Open Air Business August/September 2018

GLAMPSITES
CASE STUDY
Atlantic
Surf Pods
Clean lines and simple interiors
make this Atlantic Highway
glampsite a breath of fresh air
Designed by owner Peter Cobbledick, the 15 pods at Atlantic Farm offer space and light,
while a treehouse 6m up delivers spectacular Cornish views. We speak to Peter about
how he created a glampsite that offers an off-grid home by the sea for hundreds of
guests each year.
What’s your back story – your
life before glamping?
Coastal life is the only life for me.
Daily surfing from an early age and
then 35 years roaming the globe
for ocean arts and crafts and all
things marine. The last 10 years
we have settled on a small farm
close to the coast of my home
town Bude, and found tourist
accommodation the only way to
make the farm viable.
What made you decide to
start offering glamping
accommodation?
Camping was the first idea, it did
work well but you are never free of
the impact of the weather, muddy
ground, wind damaged tents and
“WE HAD NO
WOODLAND
BUT WE
WERE A FEW
MINUTES
FROM FOUR
BEACHES AND
THE FARM WAS
RELATIVELY
SHELTERED
FOR ITS
POSITION ON
THE ATLANTIC
COAST”
a very short season. Cottages were
the next option which also worked
well – they are long seasons but
the overhead was huge. That
is when the glamping idea had
appeal. There were various ideas
being tried around the county,
from railway wagons to converted
pigsties!
There was a firm doing pods
that looked like an upturned
boat, a good idea but it just felt
claustrophobic. From then on I set
about designing my alternative.
How did you research the
business before entering it?
At that time yurts were being
used, and also American tipis.
There was a very successful tipi
village nearby, but I felt their
strength was coming from a
beautiful oak woodland and a
quarry lake that was giving the
appeal and ambiance. The prices
being charged gave it the appeal
to us - £800+ a week for a tipi, mat
and outside fire pit! This showed
there was mileage in the glamping
concept.
I didn’t like the idea of the yurts
or tipis, it just seemed so alien for
our site, also there were issues
with ingress of wildlife into the
seams, like lizards. At the end of
the day we are in the country and
have to put up with various natural
inhabitants. Spiders and ants
etc. are unavoidable and need
to be lived with but other creepy
crawlies seemed something to be
avoided where possible.
Tell us about your location
and site
Our farm is just by the Atlantic
Highway with very easy access to
Bude and journeys to the rest of
the county. We had no woodland
but we were a few minutes from
four beaches and the farm was
relatively sheltered for its position
on the Atlantic coast. We set aside
the most sheltered field next to the
camping that had been used by
our poultry business.
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