Le Fournil Cottage

With its exterior adorned with flowers and interior bathed in sunlight, which streams through the enormous arched window of this cottage, Le Fournil is a superb suntrap! The cottage is adjacent to our two bread ovens and was used primarily as a stable and cart shed. As you are no doubt aware, the French are dependent upon their daily bread, so these two ovens would have been of great importance! There is one older oven, with a huge tree growing out of it and one more modern, still in excess of 50 years old, so keep your eyes open for these – they are not too dissimilar to the Italian pizza oven!

When we took over La Garenne, Le Fournil had no roof and its front wall was bulging out with a horrible concrete lintel over the entrance to the cart shed. We sourced a beautiful stone arch from a barn elsewhere in Brittany, which was being demolished. We purchased the stones, transported them to La Garenne, demolished the old and unsafe gable end to Le Fournil, then finally rebuilt the 3m high stone arch in its place.

Inside Le Fournil there is now a spacious downstairs living area with a full height ceiling and a woodburning stove. We have managed to preserve this full height feature by creating a galleried double bedroom upstairs. The kitchen and dining area are well-equipped and the latter has been conveniently created out of a stone alcove in the barn, which makes it is a gorgeous, pleasant and light place to sit, with windows and views on all three sides. We have a plentiful supply of freshly cut, dried wood for our guests to use, which easily warms the whole cottage on cooler spring or autumn evenings.  The historic thick stone walls keep the cottage cooler in the summer. Downstairs, there is also a family bathroom. The second bedroom is adjacent to the galleried master bedroom upstairs, across a small corridor. This twin bedroom actually has three single beds and enjoys views of our extensive lawns and the pool. A cot is available on request.