Dear Friends

A happy New Year to you all!  We hope you all enjoyed the festive period with friends and family.  It was our first Christmas with our new baby boy, Jack.  He was born a healthy 8lb 13oz on 27th September 2015.  It was a bit of a shock to the system at first but we’re settling into a nice routine now and Sam is eager to get him working the land as soon as he can walk!

A big thank you to all of our guests who visited Butterwell in 2015.  It was another good year for visitors with bookings going into late autumn and over Christmas and New Year too.  All of our properties average a 5* guest review rating with our agency and all achieve a 5* Excellent rating on TripAdvisor.  We know there are still many improvements we want to make and value your comments.  To see the reviews and/or leave one yourself here are the links to our TripAdvisor pages:

Butterwell Farm B&B: http://www.tripadvisor.co.uk/Hotel_Review-g191280-d7019498-Reviews-Butterwell_Farm_B_B-Bodmin_Cornwall_England.html

Butterwell South Wing: http://www.tripadvisor.co.uk/VacationRentalReview-g191280-d7627584-Butterwell_South_Wing-Bodmin_Cornwall_England.html

Buzzard Barn: http://www.tripadvisor.co.uk/VacationRentalReview-g191280-d7627550-Buzzard_Barn-Bodmin_Cornwall_England.html

Cobnuts: http://www.tripadvisor.co.uk/VacationRentalReview-g191280-d7609058-Cobnuts-Bodmin_Cornwall_England.html

We are now in for a quiet January and February and are therefore offering shorter stays at a reduced rate so please get in touch if you’re in need of a short break!  Cornwall is a beautiful place to visit at any time of year with plenty of indoor and outdoor activities on offer.  Bring your woolies and wellies and enjoy beach walks followed by lunch in front of an open fire at any one Cornwall’s fantastic restaurants – Cornwall really is a foodie’s heaven!

 

 

Work at Butterwell
We have 42 acres at Butterwell that takes a lot of time to keep on top of and maintain in a favourable condition for all of our wildlife visitors.  We must be doing something right as we had a good number of otter, kingfisher and deer sightings this year.  In February we worked with Natural England funding to plant 20 native tree species along the riverbank and in the wetlands area, which will help with bank erosion.  They all look to be getting well established.  We have also worked with a local contractor to clear a lot of scrubland in the woods and in our paddocks.  This has reclaimed a lot of open space for wildlife to flourish, and also created more open space in the woodlands for dog walkers and families alike to enjoy.

As well as being hard at work on the land we have also gradually been making improvements to our properties and gardens.  All properties now have WIFI access.  Butterwell South Wing benefited from a brand new hot water system and new shower fixtures this year.  As well as TV/DVDs in the two upstairs bedrooms.  Cobnuts bed has been upgraded from a double to a king size bed.  All properties have undergone some cosmetic improvements with some new furniture, ipod docks, new dishwashers, and much more.  There are still many items on our to do list so watch this space.

Earlier in 2015 we also launched our brand new website which we hope most of you have found useful.  We are also active on social media with regular photo updates and news, and invite you to follow us here:

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/butterwellfarm

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/butterwellfarm/

 

 

Looking Forward
Our Kingfisher cabin which is designed for couples and small families is coming along nicely.  Work has been slow during the last couple of months as we have enjoyed a busy end to the season with full properties and, you might have heard, we’ve had some rain down here which has hindered progress on the roof.  One side of the roof is now slated.  We are hoping to have the project completed by June – fingers crossed!

Fishing round-up
Many thanks to all the anglers who visited Butterwell in 2015.  It was a very challenging year for the Camel and Butterwell, characterised by a very cold start and an unprecedented warm and wet end to the season. The sea trout season started well enough with some good early fish on night fly in June and early July, including fish of 8lb, 6lb, 5lb and a good number of others over 3lb. The school peal run was late and spasmodic. We even had fresh sea trout caught well into Autumn for the third year running.  The total of 48 was a third of the 10-year average but was impacted by a lack of fishing pressure over the summer.  The Salmon season started well enough with 18 fish to up to 10lb in September which served to demonstrate that a good number of fish had again run over the summer but had not been heavily fished until September.  The back end fishing was very poor and was badly impacted by high water for long periods and unprecedented warm weather, which never favours Butterwell. The total of 23 fish is the lowest on record and less than a third of the 10-year average.  We will continue to encourage daytime fly-fishing in the summer when there is extra water.  We are sure catches in the summer period could be significantly improved with more fishing pressure.  It is of interest that the densities of fry at the top of the catchment are good as reported by Bodmin Anglers and the Environmental Agency and give us some cause for optimism.

We will be retaining charges at 2015 levels for the coming season.  Let’s hope for a better 2016.  Tight lines.

Fishing 2016
As you already know, for day rods, it is not possible to book more than 48 hours in advance, as we must reserve our rods for Butterwell residents.  We will now be introducing an email service to keep you all informed of last minute availability when we have spaces available to book for day tickets.  If you would like to be included on this mail out, or know of anyone else that would be interested then please let us know.

For day rods we will continue to offer our “Buy 3 get 1 Free” deal in 2016.  Visit us 3 times and your fourth visit is on us!

For more information about fishing at Butterwell please visit our fishing page.

2016 Prices
Please visit our website and click on Accommodation/view full price chart on each property to see our weekly prices. https://butterwellfarm.com/accommodation

Bed & Breakfast Single Occupancy £60 per night
Bed & Breakfast Double Occupancy £95 per night
May & June   – Day rod £30   – Week rod £150
July to December   – Day rod £40   – Week rod £200

Please do not hesitate to get in touch and we look forward to seeing you all sometime during the 2016 season!

With best wishes

~ Sam, Rachel & Jack