Stay at Penny's Mill

Around 15 miles from both Bath and Wells, Stay at Penny's Mill provides a luxurious bed and breakfast experience in the Somerset countryside. Formerly home to a cookery school, Penny's Mill, a converted watermill, offers fine breakfasts, free parking and Wi-Fi.

Each room is elegantly furnished and includes a TV, wardrobe and tea and coffee facilities. There is an en suite shower or bath with hairdryer, bathrobes and complimentary toiletries in all rooms.

Breakfast is served in the conservatory, overlooking Nunney Brook, and features homemade bread, jams and marmalade, and a variety of teas and fresh coffee. A full English breakfast, cereals, fruit and toast are all on the menu.

Penny's Mill is around 20 minutes’ drive from Longleat Safari Park, and the National Trust property Stourhead House, set in beautiful landscaped gardens. The village of Nunney is 30-35 minutes’ drive from Cheddar Gorge, Glastonbury and Bath, with Shaftesbury, Stonehenge and Salisbury all around 40-50 minutes away.

Information about the host

We bought Penny's Mill in 1976, about 10 years after it had been converted from a ruin. The free-stone building dates back about 200 years - nobody knows for certain - and over time has produced flour, cloth and even cider. But by the 1930s it was slipping into decline. When we arrived, it was pretty well a two-bedroom house with grand ideas. We knocked down walls, added windows for more light, converted the loft space into bedrooms, added a lovely conservatory - we even bought more garden, so the property is now about 0.8 acres. Our latest move has been to take out old partitions and patio doors to make the entire ground floor open plan or - as they say now - "broken-plan" so you can see right through but still move from space to different space. As you can see, we keep changing and re-inventing things, from the structure to the decorations. It keeps us on the move! One more thing - since this was once a water-mill we have our own river running through the grounds, and our own bridge over it. We have over 100 meters of river frontage, and you can sit on the terrace by the water listening to water tumbling from the mill-pond behind the property.

We are Rosie and Bill Davies - not especially young but still very active. Rosie trained in Catering and Hotel Management, then spent several years cooking for companies and private clients. When we moved to Somerset in the 1970s, she was offered a job teaching cookery at a local finishing school, and never looked back - after working in other schools, between 1995 and 2014 she ran her own cookery school here at Penny's Mill, most of her students being cooks on sailing yachts both large and small. Bill started work in publishing, then became a freelance radio journalist for much of the '70s. He now designs bespoke furniture, based at Penny's Mill, but is very much involved with our guests. However, Rosie cooks the breakfasts!

Nunney is a delightful village with its own mediaeval castle, an ancient church, pretty streets lined with colourful cottages, and a river - Nunney Brook - running through the middle. There's a village shop in the Market Place and a flourishing pub, The George at Nunney, where our guests like to eat (there are plenty of other pubs nearby but this one is easily walkable). In early August, Nunney Fayre fills the village with stalls for a vibrant street-market. At Easter we even have a duck race in the brook! Most of all, it's a friendly place and there is plenty to see as you wander the little streets, or follow the paths along the river valley. Nunney is ideally placed as a centre for exploring Somerset, Wiltshire and Dorset. Bath, Wells, Glastonbury and Salisbury are all an easy drive. We're surrounded by National Trust properties such as Stourhead and Tyntesfield, and of course Longleat House and Safari Park lie just 20 minutes down the road. It's little more than an hour to the Dorset and Somerset coasts.