Luxury Boutique Bed & Breakfast Accommodation in Somerset

History

Rectory Farm House was built about 1705 (William and Mary). It was a cheddar cheese producing farm, sending it's produce by steam train to Harrod's. There are now only five of these farms left, producing proper cheddar, and they surround this house. We often serve the prize-winning cheddar. It is glorious.

The farm also produced cider, from it's own cider apple orchards which used to surround it. The barrels were rolled down to the cellar. Over the years we have put together an interesting picture of life on the farm.

Our garden, created by us from a field, stands on the site of The Battle Where The Three Counties Meet. Winston Churchill, in his "History of The English Speaking Peoples", considers this to be the most important battle in our history. King Alfred finally defeated the Danes, and so our Anglo Saxon culture was safeguarded and could flourish.

We are an officially designated Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, and stand at the foot of the Stourhead Ridge, which stretches all the way to Longleat. It is one of our biggest medieval forests. William the Conqueror took it as his hunting forest, and we still see the deer coming to our fields to graze. This area is as peaceful as can be, and a passing car is an event.

The medieval village of Charlton Musgrove owed it's allegiance to the Monastery in Bruton, an ancient Saxon town, which held the Royal Charter, so was of some importance in those times. Old Charlton Musgrove has a Norman church, but the rest of that village was raised to the ground, as it had succumbed to The Black Death. We have a Norman Cistercian Priory, which was part of the Bruton Monastery.

The landscape is unchanged since Georgian times, with a patchwork of small hedged fields. During the Napoleonic Wars, French prisoners worked the fields and built stone walls, many of which can be seen today.

This area was given special protected status during The Second World War, for milk production, thus ensuring that the landscape remained unspoiled.