Wheelchair accessible holiday cottages, South Downs. Helping Dreamers Do

From

£490

£2860

per cottage per week

Location:Droxford, Hampshire, South Downs National ParkSee map here

More info:Price depends on length of stay and season. We offer week long stays as well as short stays from 3 nights. Please check our availability and latest price on our website or just call us on 01489-878888 and ask for Paula our bookings manager..

Description of Wheelchair accessible holiday cottages, South Downs

Our cottages are between the three villages of Droxford, Hambledon and Meonstoke which all offer their own charm with stunning views across the South Downs.
Close to Winchester, Petersfield and Portsmouth, Wallops Wood is within easy access to these famed and historic cities. A host of events and activities abound each week with historical walks, shopping and beautiful seaside resorts such as Southsea and West Wittering beach.

For those cricket fans, Hambledon is not to be missed; it is more commonly known as the ‘cradle of cricket.’ Due to the fact that it was at the heart of the sport in the late 18th century, when Hambledon Cricket Club established the rules we play by today. The Bat and Ball Inn, which formally acted as the pavilion and clubhouse, is stocked with cricket memorabilia. In the West Meon churchyard you can find the grave of Thomas Lord, the founder of Lord’s Cricket Ground.

Droxford is famed for being the meeting point of Churchill, Eisenhower and de Gaulle where they discussed the forthcoming D-Day invasion in a train carriage at Droxford Station in June 1944.

This area of Hampshire is a haven for walkers and cyclists with numerous trails and paths offering a wide selection of outings including, the Cheriton Walk, East Meon and Butser Hill and the Hambledon Cricket Pub walk – a local favourite that encompasses beautiful open countryside up to the Broadhalfpenny Down which gives beautiful views which ends up at a Hambledon Pub.

The Meon Valley is home to a raft of award winning food producers and wine makers. Our closest neighbour and friends are Hambledon Vineyard, where cheese and wine pairing experiences and vineyard tours can be booked.
We also offer fantastic experiences for children and adults with pizza making, gelato for adults, brownie baking and biscuit baking as well as jam making, jewellery and perfume making!

Rooms, food and facilities

We have 8 different cottages to choose from and all have access to our brand new indoor pool and jacuzzi with accessible hoist. . All the cottages have a hot tub and enclosed garden or courtyard.

Silver Birch Cottage - 4 ensuite bedrooms, sleeping 8. A very large kitchen, dining and living area for very large groups wanting to get together and sit for dinner, we can sit up to 34 people. Accessible to M3A standard. Hot tub with some limited views.

Woodbrook cottage - 2 ensuite bedrooms, sleeping 4. A cosy yet spacious cottage for smaller families. Accessible to M3A standard. Enclosed courtyard with hot tub.

Teal Cottage - 3 ensuite bedrooms, sleeping 6. Spacious providing good disabled access to M3A standard, southerly and easterly views from 2 bedrooms.

Sundew Cottage - 3 ensuite bedrooms, sleeping 6. Cosy cottage boasting a wonderful layout and panoramic views.

Hedgehunter Cottage - 4 ensuite bedrooms, sleeping 8. Spacious cottage with views of the Meon Valley from 2 bedrooms.

Glenside Cottage - 3 ensuite bedrooms, sleeping 6. Peaceful cottage with panoramic views.

Early Mist - 4 ensuite bedrooms, sleeping 8. Offering a quiet retreat with southerly and westerly views from 3 bedrooms.

Skeldale Cottage - 4 bedrooms, sleeping 8. A self contained restored farm cottage with its own large enclosed garden and hot tub.

All of our cottages have an open-plan dining, kitchen and sitting area with French windows that lead out on to a private patio with southerly views overlooking the Meon Valley, Solent and Isle of Wight.

The kitchen is well equipped and includes an oven, hob, microwave, dishwasher, washing/drying machine and a fridge/freezer. If you would prefer locally prepared and handmade meals are available to book for breakfasts and dinners allowing you to sit back and relax. For special celebrations or a family dinner a local chef can prepare and serve a gourmet meal for you in your own cottage.

The bedrooms have 3-foot twin beds or a 6-foot double complete with bedding. One bedroom in every cottage has an en suite communal bathroom with bath that has the possibility of being closed off. All other bedrooms have en suite shower rooms.

We welcome pets in two of our cottages at a supplement of £25/peer dog; we also require that your pet has a flea and worm treatment 48 hours prior to your stay here.
Dogs also get a welcome basket with treats and a toy. And you don't need to take bowls or beds, we have it all!

We have a range of equipment for children such as a cot, highchair, baby bath, books, toys and games.

When you arrive you can expect a welcome hamper filled with local food and drinks, as well as Nespresso capsules and a home made cake!

Upgraded packages are available for all guests.

Map

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Accessible overview:

Our accessible facilities are important to us because we want everyone to feel as welcomed as the next person in an environment which does not look like a care home or hospital. We feel that everyone deserves a fantastic holiday.

Limited mobility:

All cottage are ground floor access, except one cottage. We have an accessible lift into the pool and jacuzzi, we offer a range of accessible equipment for all out guests, such as wheelchairs, crutches, toilet seats, showing wheelchairs, etc., more specific equipment is brought in by an outside company. We send guests an accessible web page, with a list of the equipment to borrow for free, and guests just need to book these before arrival (including cone furniture raisers, vibrating alarm clocks, crutches, walkers etc.
As a farm estate we have several businesses who are locate here and one of them is a care company, who offer care services to some of our accessible guests.

