London meets leafy green Hertfordshire countryside; a glamping getaway in the fresh air, with open space and centuries of history

Written by Jess; Founder & Owner of Home Farm Glamping

I’m Jess, owner of Home Farm Glamping, set in Hertfordshire farmland on the outskirts of London. Together with my brother Humphrey, we spend our summers helping town meet country, enjoying the magic that is our English countryside and trying to make it more accessible to others.

I’m often asked what motivated me to start Home Farm Glamping. We had already (finally!) upgraded our website from the one I built 5 years ago with absolutely no IT skills at all, and we are going to use this new platform to tell our story and hopefully get feedback, ideas and inspiration from our amazing guests.

So, where better to start than with the land we stand on - Home Farm, Aldenham Road, Elstree...

There’s no doubt that our location is our defining feature. People are always surprised to learn how close our peaceful and secluded site is to London, one of the busiest and most cosmopolitan capitals in the world, and how easy it is to get to us, even (or especially!) without a car.

How can rural glamping be so close to the city of London?

Only 15 miles from central London — Only 13 miles from central London

Simply put, our farm lies in the part of the “green belt” where Greater London meets Hertfordshire. We are just north of London, nestled between Elstree and the medieval village of Aldenham. We’re 15 miles from Marble Arch in central London, well within the M25.

We’re London’s closest glamping site, just 10 minutes from Stanmore, at the end of the Jubilee Line on the London Underground, and Edgware on the Northern Line. Elstree & Borehamwood station, 20 minutes from Kings Cross on ThamesLink, is a half hour walk from our tents. We’re actually far closer to London than your standard commuter hotspots of St Albans, Harpenden and Tring. But although Home Farm is so accessible, it feels a million miles from the non-stop city. Something our guests who come from London always mention is that strange sensation of stepping off the tube, into a cab, and within less than a minute feeling like they’re in the countryside proper. This is what the green belt was designed for, and we want to make sure that we preserve our patch and make it even nicer with each summer season.

Our family has been here since 1620, and my brother and I feel a great responsibility to preserve and improve the piece of land we have been lucky enough to become custodians of (more on this and our plans for the wider farm and estate in a later blog, but safe to say you can expect me to use the word “wild” a lot… “wildlife”... “wildflowers”…“wilding”). Our family’s presence here has always been linked to London, although of course, in the 17th Century, the outskirts of London (which ended basically at Farringdon) would have felt slightly further away by horse and cart than it does now!

So where did it all start?

The first of our family line to settle in Hertfordshire was described as a “merchant of London, later of Bushey, later of Aldenham Hall”. In fact, most of our family were merchants and bankers, as well as being involved in local politics, the law and the church. Henry Hucks Gibbs, who became the first Lord Aldenham as a result of his service, was governor of the Bank of England.

Though our family had been here for centuries, it was Henry Hucks who created the larger Aldenham Estate, of which the Home Farm was an important part. He designed and built our lake, Tykes Water, out of a weird Victorian fake concrete construct called Pulhamite (you can see a lot in Battersea Park, it looks like rocks but is in fact entirely man-made), he built the gorgeous red-brick bridge spanning the lake to lead to the main house (now Haberdashers Boys School), and he also designed the collection of streams and waterfalls that lead from Aldenham reservoir into Tykes Water. He planted the avenue of horse chestnuts that forms the northeast border of our glamping meadow and the huge oak tree that now plays host to our evening Supper Under The Oak events.

His son Vicary, MP for St Albans from 1892 to 1904, lived at Aldenham after him and created a world-renowned garden, including our “100 Oak Wood”, which was designed as a highly organised “wilderness” - apparently very popular with the late Victorians! Even 120 years ago these City-based men were concerned with their home environment and creating a magical space in which to achieve the perfect work/ life balance.

Our Great Grandfather and then our Grandfather, Antony Gibbs, lived further north in Hertfordshire and managed the place from a relative distance, until our parents moved into a small cottage on the edge of the 100 Oak Wood in 1984.

Celebrating centuries of our family estate

We grew up in this beautiful place, and have many incredibly happy early memories of outdoor adventures around the farm in the blazing sunshine (childhood adventures always seem to be bathed in sunlight!).

Home Farm was at the time farmed by my father and most summer evenings Mum would pick us up from school and we’d have a picnic sitting on the side of a field while Dad drove his tractor making hay or (much more excitingly in Humphrey’s opinion) the combine, harvesting wheat, beans and oil seed rape. Much later, when I moved into London and a career as a City lawyer, these were memories that floated very close to the surface. I had to face the fact that, love London though I do, I am by nature truly a country girl, a farmer’s daughter, and the inevitable crushing claustrophobia of office life in London wasn’t going to go away. I still live in North West London with my husband and little boy and, although working on the farm has allowed most of that claustrophobia to subside, I still sometimes get an uncontrollable need to be outside and I will run out of the door to breathe outdoor air, even on my busy street in Kensal Rise.

Our long family history of combining town and country is proof of how to make the best of both worlds. We’re always excited to welcome our guests to Home Farm to experience what our family has been lucky enough to enjoy for 400 years: an amazingly peaceful piece of countryside, only a stone’s throw from London.

We love the variety of guests we get - some coming from London looking for space and peace to slow down and reset, some coming from elsewhere in the UK wanting a base from which to do day trips into London without having to settle for over-priced shabby London hotels. We even get visitors from abroad who just want to experience English countryside, which is more beautiful and more precious than lots of us in our busy lives have time to appreciate. And, with the Harry Potter Studios just ten minutes away, we also get a lot of quidditch fans!

Whilst we are well aware that lots of our guests want to do nothing but relax and refresh with evening strolls through the wood and a glass of wine at sunset, with London on our doorstep there are also lots of options for entertainment during your stay. Take a look at what’s within easy reach here:

Would you like to keep in touch with Home Farm Glamping?

Read our other blog posts to learn more of the history of Home Farm, why we chose this spot and why Home Farm Glamping is set up as it is. We’ll also be telling you about opportunities for wildlife walks, bushcraft and other activities, about what makes our glamping site ideal for families with children as well as couples and groups of friends, the story behind my move from City Lawyer to Glamping Geek, and our future plans for Home Farm Glamping and the wider Aldenham Estate.

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