The best places to drink cider in the UK this autumn – and where to stay
The hopeful froth of blossom in the spring; hot summers bounding through the orchard; and making breakfast for hungry apple pressers in the autumn. This was how the seasons reliably unfolded for Matilda Temperley and her siblings as children on their parents’ cider farm on the Somerset Levels. And now at the helm of Burrow Hill Cider herself, the rhythm has little changed. ‘It’s amazing here at the moment,’ says Matilda, describing the sweet-smelling crescendo of apple harvest. ‘All the colours of autumn are in the apples: red, orange and yellow.’
It all brings to mind Thomas Hardy and his 1887 novel The Woodlanders: ‘his hands clammy with the sweet juice of apples, his hat sprinkled with pips, and everywhere about him that atmosphere of cider which at its first return each season has such an indescribable fascination for those who have been born and bred among the orchards’.
There’s an ancient appeal to the apple harvest and cider pressing, a romanticism that’s hard to pair with your teenage taste for the stuff that served only as petrol for parties. But as the temperature cools and the colours turn, here’s our pick of the best places to drink cider and bed down this autumn – each a deliciously bucolic escape.
1/6Thornfalcon
It was in 2022 that Sophie Brendel and Panu Long moved to this corner of Somerset, nestled in between the Quantocks, Blackdown and Mendip Hills. The idea was to create a vineyard and cider orchard with boltholes across its 40-acres. There’s a converted coach house filled with antique finds and a shepherd’s hut with a copper bathtub outside to sink into. But it’s the one-bedroom lambing shed that’s the one for cider devotees, hidden amongst the apple orchards themselves. Book in for a behind-the-scenes tour and tasting, getting the low down on the orchards and the couple’s 15-year programme to restore them, the 150-year-old cider press and the fermentation process. And then it’s onto the wild spa with its woodfired sauna, hot tub and two-acre lake in which to take a refreshing dip.
From £170 per night
Thorn Lane, Thornfalcon, Taunton, Somerset, TA3 5NP
2/6Hyrneside
The Scottish wild card for your cider fix, 500 miles north from the West Country. Apple growing began here with French monks in the 12th century when they founded Lindores Abbey and brought their horticultural mastery with them, planting orchards around Newburgh. It was this that gave Roger and Rachel Howison the idea to work with the Woodland Trust to plant hundreds of apple trees after taking on the family farm in 2011, releasing its small batch ‘Aipple’ cider each spring. Guests staying in the farm’s Old Parkhill Cottage on the banks of the Tay (expect stacks of Tartan Blanket Company rugs and supplies of Scottish shortbread) can sign up for a farm tour, following the guide up Bear Hill, through forests, along the Fife Coastal Path and into the apple fields before a tasting.
From £382 per night
Old Parkhill Cottage, Abbey Road, By Newburgh, Fife, KY14 6HH
3/6Hadspen Valley
Lying in an outdoor bath at this new craft cidery, fire pit crackling and a stellar show of stars overhead is Somerset’s latest blissful spot to sip cider. Tucked in a valley between Bruton and Castle Cary, first-generation cider makers Ed and Chloë Sandeman have taken on a 12-acre apple orchard, with their first traditional method cider, Hadspen Valley, set to launch next summer alongside a taproom. In the two shepherd huts in the orchard, West Country makers take centre stage: the huts were built by Cornish company Pumphrey & Weston, body wash is by Commune and fabrics by Jane Clayton. There are hearty breakfast boxes and supper can be booked ahead to be cooked over the fire (think sumac and chilli chicken kebabs, baby gem with salsa verde and towering sticks of marshmallows).
Huts from £170 per night
Hadspen Valley Orchard, Lime Kiln Lane, Hadspen, Castle Cary, Somerset, BA7 7LX
4/6The Newt in Somerset
South African Koos Bekker and his wife Karen Roos’s 3,000-acre estate outside Castle Cary might be Somerset’s greatest cider stunt: 3,500 apple trees planted, with over 70 different varieties. And once you tune in, apples are at every turn: in the ironmongery, weaved into fencing and used to make the sourdough. Bagging the Apple Loft in The Farmhouse with its private steam pod is a coup. But the best celebration of this feat of cider making is just to order a cool pint from the threshing barn with a toastie overspilling with molten-like Westcombe Cheddar and to perch in the walled garden to watch the day unfold.
From £795 per night
Hadspen House, Bruton, Castle Cary, Somerset, BA7 7NG
5/6Fowlescombe Farm
There’s something deliciously immersive about a stay at Fowlescombe Farm on the wild edges of Dartmoor: the Orchard Suite looks out over its namesake; during the harvest guests are encouraged to roll up their sleeves, getting a feel for pressing and tasting the varieties as they go; and head gardener Shelley Hutcheon happily shares her grandmother’s apple cake recipe with guests. Then there’s chef Elly Wentworth’s menu in The Refectory that puts apples up in lights during the autumn, seasoned with the farm’s own apple cider vinegar and washed down with its cider made with nearby cider maker Pig Snout.
When the 450-acre farm and Victorian farmhouse was taken over by the Owens’ family in 2019, the idea was to create a retreat where slowing down was the point – which, at this time of year, means stopping to load up a basket of fallen apples for the piglets.
From £410 per night
Fowlescombe Farm, Ugborough, Ivybridge, Devon, PL21 0HW
6/6Somerset Cider Brandy & Burrow Hill Cider
It was in the 1960s that Julian and Diana Temperley revived the orchards in the Somerset village of Kingsbury Episcopi, and by the late 1980s they’d been granted a licence to revive the art of distilling cider into apple brandy, too. Revellers at the newly launched Glastonbury Festival in 1970 tucked in to Burrow Hill Cider and their Cider Bus is now a Worthy Farm regular. During the harvest, the joy is in booking a tour and tasting, weaving amongst the orchard, skating on fallen apples and drinking samples amongst the 170-year-old vats in the cider house. A mile down the road is your bed for the night at the Craftsman’s Cabin (from £170 per night; craftsmanscabin.co.uk), masterminded by interior designer Decca Lang and her husband Alex Head. The two-bedroom cabin is filled with the treasure of Somerset makers (oil paintings by Frances Watts, MAKE Skincare by Mary Temperley, ceramics by Issy Gordon at Origo House). But its ace card is the outdoor rolltop bath: the stage for a cool glass of cider with the hazy Somerset Levels beyond.
Pass Vale Farm, Burrow Hill, Kingsbury Episcopi, Martock, Somerset, TA12 6BU
