About Manor Farm (Stay)
The Mager family have farmed in this area for three generations and Manor Farm was bought in the 1970s and managed as a dairy farm. In more recent years, the farm, still in the ownership of the Mager family, is used for rearing beef cattle and growing crops.
The farmhouse is one of the oldest buildings in Sutton on Sea and dates back to the 18th century.
About your hosts Rachel and Dom
We moved to Manor Farm, Rachel's childhood home in 2014, and, from the outset, opening the farmhouse as a bed and breakfast seemed to be the obvious way to breathe new life into the farm and to share this peaceful place with other people. Easier said than done! Hampered by steely determination/pigheadedness to carry out the majority of the refurbishment work ourselves (with vital input from a plumber and electrician at the appropriate stages) and to re-use as many materials as possible, it took about 18 months to sympathetically renovate the house and grounds. It's been worth it... we now have a lovely home to welcome you into and a flourishing vegetable garden to show you around.
Rachel has travelled full circle, having started out at the age of 8 leading donkeys and ponies on the beach at Sutton on Sea to now running an eco seaside farm stay in her home village. In between there was lots of grown-up stuff...including managing a biobank at the University of Oxford and having a global role at AstraZeneca. Rachel then decided to follow her dreams for a simpler way of life... and thus the eco seaside farm stay was born! Rachel is happiest in her greenhouse with The Archers playing on the solar powered radio, the chickens having a scratchy dust-bath in the freshly planted vegetable bed (grrrr!), and the prospect of welcoming new guests to this peaceful spot.
Dom is the creative pulse of the Manor Farm Stay project. Having travelled extensively, he has experienced different cultures and gained extensive knowledge of alternative building methods and sustainable living. Dom is originally from Gloucestershire and the Malvern Hills area and, whilst missing the hills, likes living by the sea. Amidst the months of rendering, plastering and toiling, Dom has also found time to handcraft the beautiful bespoke wooden bedroom furniture for the guest rooms. To top it all off, Dom is the creator of the Dom-lette, an amazing chilli-infused omelette!
Our passions are permaculture, self-sufficiency and low impact living, but never at the expense of your comfort and enjoyment as a guest at Manor Farm Stay.
We hope that this page has inspired you to visit Manor Farm Stay and we look forward to meeting you. We also offer luxury glamping, have a look at the photos of our beautiful glamping pods that we built ourselves!