Ash Farm Country House

About Ash Farm Country House

Ash Farm sits on Park Lane at Little Bollington, a hamlet on the edge of the Dunham Massey estate south-west of Manchester. The house dates from the eighteenth century, is owned by the National Trust and was a working farm until relatively recently; it is now run as a four-star guest house of a kind that has become rare in the North West, where the owners are on site and the breakfast is cooked rather than assembled.

The bedrooms are all en suite, individually furnished in keeping with the age of the building, and equipped with flat-screen televisions, tea and coffee trays, biscuits and mineral water. Free wi-fi runs throughout and there is free private parking, which is essential out here. A sun terrace looks over the garden, and the scale of the place — a handful of rooms rather than a corridor of them — means it works better for couples and walkers than for groups.

Breakfast is a full English served in a room overlooking the front lawn, and it is consistently the thing guests mention. The location suits anyone who wants countryside with the city in reach: Dunham Massey deer park is under ten minutes' walk, the Bridgewater Canal towpath about five, and the Trafford Centre and Altrincham are both a short drive. Altrincham has a Metrolink terminus with trams into Manchester in around half an hour, and Manchester Airport is roughly fifteen minutes away by car, which makes this a calm alternative to the airport hotels.