The Billy Goat Cabin at Broadmeadow Farm

Just three miles outside of the county town, Billy Goat Cabins feels surprisingly distant from Hereford, surrounded as it is by open fields dotted with sheep as far as the eye can see. Yet the wooden walls of the cabin are almost an ode to the Jacobean buildings that pepper the heart of the town centre. Like a strange hybrid between a beach hut, Scandinavian lodge and Hereford’s timbered Old House, the cabin is a wooden wonder that has a charmingly timeless feel.

In fact, so quaint is the Billy Goat Cabin, there’s even a children’s playhouse outside that mirrors its exact appearance – a doll’s house type replica that showcases its simplicity and beauty on a miniature scale. The real thing, though, has room for big kids too – up to four people, in fact, two in the master bedroom up on the mezzanine level and two more on a fold out futon that makes up the living area downstairs. There’s a dining area and wood-burning stove, plus a picnic area outside with a fire bowl and firewood for use.

Though the cabin has a distinctly hidden feel, part tucked among a copse of trees and out of view of any other buildings, a short stroll across the adjacent meadow leads you to another nearby wooden beamed house. This is the real treat of the site – an indoor heated swimming pool that’s free for cabin guests to use! Given the remote feel of the cabin, finding a warm swimming pool around the corner has an air of mischievous exclusivity about it, as though you’ve stumbled across someone else’s luxury villa and are sneaking in after dark!

There’s more watery fun to be found in Hereford itself. The old meadows provide a popular wild swimming spot in summer, with gravel beaches and deep pools intermittently dotting the River Lugg and River Wye, while the pubs and restaurants of the compact centre provide watering holes of a very different kind. Then there’s the mighty cathedral. Dominated by its sandstone tower, which was constructed in the early 14th-century to eclipse a second tower, it subsequently collapsed under its own weight in 1786. It’s here you can find some of the towns historic artefacts, including the famous Mappa Mundi, a 13th-century map of the world with all its centuries-old eccentricities. It’s rather different from the way we see the planet today – sprawling open spaces with just a few, sparse settlements plotted on the old parchment. There's a pleasing symmetry with the peaceful world of Billy Goat Cabins – rural escape on the modern-day map.