Bainvalley Cottages, Hemingby

15/08/2026

Birthday catering in The Hayloft this evening. 3 delicious canapés followed by a 3 course summer menu for a special celebration 🍾

02/08/2026

Thanks to one of our current (and many times recurring) guests, for these drone shots, which not only show how dry the land is this summer but also how Bainvalley Cottages sit in context of the rural setting and the village of Hemingby.

22/06/2026

21/06/2026

What changes when the hedgerows are at full height and you have nowhere to be.

The Wolds in June have a particular quality that's hard to put in a listing description. The lanes are narrow and green and closed in. You come out of them and suddenly you're on a ridge looking at ten miles of rolling fields with nobody else on the road.

The walking trails out of Hemingby start from the end of the lane. Some of them have been there since before the farm was a farm. You can be out for two hours and not cross a road.

The nearest beach is at Sandilands, forty minutes east. A stretch of Lincolnshire coast that most visitors from outside the county have never heard of. Good for dogs, good for an afternoon, uncrowded in a way that the more famous stretches aren't.

There's a pub five minutes away on foot. A drinking pub, not a food pub. Ask me what's good for food before you arrive. I keep a live list and it changes.

Midweek in summer is quieter here and twenty-five percent less expensive than the weekend rate. Same space, same light, fewer people on the lane. Worth knowing.

If you're thinking about a summer stay and want to know what else is around, drop me a message.

19/06/2026

There's a moment when you arrive in summer and realise which way the cottage faces.

It's not in the listing description. It becomes obvious the first evening when the sun is still high at eight o'clock and the terrace is warm and the outdoor chairs are already facing the right direction.

The south-facing terrace at North Cottage seats twelve without anyone moving furniture. The outdoor table at the Shamba is sheltered from the east wind that shows up uninvited at some point in the afternoon. These aren't accidents. They came from knowing which way the light falls.

In summer the outdoor spaces matter as much as the indoor ones. The kitchen is where you prep. The terrace is where the day actually happens.

The Hayloft has double doors that open to the courtyard. On a warm June evening, inside and outside become the same thing.

Save this for the next summer group stay you're organising.

16/06/2026

The seating plan stops mattering about half an hour in.

Most people who organise a group stay have spent weeks in a group chat managing twenty different opinions. By the time they arrive they've already run the seating plan three times in their head. Who sits next to whom. Whether the uncle and the ex-brother-in-law need to be on opposite ends. Whether there will be enough room.

What they find when they get here is that the Hayloft does it without any of that.

The table seats twenty. The room has proportions that let twenty people exist without feeling like a function. There are two kitchens, five separate front doors, and an evening that unfolds on its own.

The Larder & Co can take care of the cooking if the person who organised everything would like to actually enjoy the night.

By pudding, nobody is managing anyone. The room did it.

If you're planning a group and the logistics feel bigger than the occasion, drop me a message. I'm happy to walk you through how other groups have used the space.

14/06/2026

Some weekends need a reason. Some don't.

Father's Day is next Sunday. Some people reading this have already done something about it. Most are still figuring it out.

What tends to happen with the weekends that matter is that the planning happens in the wrong order. The occasion is decided first. The place gets fitted in around it afterwards. That usually produces somewhere that does the job but doesn't really hold the thing.

The weekends that work are the ones where the space itself does something. Where the generations aren't on top of each other. Where the person the day is actually for has somewhere to go when they need five minutes of quiet.

Five cottages means everyone can come together and still have their own front door. The Hayloft has a table for twenty. The Larder & Co can take care of a dinner that doesn't require anybody to disappear into the kitchen for two hours.

The person who does the organising is always the last one to sit down. The point of a place like this is that they can sit down sooner.

If a group weekend for someone who matters is on your mind, drop me a message.

13/06/2026

Last Thursday, the courtyard held something it doesn't usually hold.

The At Home, at Bainvalley open day. The courtyard with makers in it, work on tables, people coming round who wanted to see what was here. It was a different kind of morning. Quieter than I expected, in the way that things are quiet when they're working.

Neil from Hilltop Workshop had his salt dishes out. Hannah's pots were inspired by things grown not far away. There was food. There was time to look properly.

The Hayloft has had evenings like this before, midweek hirings for workshops, candlelit suppers, events that use the space for something other than a group holiday. Not as often as I'd like. But days like Thursday remind me that the place holds other kinds of gathering too.

If you've been thinking about using the Hayloft or the courtyard for something, a workshop evening, a private supper, a small event, drop me a message. I'd be happy to talk through what's possible.

11/06/2026

The evenings here in June don't feel like they're in a hurry.

The sun goes down well past nine. There's enough warmth to sit outside properly after dinner. The light across the Wolds at that time of evening has a quality that's hard to describe and easy to just be in.

The courtyard faces the right way for it. The cattle are in the far fields by then, the lane is quiet, and the kind of conversation that only happens when nobody is looking at the time tends to start around here.

That's what people are actually booking when they book a week in summer. Not the bedrooms. Not the list of facilities. The nine o'clock light on a Tuesday and nowhere to be on Wednesday morning.

There are still some summer dates available if you're thinking about a group stay. Drop me a message and I'll tell you what's left.

09/06/2026

Sixty is worth a proper fuss. Here is what that looks like.

It usually starts with one person in the family deciding it matters. They spend three weeks in a group chat trying to get twenty people to agree on somewhere. They narrow it down to a shortlist nobody argues with and then they worry they've got it wrong.

What they discover when they arrive is that it was right. The birthday person has their own cottage to wake up in on the morning of the day. The grandchildren have somewhere to run around. The siblings who haven't all been in the same room for three years are in the Hayloft at the long table by nine o'clock and nobody is managing anyone.

The Hayloft seats twenty. Add the Larder & Co and the evening is taken care of, the speeches happen, and the person who organised the whole thing finally sits down.

The morning after, nobody is in a rush. That's the part people remember.

If you're planning a milestone weekend and want to know whether the space fits your group, drop me a message. Most people come away having surprised themselves.