Mr And Mrs Harris And Brent Knoll Farm

A Memory of Brent Knoll.

I have such happy memories of Brent Knoll Farm which we "accidentally" stayed at.  We live in Lancashire and, think it was c1989. We had been to Weston super Mare for our holidays, staying in a lovely flat. The flat was very small but had a wonderful sea view. With 5 young kids, we hadn't found it easy finding somewhere to stay.  It was a lovely area to be in, just slightly out of the centre of Weston, but within walking distance, so the following year we decided to go again. Then I was made redundant so only booked the flat for one week.  Then I received a small amount of redunancy so I rang the lady to say we could manage two weeks after all, only to learn "our room" had been booked up, so we decided we would go to Weston for the week, but take extra money with us, and try and look for a place to stay the second week of our hols. With 5 young kids, we were looked upon in "horror" by most people. The owner of the flat knew we really wanted to have a second week in Somerset so said she would ask some of her friends for us. It got to the Thursday when arriving back at the flat we found a note pushed under our door. It said if we popped down to see her, she had a bit of news for us. The news was that "a friend of a friend" had a farm in Brent Knoll, which was about 8 miles away, but of course with being a farm, was "inland". Now we really didn't find this appealing.
To us, we thought a holiday with young kids meant "the seaside", so really out of politeness and the thought of a nice evening run, we set off in the direction of Brent Knoll. We drove past this "beautiful looking farmhouse" about 3 times, because there was no way we believed this could be the farm in question. We asked a few locals who confirmed it was the one. What a lovely couple answered the door! Mr and Mrs Harris!  She said she did have room for the week we wanted, but admitted she had never taken in such a large family before but smiled and said we seemed nice, and agreed to it. She was HORRIFIED to learn at what we had paid for the cramped conditions in the flat and immediately knocked about £100 off the price she wanted! I cannot describe the different type of holiday we enjoyed with them. The part of the farmhouse we lived in was HUGE, the rooms the kids slept in had 7 single beds and an old fashioned rocking horse in one corner. I believe Mr and Mrs Harris had other accommodation near by, so they kept their extra beds/bedding at their own farmhouse, i.e. the room my kids were in, hence the 7 beds! The kids were in their element. She gave us the freedom of the farm, made us a barbeque one evening, which was a delight to us all. Mr Harris took us all on a tractor/trailor ride one day, the kids just loved it. When we were leaving (I think we were all crying, cos we didn't want to leave) she gave my husband an envelope, she had put a £5 each in it for all my 5 kids! We went back in the Sept of that year and returned for a few years in fact. Mr and Mrs Harris made our holiday!