awre / the river severn

The Three Doves

Since we moved here over five years ago, we’ve slowly been restoring the old farmhouse, in gently peeling off the layers of external masonry paint, we’ve revealed the different chapters of the house. My somewhat patchy research finds it first recorded in 1710 and from the river-facing side of the farmhouse, we can now clearly see its first iteration as a simple, single story stone bar, upon which Flemish bond brick work raised it in the mid 18th century.  

On old maps a settlement here is first marked as ‘Hamstall’, either the Anglo-Saxon word for ‘homestead’ or deriving from ‘hamm’ meaning ‘meadow in the bend of a river’, which is rather more poetic!  Bryant’s 1824 map of Glos. marks it as an inn - The 3 Doves - serving thirsty trowmen waiting for the river to fill or the tide to change.  The old floors in the house reveal where walls would have divided the inn’s internal rooms, with hearths and perhaps an old bread oven next to one of the oldest parts of the house - the sturdy stone staircase.

In the mid 19th century it was a boatyard run by shipwright Charles Cooper, employing around twenty workers, and thereafter occupied as multiple dwellings until becoming a single residence in the early 20th century.  In the 1920s it was occupied by The Rev. Edward G. Courtman, vicar of Blakeney, who named it the rather more lofty ‘The Priory’. Courtman kept saddleback pigs and pedigree poultry and joined the growing number of parishioners planting fruit to make cider, including the Perry pear Blakeney Red.  He who plants pears, plants for his heirs… And so, each autumn we enjoy the succulent pears that tumble into the fading grass down by the river. 

A century later and it feels fitting in 2025, as we celebrate its open-armed spirit, welcoming guests from near and afar, that we return it to its hosting name - The Three Doves.

Over the coming years, we’re working to create a truer landscape, better connected to its unique surroundings.  We are gradually re-wilding the land that leads down to the Severn, encouraging the reed beds right up into the fields that used to have livestock grazing. In the summer, these reeds become dense and jungular, with reed and sedge warblers singing in their hidden worlds. Come winter the reeds pale to a delicate blonde, brittle and dry. We’re excited to see how our birdlife will change with WWT’s plans for reverting 350 acres of the Awre peninsular into salt mashes.

The gardens between the farmhouse and the cowsheds will, in time, become a series of more domestic courtyards, with south facing courtyards and kitchen gardens inviting guests to ready steady cook.

For the time being, the market garden will stay to the east of the farmhouse, somewhat cocooned yet with far-reaching view across the Severn to Arlingham and May Hill beyond. This spring we’re expanding it, its no dig beds quietly multiplying to supply Post (the restaurant we’ve opened in Newnham). Biodynamic grower Penny is heading up the plot, the emerald-fingered architect of each season’s yield, alongside no dig enthusiast Kirk. Almost all is grown from seed, doubly satisfying due to Penny’s knack for finding heritage varieties - she nimbly seeks out the rare and forgotten at seed swaps sales - one of the few shopping addictions which is actually wholesome?

For all our guests who pass through, there’s an honesty box - an invitation to pick what is needed and leave what is fair. If you’re at a loss how to cook something, we’ve plenty of cookbooks scattered between the farmhouse and the cowsheds to leaf through.