Comfy, Shabby art Studio in Rural Village Location Five Miles From Aldeburgh

Large beamed studio with north light, fixtures & fittings which are recycled, art and stuff from my time in galleries and museums. Comfy retreat behind my Tudor cottage. It’s an acre with a private drive, you get the half with less neighbours but more farm. Private space in the garden, cotton bedding. It’s shabby but well equipped. It’s cool in the summer and warm in the winter. Deer, fox, voles, shrews, hedgehogs, fieldmice, chickens, cats and a horse. I’m the cleaner and maintenance person.

The space
It has a garden but you are in my garden so you can see my house and my neighbours (particularly in the winter) and have to drive past my cottage to access it. There’s one open plan studio with bedroom area and an additional bedroom.

I’m happy to host one well behaved dog but my garden is not secure (sheep and chickens through the hedge - one electric fence) and if they are a sofa or bed dog you will need to bring rugs. I am constantly working on the studio as the finish is basic, but improving. Your feedback helps so if there’s something that irks you during your stay, let me know so I can improve.

If you are allergic to pets I can’t guarantee that you won’t have a reaction from a previous guest or indeed my own dog.

The garden is a big and scruffy wilderness with a lovely, private mown enclosure where you can eat and sit out. It’s probably not suitable for young children, the rest of the garden has an open pond, electric fence, blackthorn and brambles and a tempting but unsafe treehouse with zip line and the garden is open to farmland.

It is very rural… which means that the wildlife and farm life surrounds you so you will hear birds roosting at night, sometimes on the roof, and early birdsong, mice and hedgehogs tunnelling behind the studio, roosters and chickens scratching, deer grunting, fox barking and a horse who coughs in the daytime. The countryside is definitely not silent. Most guests find it peaceful but you are in an insulated and sealed but not soundproof hide.

It’s not suitable to entertain guests.

Star gazing is good though.

Guest access
Bits of the garden are for you but your garden is in the centre of an acre plot and I use the bits around you. You may see me working on it but of course I try not to do that when you’re here … unless it’s a drought or the grass is thigh high.

Other things to note
I have a dog. Very friendly, big and bouncy. He’s fenced into my own garden.

My garden can’t really cope with more than two cars … and if they are two estate cars it makes manoeuvres more tricky but not impossible.