North Thorne Glamping

Liked: Very friendly welcome, and great communication throughout the booking.

Myself and my son stayed for a long weekend in Bluebell, the converted horse-box. It’s very comfy indeed. My son slept on the bed above the cab, which is effectively queen sized, albeit with limited head height. I had the slide-out sofa bed, also very comfy. All sheets/duvets were provided - clean and fresh. The living area is practical and has useful cupboards etc. There is an icebox space beneath a twin-gas burner hob, with gas bottle outside - a nice helpful touch!

Outside are your own garden chairs, log burner, BBQ, large bench, cooking console, and sacks of logs available to buy.

The private shower/loo/basin room in the main block is lovely - and the shower is a nice roomy walk-in, with plenty of hot water.

The large washing up area is quirky, friendly, roomy, and where you also find your own fridge, with a small integral ice freezer.

All-in-all a very well organised and equipped site. And the space between each pitch is immense - so much privacy, so much peace and quiet!

A beautifully tucked away farm location, with a nearby reservoir to walk around, and a friendly pub with food and pool table a mile away.

Thank you so much, a great place to stay.

ps don’t tell the owners, but we made VERY good friends with the ginger cat - we were sad to say goodbye!!

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Liked: Hidden gem! We booked a last minute August bank holiday stay in Bluebell the horsebox and what a wonderful holiday we had. The owners Sarah and Andrew were so lovely and welcoming and will help you with your bags from the car down to the campsite. We loved that no cars are allowed on site. The games barn /tennis court/goats, bunnies etc kept the children well entertained and there were plenty of other children for them to run wild with in the field. The hot shower was a real highlight! Each family is allocated their own bathroom which was way nicer than I expected and own fridge (it's little things like this that will mean I'll return - since I'm not a camper!!) The campsite is peaceful and safe and Bluebell the horse box was cute, comfy and everything we needed. I had the best night's sleep I'd had in a very long time. We travelled around to different beaches, it's a lovely area. Our highlight was a 3hr walk from Croyde to Saunton Sands (part of the tarka trail). We went to Putsborough beach on the recommendation of the owner Andrew and it was our favourite beach by far!! We're already thinking about booking for next summer...

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Liked: The campsite was great. Andy and Sarah were really helpful and friendly. It's a beautiful site, the tents are great, toilet/shower facilities were really modern and clean. Lovely to have your own, with a lock, so you can leave your stuff in. Wish we stayed for longer.

Disliked: Not really a dislike buta couple of things to be aware that if you would like to change electronic devices, in my tent there were only USB plugs. I only had USB-c cables, but was able to pick up a cable in town.
Location is out of town, which is perfect for it's adilic location but the taxi's are very expensive and can be difficult to arrange.

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Liked: Had an amazing four day stay in the four person safari tent which was lovely. We were made to feel very welcome by Sarah and Andrew, who took the time to show us around the site and provided us with our own fridge and individual uniquely styled bathroom and toilet (they were all amazing). Our two boys loved the animals and felt very safe as they are both autistic and were very happy with the play barn. We will most definitely be returning and would highly recommend to friends and family.

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Liked: A lovely site with everything we needed for your stay. We stayed in one of the glamping tents and we could not fault it. They are basic, but this is exactly what we were looking for. The communal room was well kitted out for wahing up and storing our food, and the private toilet and shower areas were nice and clean. We wouldn't hesitate to recommend this site.

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Liked: Fantastic sensory and setting. The owners were lovely and having a private bathroom was a really nice touch.

Disliked: The sofa area turns into a bed. This is perfect as travelling with myself and three children but the sofa cushions are stained. Possible drinks or urine. We were given a duvet to put on top but it felt unclean.

No curtains covering the windows so it gave very little privacy at night when the lights were on. It made changing uncomfortable.

The grass is the softest, thickest most beautiful grass but is kept fairly long, even though it had recently been cut. The cuttings are left on the field, grass is everywhere, in our bed, shower, clothing etc. and even on dry days mornings and evenings the grass is wet. Being long it’s impossible to have dry footwear

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From the manager: Michelle, Thank you for taking the time to give us your honest feedback. Without this we can’t continue to improve and provide a lovely experience for our guests. We do take your comments very seriously as diverse opinions can only make us better.

