowing that we could not survive long without returning to work, we to Wales looking for a property to renovate and run as a holiday business. Having done some research, we realised that it was not possible to make a living without at least three properties, one to live in and two to rent. Having trawled the embryo internet, we up with very few possibilities. Up and running businesses were too expensive,
while the idea of doing massive rebuilding and renovating was not an easy way to earn a decent in the early years.
So, we had approached our viewing of near Lampeter with trepidation. It had all the hallmarks of a potential disaster. It was advertised as an old farmhouse and two sets of derelict barns, set in 20 plus acres of hillside two miles from the university and market town of Lampeter in West Wales. The place was reached by a half mile long and thankfully concrete surfaced drive, which twisted up from the valley finally entering the site through a lovely beech lined avenue. The bonus point was that it had outline planning for conversion into up to five holiday cottages. Five? But we only needed two! But the moment we saw the view, we realised that that this could make a fantastic holiday business, if only we could afford it! And even if we could afford to do it, when would we ever start to make any money from it!
a concrete courtyard fronted by the old farmhouse and surrounded by two ranges of old barns. The farmer arrived to show us round the property. While looking liveable from the outside, the interior of the house was something different. Last used as a student rental some ten years previously, the walls were painted garish colours which merely served to hide the damp. The living room had a fireplace straight out of the 1940s, while the only feature of the kitchen was a blackened coal burning range. There was no way to the kitchen except through the living room, and no back door. Flimsy stud walls separated the ground floor rooms. Halfway up the stairs was a door to an attic with a very low sloping ceiling. This turned out to be the bathroom, where one would need to be a contortionist to throw oneself sideways in to the bath! As we started to walk into the main bedroom, the floor started to sag alarmingly. Something similar happened in the second bedroom. We quickly retreated downstairs to safety outside. The farmer said he was too busy to show us around the barns and said we could wander at will. We were
The first of the barns was a single storey milking parlour with all the equipment still in place.
