Ridge & Furrow Farm review: A romantic Northamptonshire escape

At a secluded Northamptonshire farm, two beautifully designed cabins, an extraordinary family story and a landscape shaped by centuries of history offer something rather more intoxicating than blindly picking another weekend rental. Attitude’s Vincent Jaskowski-Prowse discovers the pleasure of stepping into a story of your own.

Planning a weekend away has long been something of an algorithmic exercise.
Select your destination, apply your filters, swipe through the photographs, judge the reviews. Find something suitably picturesque, shove your unmentionables into a Louis Vuitton holdall and pelt down the M40.

You arrive and probably unwittingly repeat the actions of the person who stayed before you.

There’s nothing particularly wrong with this arrangement. But what if you are after a bit of romance? Something you can’t quite articulate, let alone find for your budget in the Cotswolds (since the Americans cottoned on).

What if you want to step into a story? A little drama of your own. An opportunity to leave the familiar behind and become the protagonist of your own three-day drama. Regrettably, I don’t believe there’s a filter for that on most booking platforms. But there is Ridge & Furrow Farm.

Tucked away at Purston, near Brackley in Northamptonshire, this extraordinary corner of the English countryside offers two beautifully designed cabins, a private wild swimming lake and acres of ancient, undulating pasture. Yet none of those things, individually, quite explains its appeal.

The real protagonist here is the landscape.

Just as Egdon Heath in Thomas Hardy’s The Return of the Native becomes a character in its own right, Purston possesses something of that same literary quality. It is omnipresent with its sweeping grasslands and dramatic skies. And during a weekend of changeable weather, it proved to be a world with its own moods. Our September weekend brought moving clouds, the occasional spit of rain and magnificent gusts of wind. The long grasses danced across the hillsides, and the countryside seemed to reinvent itself with every passing hour. There was no wishing the weather away. It was peaceful and restorative to simply follow the protagonist’s lead.

Into the landscape

Ridge & Furrow Farm sits inside the Northamptonshire border and five miles from Banbury. London is approximately an hour away by train, with a further 15-minute taxi journey from Banbury station.

Attitude travelled up in a Flare Green Peugeot 408, on loan from the brand’s marketing fleet, usually used to ferry A-listers to the red carpet at the BAFTAs and the PEUGEOT Attitude PRIDE Awards Europe. A rather comfortable way to escape southeast London, particularly as both front seats offer massage functions capable of a relentless pummelling for the duration of the journey. The countryside begins to assert itself as you approach Purston. A long private drive winds through the estate, eventually delivering you to a hilltop parking area overlooking an enormous expanse of green. The flare green paintwork of the car merged beautifully into the rolling countryside. It seems we were at one with nature even on arrival.

Bright Water and Lark Rise

There is something camp about the arrangement of Bright Water and Lark Rise, Ridge & Furrow’s only two guest cabins. They are clearly sisters, devoted to one another, but insistent upon having their own space.

They sit separately within the landscape, connected by a pale stone path but positioned to offer extraordinary privacy. Should you occupy both, as Attitude did, visiting your neighbours involves making a conscious expedition across the green, and improving your calf muscles in the process.

Otherwise, you could happily spend the entire weekend unaware of another soul.

Bright Water is the larger of the two, sleeping up to four. Clad in larch, with beautiful duck-egg interiors, it offers a king-size bed, two mezzanine singles, a well-equipped kitchen, a wood-burning stove and an expansive deck complete with outdoor seating and a firepit.

Lark Rise is a more intimate affair, designed for two. Its contemporary interiors, architectural stargazing window and private wooded area, complete with hammocks and a swing, make it an especially seductive proposition for couples.

Both cabins are furnished with considerable care. Generous windows flood the interiors with natural light, the beds are deliciously snug, and the bathrooms are of gay standard, equipped with showers that boast admirable water pressure.

And then there are the outdoor freestanding baths. But we’ll come to those.

