Roots is a farm shop and cafe owned by Will and Meg Edmonds, and is a five minute drive away. I shop there frequently, buying items for the welcome baskets for our guests and unfortunately never have the time to stop for a coffee and cake. There are tables outside as well as in and Will and Meg have made a number of changes recently to make the coffee shop very appealing, including introducing real coffee. The cakes are home-made and look delicious. Produce in the farm shop area is usually local (a particular favourite is Just Rachel’s ice-cream) or even produced on Will and Meg’s own farm and much of it is organic. They have their own meat and goods for sale include vegetables, of course, eggs, dairy produce, apple juice, ciders and perry, preserves and plants. A couple of years ago, the pair appeared on Jimmy Doherty’s Farming Heroes on BBC TV.

Orchards

The cottages are now booked up for the Big Apple celebrations at the beginning of May, but it is still possible to enjoy the apple blossom in the countryside by driving, cycling or following footpaths past the many orchards in the area. Click on the photos to take you to the homepage of the Herefordshire Cider Route website; it is possible to download a leaflet, and if you are a keen cyclist, you might consider the 20 mile Cider route which starts in Ledbury and takes in many of the names for which this area is famous - Weston’s, Gregg’s Pit and Lyne Down. Cider has played a part in the history of the county for some 350 years; Herefordshire cidermakers were nationally acclaimed and old stone cider mills can still be seen all over the place.

Eastnor Pottery, from whose Blog these photos are taken, run workshops for beginners and improvers at their studio on the Eastnor Castle estate, five minutes from Ledbury. Click on the photos to take you to their website. Run by ceramic artists Jon Williams and Sarah Monk , the courses can be very therapeutic and include tasters for individuals and families as well as longer sessions. You can even spend the weekend on one of their courses- and where better to stay than The Woodhouse Farm Cottages?!

Springtime at Hampton Court Castle and Gardens

http://www.disabledholidayinfo.org.uk

This is a good website which contains all sorts of useful information about holidays for the disabled.     A registered charity, it provides details on accommodation, attractions and activities for those confined to wheelchairs and people who have mobility problems. Clicking on the photograph above will bring you to a page called Viewing Hereford from a Wheelchair. There are a number of good places to visit mentioned, including the city itself, the Cathedral,  Chained Library and Mappa Mundi (with an excellent tactile/audio interactive exhibit), Waterworks Museum (excellent wheelchair access), Queenswood Arboretum and Country Park and our favourite, Hampton Court Castle and gardens. The photo above shows part of the garden in spring. Although we do not have specially adapted rooms for wheelchair users, we have accommodated a young man in a wheelchair, and we do cater for people with reduced mobility in Barn Croft, with two ground floor bedrooms (with en-suite shower rooms) and The Wainhouse which is a single storey building.