How an imaginative couple created a sustainable haven that dreams are made of, complete with cider press, vineyard and farm stay accommodation

I’ve always wanted to have a bath outside, in which I could languish peacefully, looking up at a wide-open night sky full of stars. At Thornfalcon, a new vineyard, farm and ever evolving rustic idyll in Somerset, you can. The copper roll top in question sits beside a luxurious new shepherd’s hut with views towards Thorn Hill, beyond neat rows of Chardonnay vines interspersed with little black boxes that tune into Radio 4 if ever a deer comes near — very civilised.

The Vine Hut is just one of three farm stays on the property.

Thornfalcon Winery & Press represents a dream realised for owners Sophie Brendel and Panu Long, who decided to up sticks and leave London for this wild and wonderful 40-acre microclimate in the West Country, sandwiched between the Mendips, Quantocks and Blackdown Hills, in 2022. ‘I'll never forget when we first got here, that first day, just feeling like we’d hit a magic jackpot, walking outside in this beautiful place. It still hits me even now,’ says Sophie.

As former director of audiences, commercial and digital at the V&A, she has ‘an eye for colour and pattern,’ she tells me — definitely an understatement. Sophie’s boho-rustic-English-country style hits a perfect note, as evident in the renovations she has undertaken. She also has a sound business head and pots of ambition. The amount of future projects she has planned is a little dizzying — from events and art spaces to a wildflower meadow and a spa treatment room in an old boatshed, and everything in between, and that’s before we’ve touched on the vineyard and cider press that her husband Panu, a former mixologist, has created (incidentally, I can attest that Panu makes a stellar cocktail).

The previous owners of Manor Farm, Thornfalcon, had discovered a 150-year-old cider press, buried deep in mud in a barn, and restored it to full use. Sophie and Panu now use it to make their delicious apple juice and cider. It’s proper old-fashioned labour, requiring a couple of people at once; luckily, they joke, people don’t break down as easily as machines. And there is joy to be had in ‘bringing back traditional cider-making methods to this farm, as it would have been 150 years ago,’ says Panu. Apple varieties in the orchard are mostly local. ‘A lot of them are named after places near here, like Stembridge Cluster,’ explains Sophie. ‘Some are named after people, like Porter’s Perfection.’ ‘Mainly we have Kingston Black,’ adds Panu, ‘a particularly noble cider apple. It’s a bit tricky to grow, but cidermakers love the juice.’ Being Somerset, there are quite a few good farmhouse cider producers in the area. So rather than adding more of the same, Panu decided to produce something different. Standing beside several giant barrels, he explains that they are making the ‘light, delicious stuff that will come in a Champagne bottle’. It’s sparkling, slightly lower in alcohol, but 100% apple. ‘It’s similar to what you get in Normandy,’ he says. ‘They call it bouché over there. Here, we call it keeved. You drink it out of wine glass rather than a pint. It's quite labour-intensive to make cider this way, storing the apples for weeks and weeks to get lots of pectin, fermenting them between 8 and 10 degrees… But we think it gives a really wonderful finish.’

‘We only use apples grown here in our orchard,’ adds Sophie. ‘It is zero spray, hand-picked, hand-pressed… uber-organic.’ Sparkling wine is also in process, something that takes a minimum of seven years from planting the first vine to filling an actual bottle. ‘Eventually, our goal is to produce sparkling wine, still white and still rosé, as well as the juices and cider.’ Completing the cycle, the residue from cider and wine making goes onto the compost heap, which feeds the vegetable garden… which in turn feeds Sophie and Panu’s family and anyone who comes to stay.

Upon our arrival at The Coach House (above), a characterful two-bedroom conversion full of reclaimed wood, polished concrete, antiques sourced from France, Spain and Morocco, Pooky lamps and some very pretty wallpaper by Tess Newall, we were greeted by an enormous hamper of courgettes, tomatoes, potatoes, broad beans, peas and fragrant mint from the kitchen garden. A further hamper of cherries, apples and peaches was beside it, plus cakes from a local bakery, as well as a collection of meats from the butcher in Ilminster (where Alice Temperley has her outlet). We drank as much Thornfalcon apple juice as we could get our hands on. The bathrooms were full of essential-oil enhanced products from sister Mary Temperley’s brand MAKE (the citrus, lavender, eucalyptus and lemongrass hand wash smelt so heavenly I immediately ordered it online), which has its base at nearby Burrow Hill Cider Farm, home to Somerset Cider Brandy.

As it was early summer, we spent a lot of time with the children in the garden, trying to stop them from picking underripe walnuts from the tree in our private meadow (sorry), collecting eggs and wandering through the woods up to the bucolic two-acre lake — fringed with bulrushes as lakes always are in storybooks — to see swans splash about with their fluffy cygnets. We enjoyed a bit of splashing ourselves in the lakeside hot tub, a nod to Panu’s Finnish heritage. Even our youngest, age two, loved the sauna (thoughtfully set to a low enough temperature for little ones) and cold shower afterwards on repeat.

The aforementioned Vine Hut, designed by Sophie, is decorated in a similarly vibrant, Matilda Goad meets French rustic style, with reclaimed wood floors and walls, a kitchen painted in Edward Bulmer’s Invisible Green and a bedroom, beside the sitting room with log burner, adorned in Lake August nasturtium wallpaper. Lastly, the newly converted Lambing Shed sleeps two, with a similar set up, plus an outdoor wood-fired, wood-clad bath among the apple trees. All three retreats have 400-threadcount bedlinens and feather-and-duck down mattress toppers on kingsize beds.

A further cabin, recently spruced up with a bedroom, kitchen, sitting room and bathroom, is offered to those wanting a placement via the WWOOF (World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms) scheme. ‘For those taking part, it's a way of seeing the world and being part of a local community,’ Sophie explains. ‘WWOOFers work for around five hours a day, with the afternoons off, in return for room and board. We've met really wonderful people this way — some who've never done anything like it before and others with a particularly keen interest in organic farming — even couples from Australia and New Zealand.’

A simple wander around the farm reveals plenty of other buildings ripe for conversion — Sophie and Panu have big plans. When I asked them if their move to create this idyll and share it, too, was a business or a lifestyle choice, they told me it was both. ‘It’s a massive labour of love,’ says Sophie. ‘There’s something special about what happens when Nature and the land come together with the alchemy of the creative process. We want to make it even more special because we live here, too — this is our home. It's a place that we absolutely love. Having people to stay is a wonderful way to share it, while helping to finance development.’

She wonders at how ‘every day here, something changes. I’ll go up to London for a day and I'll come back and myriad flowers will have bloomed. Even if I've only been away for a short time, I like to pad around the vegetable garden and see what's happened.’

A night at Thornfalcon starts from £125 (gypsy caravan add on available from £70); visit www.thornfalcon.com for more information and to book