Wheelchair:

Our entrances and interiors are designed for wheelchair access. We have also disabled parking and paved routes for accessible users from each cottage and into the swimming pool. We have accessible changing rooms, showers and toilets in the swimming pool complex. Every M3A rated cottage has 1 to 2 wet rooms, depending on the bedrooms in that cottage.

Blind/ limited vision:

We have blue and red dots on taps, a panic cord in each accessible toilet/wet room. We also have touch lighting on the bedside tables and we can provide a vibrating alarm clock when required. As self-catering cottages we do not offer one to one help.

Deaf/limited hearing:

We have staff on site every day who can guide if required and a vibrating alarm clock but as a self-catering cottage complex we do not offer any extra services. There is a care service on our estate, which can help – but these services are booked by the guests themselves.

Cognitive conditions:

We do not offer such services although we have offered the pool area for one hour at a time for people who need quite time /alone time when requested and if it is not too busy. During children’s holidays the complex is very busy and we would not recommend for someone who needs quite/alone time to choose to stay at that time.

'Free from' food:

We supply fridge meals and we always put a labels with ingredients. We can supply gluten free meals and nut free but these are prepared in a kitchen which handles nut and flour. We always try to accommodate guests. We can also strip a cottage of all feather duvets or pillows and all cottages get a deep clean when dogs have stayed. As self-catering cottages, food is not something we offer as a standard, people usually bring their own food.

LGBT:

Everyone is treated the same, everyone gets the same welcome, the same services, irrespective of colours, orientation and beliefs.

Vouchers

Not Accepted

How to find us

By Public Transport

Within a 10 mile radius there are 10 railway stations, we are happy to collect you from:

Botley, Hedge End, Portchester ,Fareham, Swanwick, Cosham, Bursledon, Petersfield, Rowland Castle, Eastleigh.

From the A32 at Droxford
Enter the B2150 to Hambledon and Waterlooville (opposite Merington’s Garage).
Go under the railway bridge, past the “Hurdles” pub.
1¼ miles from Droxford, you pass the “Reduce Speed” sign for the crossroads and ¼ mile later at the crossroads, there is a bungalow on the left hand side.
Turn left up Sheardley Lane and NOT at Bushey Down Farm on the left along the B2150.
we are ½ mile up the hill on the left hand side. Turn left after Skeldale House into the main car park area.

Responsible tourism

Responsible tourism: Wheelchair accessible holiday cottages, South Downs

Environment

We've been extremely conscious of minimizing the impact we have on the environment when renovating the chicken houses and site into a beautiful holiday location. The chicken houses have been re-roofed with steel roofing and clad with timber, all constructed by a local labour force and made in the UK. We have used solar/photo-voltaic panels to create some of our own energy.

When creating vehicle access to the cottages as well as levelling out the ground, we used an arboricultural method to reduce any damage to our mature trees. During the construction process, it was discovered that we had a badger sett along one of our boundaries; to preserve this we erected a fence in order to separate the sett from our site.

There is a strip of woodland which contains oaks and some are up to 150 years old, that runs for over half the length of our site. We are also lucky to have a beech hedge and a number of hedgerows made up of a mixed native species which are a haven for nesting birds who also like the blackberries from our undergrowth brambles, blackthorn and elder. Our cottage garden has some ornamental trees and shrubs in addition to two semi-mature specimen oaks and leylandii hedging.

As for wildlife, in addition to our neighbours the badgers, we also have roosting owls and bats, which we love. We encourage a diverse range of birds in with a flora that sustains itself and feeds them as well as creating nesting habitats within the hedgerows.

Community

The cottages are situated between the three villages of Droxford, Hambledon, and Meonstoke. We also used all local tradesmen for the construction of the cottages as we like to feel integrated with the area.

The on-demand chefs who are available for hire are all drawn from the local area, again in order to support and sustain our local community. The hampers that are provided on arrival also contain locally sourced produce from suppliers.

We also are home to Bowman's Ales brewery that produces award winning real ales such as Swift One and Wallops Wood. They are in fact brewed on our land!

We recommend a number of locally owned pubs and restaurants, including one just down the road on Droxford High Street, The Bakers’ Arms, who were not only awarded with the title in 2018 of ‘The Best Hampshire Roast,’ but also serve up locally produced Hampshire sausages in addition to Bowman's Ales.

Landscape

Our cottages are nestled in-between rolling arable and pasture hills on well draining chalk soils and clay farmland, situated on an area of rich archaeological findings. Just 3km from the Old Winchester Hill Fort and burial mound, it actually dates further back to the Mesolithic. Flint implements have been found as well as the Giants Grave, a Neolithic long barrow 1km north of the site.

The first record of our site becoming a racecourse is featured in the Hampshire Telegraph on the 23rd April 1864, where it was described as Hambledon Hunt Steeple Chase. In fact the Grandstand dating back to around 1900 still exists on the site.

The cottages are positioned on a hilltop with views of Portsmouth and Southampton, and on a clear day you can see out to the Isle of Wight, which is over 20 miles away! We’ve created a communal grassed area that incorporates existing trees, but also new specimens we’re bringing to the area, as well as the creation of a wildflower meadow.

The site is curved in shape, which is dotted with a line of mature oaks, suspected to date back to its racecourse days.