Wild Escapes Treehouse Review
After a run of vaguely disappointing stays in luxury hotels, we decided to go down the self-catering route for my annual “birthday weekend stay-away”. I say annual, we’ve missed quite a few years, but when the planets align and my parents are around at the right time, they usually offer to have the kids and off we pop to have a couple of nights without them.
We’re very keen self-caterers anyway, Rich and I, I’m not sure why we get lured down the luxury hotel route so often. I think I always imagine that we’ll get dressed up for dinner and have amazing, intimate chat over extraordinary food and copious fine wines and then we’ll have cocktails in the bar afterwards and it’ll be all sexy and glamorous and we can just trip back to our room for a night of uninterrupted passion followed by a full cooked breakfast and possibly a hangover massage.
In reality what happens is that we can’t relax in the room because all we can hear is doors slamming and cleaners hoovering outside in the corridor and people scraping chairs on the floor above and then one of us needs to go to the toilet and that’s always a romantic talking point isn’t it, when you literally cannot escape the fact that your partner is on the toilet because they are sitting on it approximately four feet away from your head. And there’s nowhere to escape to and so you just sit there watching a re-run of Doc Martin on the telly, loudly, so that there’s at least some background noise and then you wait for them to flush, open the door and unleash hell into the bedroom.
It’s all so sexy and luxurious I simply cannot bear it. Especially when it’s, I don’t know, five hundred pounds a night or whatever for the privilege of being cooped inside this one relatively small space with the person you spend all of your time with anyway.
Look, hotels have their place, but I have to say that a luxury holiday let in an exquisite location wins for me nearly every time. More private, more spacious and usually loads cheaper per night. And you can still eat out for every meal if you want to, but if you don’t want to then you can just dig into the plethora of posh snacks you stocked up on in the local deli. Charcuterie. Cheeses. Straight from fridge to mouth. No middleman required.
I have a thing for beautifully done-up holiday cottages and houses and would say I’m reasonably expert on the subject. Not just because I’ve booked and stayed in so many, but because I own and run one myself. (The Dorset Nook, sly little self-promo there. If you ever want to escape to a gorgeous seaside cottage for two down a hidden footpath, in an absolutely beautiful part of the world, this is the one. The sheer number of returning guests we get there speaks volumes, I think!)
Anyway, I’d say that if you manage to book yourself a top-notch holiday cottage that has beautiful linens, stylish interiors and a nice little welcome basket then you’re already miles ahead of the typical hotel experience…
So: to the self-catering birthday stay…a treehouse on a vineyard!
This was a treehouse at a place called Wild Escapes in Hampshire and it did have lovely linens, a stylish interior and a nice little welcome basket but that wasn’t even the most notable thing about it: perched on the edge of a vineyard, surrounded on three sides by woodland, it had a different and brilliant view from each one of the big windows and really made you feel as though you were completely alone in the countryside.
What a treat! Seclusion. Serenity. OK so when we arrived the next treehouse along had two children staying and that instantly made my hackles rise, for there is nothing a witch - sorry, an away-from-her-kids mother - hates to hear more than the sound of other people’s children, Gah! but I soon silenced them by removing my gloves and wig, luring them down from the trees and turning them into mice.
Bloody hell that took a dark turn!
We remained uninterrupted for the rest of the stay and it really was properly lovely. A comfy kingsize bed surrounded by windows, an open-plan kitchen and dining space with a log-burner and a cosy sofa area that opened out onto a terrace with a BBQ and nice outdoor seating.
It was all perfectly done and I would heartily recommend it. You park a short walk away and there are trolleys to pile your luggage into and your food shop and the dog and whatever else you have to carry, and then you feel like right old jolly campers as you pull the trolley over the bumpy ground to your secret hideaway. Inside we had a lovely fresh loaf of bread and a whole pat of butter from a company called Ampersand (I’ve since reordered, I could have eaten it on its own, as a snack) and some eggs and a very nice bottle of sparkling wine from the very vineyard we were looking over!
I think one of the highlights had to be the huge outdoor bath, stuck out on its own on a little platform under a tin roof: one of the most relaxing bathing experiences I’ve ever had. I don’t know whether Wild Escapes paid off the local wildlife to perform for me but they all came up to say hello whilst I was sloshing away in the swimming pool of a tub. Squirrels. A deer. Loads of birds. And then a bloody fox! Just sauntered up and had a good stare. He couldn’t see anything, because I was inside the bath and it’s so tall I doubt there would be any angle you could peep flesh from. Through the roof, maybe? Hopefully there wasn’t anyone clinging on up there, peering through a small hole! Creepy idea.
Anyway, it was great. There wasn’t a telly! We both read books. Silence. Just the crackling fire. I ate two thirds of a whole lemon drizzle cake (it was my birthday, hello) and then we fell into a deep and ponderous sleep at about ten.
What I will say is that although you are in the middle of nowhere and that is the entire point of being remote, there is nothing that’s an easy walk away. Village, or pub or what have you. The Mayfly pub is quite famous and not too much of a walk, but would you want to do the walk at night? Not sure!
But we wanted isolation. So all good. I just thought it was worth pointing out, for those who get cabin fever and need signs of life. We drove to the pub on the second night, we also went to the lovely town of Stockbridge which has the most amazing deli and butchers and all sorts of good foodie stock-up places, and we ventured to Winchester too, to see the Christmas market, and none of it felt particularly far.
Do you know where I think this place would absolutely come into its own though? If four couples hired all four treehouses. What a great little holiday that would be! Nightly barbecues out under the stars, drink up all of the free fizz, and then back to your respective private abodes for a good soak and a sleep. Pricey-ish way to get together, rather than a big house and dividing the cost, but it does feel nice and special.
We booked our stay direct on the Wild Escapes website here: three nights cost £980 but there was a winter discount and the total ended up coming to £804. It felt quite punchy, price-wise, but at the same time it was also very unique and a really memorable stay. Nothing to fault apart from noisy heating, which kept Rich awake, but I did tell him he should have contacted the hosts because you can’t moan about something if you don’t make them aware of it!
Oh! You can also take kids, did I mention that? There’s a very small - teeny - bunk room, so I think more if you have very small kids. It would be very exciting for them, I’m sure, but at the same time I tend to think it’s more suited to adults wanting blissful seclusion. There’s an extra charge for kids and another if you want to bring a dog, but it’s very dog friendly - a whole cupboard with blankets and bowls and treats…
Score? Rich gave it a 9/10 even with the heating noise! This is unheard of. He loved it almost unconditionally.
I’m wavering between 8.5 and 9, only because I can’t decide which I like more: this one or the “Rewild” treehouses in Gloucestershire. I reviewed those here, treehouse pictured below.
I think the Rewild ones feel a little swankier and exciting, because they are properly perched high off the ground, but they differ in that the entire cooking and living areas are outside, so I’m not sure how well it would work in the winter. If it was freezing you would have to get fully suited and booted to go be able to eat anything or sit on actual chairs, and might it feel a bit cooped up being confined to the pod-style bedroom? It’s around the same price as Wild Escapes (maybe slightly cheaper) but you definitely have to embrace outdoor living more… In the summer months, though, it’s definitely an excellent place to stay. (I did two nights completely alone, writing my book, which was - er - slightly thrilling when night fell.)
Fancy a treehouse stay? I should write a round-up piece on all of my treehouse shenanigans: I’ve stayed in quite a few now. Maybe I should restyle myself as a treehouse reviewer.
Wild Escapes have four treehouses, we stayed in Damselfly, which would be my personal recommendation. It’s the furthest along the lane and so the most private.