In respect of the grass, we have so far taken the view that we want the 5 acre field to be useable for kids to play football/games etc and have therefore constantly kept this mowed (using a ride on mower not tractor for a quality mow). Given the size of the field it’s impractical to collect all the clipping, particularly here in the South West where the grass doesn’t stop growing (although the luscious green does look beautiful). Grass cuttings do end up getting in the accommodation and shower rooms, so we may well decide to compromise and leave more of the field as uncut meadow with pathways to the accommodation. A good topic for an end of season survey - thank you.

For the sofa bed mattress cushion, this is hand stitched and fitted, rather than loose and removable. It’s scrubbed regularly as part of the change over process and we acknowledge there is a stain but we see no evidence this is urine related. We’ve felt that the hand-stitched fitted approach giving us greater choice of material to make more visually appealing was the way to go but it has its drawbacks and perhaps a looser more generic cover maybe better. The mattress topper provided is covered with a sheet, both of which are freshly laundered and bagged under the bed ready to use along with duvet and pillows for the sofa bed.

For the curtains, whilst the large double doors have curtains, the side windows do not and we’ll address this as well - thank you.

We hope you enjoyed your time at North Thorne. We are constantly looking at our price relative to our competition and their offerings and the feedback we get from all our guests and believe we are hitting the right level.

Liked: Lovely holiday destination, the owners have put so much love and thought into their campsite. The safari tents are clean and spacious, with your own dedicated shower room and toilet and fridge in the communal block just for your own us.
Thank you for an amazing stay.
Amy xx

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From the manager: Amy, thank you for your comments. It was an absolute pleasure hosting you and our family and we would love to see you all again.

Liked: Nothing!

Disliked: If I could rate the cleanliness a -10 I would! It was horrendous!!! They make it sound clean and inviting.. it's the total opposite, save your money and go elsewhere! Booked for 4 days and stayed the night because of the time we got there or we would of just gone straight away!

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From the manager: Anonymous, thank you for taking the time to provide your feedback. Even though we clearly have a different view, we do take all comments seriously. Of course, we would have hoped that you would have given us the opportunity to have a conversation with you before you left to discuss your points and to find a solution. The most important thing to us is the happiness of our guests and we would have tried to see what options we had available.

All our accommodations are cleaned, swept, wiped down and spritzed before our guests arrive. Bedding is freshly cleaned and fitted.

We do acknowledge that the Safari Tents, particularly Primrose, have weather related marks, which we have scrubbed and we will consider what other cleaning products to use that won’t compromise the integrity of the material. We’ll also consider whether we can add an inner fabric for this tent to improve the aesthetic.

Liked: Location
Was ok. Would not call it glamping as you need to bring all essential items. Andrew was a gentleman and kids had a great time.

Disliked: Toilet facilities
Splinters In furniture.
Not ideal in cold weather.

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From the manager: Shane - Thank you for taking the time to give us your honest feedback. Without this we can’t continue to improve and provide a lovely experience for our guests. We do take your comments very seriously as diverse opinions can only make us better.

In terms of essential items, we supply all crockery, cutlery, pots/pans, cooking utensils, initial toilet roll, hand soap, bins, initial bin bag, bedding with freshly cleaned sheets, pillow cases, duvets, duvet covers, BBQ, fire pit, stove, kettle and own fridge with freezer compartment. The items we don’t provide are towels, tea towels and washing sponges (this is really a result of post covid feedback). If there were other essential items not available we would have been very happy for you to let us know whilst you were here and we would locate these.

In respect of the toilet facilities, we’re actually really proud of our individually provided shower and toilet rooms. Snowdrop, the music themed Safari Tent has a music themed shower room with a bugle as a shower head and a drum as a basin base. As per the listing and confirmed with you in advance, the showers and toilets are in the barn and not in the tent and whilst the downside is proximity the upside is a dedicated, fun and better quality facility which we couldn’t achieve within the constraints of a tent.

We weren’t aware of splinters in the furniture and will check out and sand/rub down accordingly.

Lastly, weather is something we can’t control, however we supply additional blankets to supplement the duvets.

You and your family were a pleasure to host and your son’s comment about how you were helping him conquer his fears (of the waves) was one of the cutest things we’ve heard this year especially coming from one so young. Good luck finding what you are looking for in property hunting - we enjoyed meeting you.

Liked: Absolutely everything.

Disliked: Nothing (even the weather was beautiful)

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From the manager: Jon, thank you for your comments. It was an absolute pleasure hosting you and our family and we would love to see you all again, we'll see if we can arrange the same weather again next time.