Review of the New Room, Mandinam, Carmarthenshire, Wales

> For contact details and to check availability, see the full listing for The New Room

A quiet country path leads up to the rustic New Room accommodation

The accommodation: The handmade four poster bed upstages everything in this elegant converted farm outhouse. Located just across the courtyard from the main house at Mandinam, an equally elegant Georgian country house where we dined on delicious breakfasts and dinner, the New Room is a long stone building, with double doors on both sides of the room, allowing plenty of light and separate access points to and from the magnificent gardens. There are also shuttered windows, for when you want to shut out the world and escape. 

This is a very restful space, with a church like pitched roof, a mezzanine gallery for crashing out on a futon to watch telly or DVD’s and, at the other end of the room from the big, bouncy four poster, is a shiny as a new pin bathroom, with rolltop bath, separate powerful shower, all with underfloor heating. Between this and the four poster bed, it was hard to drag myself out of the room.The Four Poster Bed in the New Room. Photo © Catherine Mack

There are also two wonderfully quirky shepherd’s huts on the farm for people who like more of an outdoor experience on their holidays. These might be perfect if you are travelling as a family, so you can spread yourselves around the farm a bit.

The location: Mandinam is just two miles outside the village of Llangadog, Carmarthenshire, in the foothills of the Brecon Beacons, with all the things you need in a village – a train station, church, butcher and three pubs. Mandinam itself is a working farm of 450 acres, with stocks of Herefordshire and Shorthorn cattle and sheep. You could spend days just walking around the farm, following the River Bran which runs through it, exploring the forests which surround it, or taking in the views from the Iron Age Fort that emerges from the heart of it. Its biodiversity is such that it has three areas designated as SSSI (Sites of Special Scientific Interest). It could almost be pushing for arboretum status soon too with its impressive collection of Eucalyptus, Balsam poplars, Oak and Hornbeams and Spruce, to name but a few. Mandinam means two things, both of which ring true: “place of a small stone fort” and “place without blemish”. For me it is, quite simply, a place of true and utter peace.

Fresh salad is just one of many delights from Daniella's kitchen. Photo © Catherine MackThe food: The New Room is for visitors wanting bed and breakfast, with breakfast served in the dining room in the main house. Marcus and Daniella Lampard, as well as being full time farmers, love to gather guests and friends around the table, and share stories over fine food. And Daniella is a fine cook, with a great knowledge of local, seasonal fresh produce. That is because they grow and rear pretty much everything that passes through their kitchen. The sausages made from their own beef are to die for (apologies to vegetarians, no pun intended) and eggs are still warm from the coop when they go in the pan. Home made bread, jam, honey and home-grown fruit top it all off: this is agrotourism with a bit of aristo flare thrown in. Fine family silver, old linen tablecloths, and impressive antiques and art bedecking the walls and floors, make this one classy country stay; all with a truly warm welcome. 

For £25 per person, you can also have dinner in the Lampards’ home, with three courses and wine. If you are a meat eater you don’t want to miss out on their own fine beef (hung for three weeks), lamb and mutton, and Marcus’ excellent taste in wine. And a sip of his own sloe gin after dinner was the perfect digestif.

For lunch, take a quick jaunt into Llangadog village on the farm bikes, available to guests, to the award-winning Red Lion pub.

Activities: Just walking the Mandinam’s 450 acres will be plenty for one weekend, with a detour to Llangadog’s Red Lion pub for refreshments.  Or you could fish in the river, and help Marcus stock up the trout supplies in his pond by transferring a few over. Cycling here is also glorious; with leafy lanes everywhere you turn. More ambitious cyclists can travel seven miles to the start of the Brecon Beacons (Marcus will also happily drop you with or without your bike to a good starting point in Llanddeusant) and follow the Roman Road nine miles across the moorland to Trecastle. 

Mandinam is surrounded by lush, rolling Welsh landscapesWhat makes it green accommodation: When your food comes from farmhouse to fork, your journey by train to the local village, and your lunch a mere cycle away at the nearby award-winning pub, you are definitely entitled to wear a green travel badge. When you do all of this on a farm which values conservation almost as much as its cattle, you are entering gold medal territory. The Lampards don’t preach or convert, as this is how they have always done it at Mandinam. I stood on top of the Iron Age Fort with Marcus and he talked me through the layout of the land stretching out below, saying. “Food has disappeared from this picture. Farmers have to find ways of changing the use of their land now. Tourism is not just for fun, it is to provide us with a living wage, enabling us to live and work the land for the next generation.” And walking the land with the flamboyant, warm and welcoming Marcus is a lot of fun. 

The Journey: Take the train to Swansea with First Great Western and change onto the picturesque Heart of Wales line, run by Arriva Trains to Llangadog, where Marcus or Daniella will meet you at the station. If you come by train and bike, it is just a quick two mile cycle to Mandinam. Another more ambitious option is to take the train and bike to Swansea, and cycle along the 13 mile off road route to Ystalyfera and then across the Brecon Beacons for another 18 miles approximately.

Top tip: Ask Marcus to drop you at the tranquil village of Llanddeusant (don’t miss checking out its beautiful church while you are there) and walk from here across the proper hiking terrain of the Brecon Beacons National Park to Llyn y Fan lake, with views en route across the Bristol Channel to Exmoor (Mandinam has plenty of maps for your hike). The ancient legend of Llyn y Fan Lake is a famous one in Wales, and one that is best told by Marcus and Daniella over morning coffee before you head up to the hills.

Verdict: Get up at dawn to take in just a bit of the estate’s 450 acres at the best time of day, be back in time for a Mandinam feast of a breakfast, and then sleep it off for another hour or so under the inviting, plump duvet, with fine cotton bed linen. This is a great time for spotting one of the Red Kites that populate the area and if you walk as far as Myddfai you might even spot the Lampards’ latest neighbour, HRH Prince Charles, who has also discovered the beauties of Carmarthenshire, and bought a rural retreat here.

For contact details and to check availability, see the full listing for: The New Room