There is something wonderful about being somewhere you can truly concentrate on the people you’ve chosen to spend time with.

With logs on the fire pit in the evening, we curated a soundtrack that made no algorithmic sense. Dusty Springfield led to Bowie, and then to Morrissey. Dobble cards were dealt, and played competitively. Bottles of white accumulated. Conversations ventured into territory none of us expected, and revelations followed. Belly laughs were had, and tears were shed. All sound and emotion expelled, absorbed back into the ancient pastures.

The cabins come with Bluetooth speakers but no Wi-Fi, which feels like a rather sensible set of priorities. Signal finds you if the universe wants that to happen. But in the meantime, the world beyond Purston can go and fuck itself.

The art of feeling everything

Picture yourself submerged in steaming hot water, sipping a glass of champagne, with the rolling Northamptonshire countryside stretching out before you. The wind caresses whatever you’ve purposefully left exposed. The contrast is exhilarating.

There is something rather indulgent about being in a peak-bath-state while the elements carry on around you, entirely unconcerned by your presence.

I suspect many of us will recognise the occasional inclination to imagine their lives through a cinematic lens. A certain scene demands a soundtrack; a particular encounter deserves a dramatic close-up. Sometimes, just sometimes, we like to imagine ourselves as the protagonists of an exceptionally expensive Netflix production. For this writer, this setting served the pilot episode of a drama following a group of people who escaped before AI decided to end humanity.

The baths at Ridge & Furrow lend themselves magnificently to such moments. But the romance of this place extends far beyond its creature comforts. It is woven into the very land beneath your feet.

A landscape with a story

Purston is ancient enough to appear in the Domesday Book of 1086.

The remarkable undulations surrounding the cabins are the physical remnants of medieval agriculture. Centuries of ploughing created the distinctive ridges and furrows that give the farm its name, leaving patterns in the earth that remain visible hundreds of years later.

There is something humbling about standing in a landscape that carries such an extraordinary memory.

The Barnett family has farmed at Purston since the early 1990s, building upon generations of agricultural history in the surrounding region. David and Annabel Barnett have devoted considerable attention to the land, planting tens of thousands of trees and creating woodland that now provides a thriving habitat for wildlife.

Their daughter Hermione has brought a new dimension to the estate through Ridge & Furrow Farm, creating a hospitality experience that feels inseparable from the landscape rather than imposed upon it.

Attitude’s introduction to the place came through rather lovely circumstances.

The previous year, I attended the wedding of my friends Toby Barnett and Anna Loake, held on the estate. A late-night fireside conversation with Toby’s sister Hermione eventually turned to the possibility of sharing this extraordinary place with Attitude readers. Hermione spoke warmly about the LGBTQ+ guests the cabins had welcomed, particularly their respect for the accommodation and the pleasure of hosting them. It was a touching observation.

Not that I’m suggesting every member of our community is an exemplary houseguest. God knows.

But there was something rather lovely about the sentiment. It spoke to a family who care deeply about what they’ve created and who take genuine pleasure in seeing other people fall in love with it. And nowhere is that affection more beautifully expressed than at the lake.

A love letter in the landscape

It turns out that Ridge & Furrow’s magnificent freshwater lake has a rather romantic origin. Hermione shares that her father, David, created it as a love letter to her mother, Annabel. And, to my eyes at least, the lake is vaguely heart-shaped.

Today, the lake offers one of the most extraordinary experiences on the farm.

Guests get access to a designated swimming area, jetty and lakeside sauna. A rowing boat and paddleboards offer alternative ways to enjoy the water, although I’d strongly recommend taking the plunge.

Its long-term residents are two swans, Graeme and Oti, who maintain a carefully curated public image of grace and composure. Until they think nobody is watching. From Bright Water, their sudden bursts of flapping and chasing can be heard across the landscape, suggesting a relationship considerably more animated than their graceful appearances might imply. This writer finds queer coding in every corner of nature.

Entering the lake on a September afternoon is an altogether different kind of drama. The cold arrives immediately. Your skin vibrates and your shoulders sting. For a few exhilarating moments, the entire universe seems to narrow to the sensation of water against your body.

And then you adapt, and are peacefully numbed, allowing you to focus on the trees, the open sky and panoramic beauty that surrounds you.

The swimming area is thoughtfully maintained, with weeds cleared to make immersion more comfortable, but the lake retains the character of a natural habitat.

There are pleasures on a smaller scale, too.

Our welcome provisions included chilled bubbly, Purston-made Elderflower cordial, fresh fruit, honey produced by bees in the neighbouring field and a meat box from local butcher Smith & Clay. This was an exceptional treat; the sausages and bacon made for an English breakfast that would rival the very best of Britain.

The New Romantic getaway

Standing beside the lake, I couldn’t resist.

“Well, this is all a bit Call Me by Your Name, isn’t it?”

And yes, there was something about the water, the seclusion and the prospect of an illicit frolic that immediately transported me to that impossibly beautiful and devastating Italian summer. But the comparison stayed with me for reasons beyond the obvious.

Think about what makes that film so affecting. The characters’ emotional lives become inseparable from the places in which they unfold. The landscape doesn’t merely accommodate the romance. It becomes part of it. And that, I think, is the extraordinary possibility offered by Purston.

Perhaps you’re planning a discreet weekend with someone whose relationship with you is still something of a secret. A few stolen kisses by the lake, followed by a barbecue outside Bright Water.

Perhaps two couples are taking advantage of the separate cabins to explore a rather more unconventional arrangement.

I’ll leave the precise sleeping arrangements to their discretion.

Or perhaps this is the weekend you introduce your partner to your family. The setting for a conversation you’ve been putting off. A place to reconnect with someone you love, or simply spend a few days being gloriously, unapologetically yourself.

Not every romance requires a love interest.

Sometimes, it’s about rediscovering the pleasure of being made up of glorious atoms and molecules.

For LGBTQ+ travellers, privacy can be rather more meaningful than the absence of other people. It can offer the freedom to inhabit our relationships, identities and desires without feeling obliged to explain them.

Here, surrounded by ancient grassland and the people you’ve chosen to bring into your little world, you can create whatever story feels right. The landscape provides the setting. The rest is yours.

If you know, you know

There is no shortage of beautiful places to stay in Britain. Luxury cabins, boutique hotels, converted barns and country houses are hardly endangered species. Some of them are all fur coat and no knickers, photos advertising a renovation done a decade before.

But every so often, the universe hands you a jewel.

A place where centuries of history, extraordinary natural beauty, a family’s genuine affection for the land and a beautifully conceived hospitality experience come together to create something rather gorgeous. That combination is remarkably difficult to manufacture.

As queer people, we know the importance of stories. The little details. We tend to enjoy the honey that comes from the neighbouring field. The settings that stay with us long after the characters have departed. We don’t necessarily need the most expensive room, the grandest hotel or the longest list of amenities. But good water pressure is a must.

Sometimes, we simply want to feel something in our hearts.

At Ridge & Furrow Farm, the comforts are wonderful, the hospitality is generous and the landscape is magnificent. But the most intoxicating thing you leave with is entirely your own.

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Plan your stay

Ridge & Furrow Farm is located at Purston, near Brackley, Northamptonshire (NN13 5PL), approximately 15 minutes by taxi from Banbury railway station.

Bright Water sleeps up to four, while Lark Rise sleeps two. Both cabins feature well-equipped kitchens, wood-burning stoves, freestanding outdoor baths and access to the farm’s wild swimming lake and sauna, with private sessions booked in advance.

Accommodation is available through Canopy & Stars, with prices varying according to dates and length of stay. Further information is available at ridgeandfurrowfarm.co.uk.

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Vincent’s stay was hosted by Ridge & Furrow Farm.