Inside the Soho Farmhouse, the royal hen do venue where even the sheep are posh
MEG no mistake, Soho Farmhouse is not for everyone.
The converted farm where Prince Harry’s bride-to-be held her hen do this week is adored by its moneyed fans as “the ultimate country-lite retreat”.
Detractors, however, have nicknamed it Smuglins, or Center Parcs for Toffs.
Certainly, Meghan Markle would not have slept in a leaky barn before getting up at dawn to feed the chickens.
Because this Cotswolds farmhouse is a private members’ club with a celebrity guest list as long as your arm and a HUGE price tag to boot.
The 100-acre site near Chipping Norton, Oxon, comprises 40 purpose-built cabins, refurbished cottages and honeystone barns.
The place is stuffed with every modern convenience, including bars, spas and a cheese room. There is also a lake — although you are not allowed to swim in it.
After my visit there, I still cannot decide if I love or loathe it.
The first surprise on arrival is the milk float. My battered Ford Focus is abandoned before it can get mud on anything, and I ride to my £330-a-night cabin (£250 for members) on an electric vehicle in a tastefully muted shade of green.
The price, by the way, excludes everything other than the wifi and a couple of cabin basics.
Luxury cabins can cost up to £725 a night.
But the place is spotless, like someone has been through the fields with a Dyson.
Even the elegantly fluffed sheep look freshly blow-dried.
Another thing is the smell . . . there isn’t one. There is no slurry or meadow flowers to scent the air, just the subtle waft of expensive perfume and entitlement.
Over at the cabin, a Farmhand (Soho Farmhouse speak for the shiny, young staff) waits on my every demand. Everything is coolly sexy — even the free condoms are left in a discreet cotton pocket by the basin.
There are pristine, never-worn wellies by the door and a bicycle with a jaunty bell and basket. An artisan luggage label hangs from the handlebars with my name handwritten on it.
The style is “countryside” but not the British countryside. There are no discarded sweet wrappers in the hedgerows, no tyres dumped in fields and no chintz curtains framing uPVC windows.
This is a countryside that can only exist in the head of someone who works in London and knows that nothing really works beyond the M25.
As for activities, it is not just cycling, horse riding or a splash across the boating lake. A quick read of the Farm Facts reveals there is a helipad and tuk-tuk service, too.
I can even flag down a horse and cart to take me to yoga if I fancy something really old-school.
People are meant to make their own fun in the country but here it is all laid on, lest you get bored or don’t understand.
Over at the Main Barn, it is time for lunch and the place is crammed with a boatload of sparky types in Ray-Ban Wayfarers looking chuffed to bits with themselves.
On my way in I hear someone say: “Oh for f***’s sake, now I’ve got aioli all down my cashmere scarf.” Mothers trill above the sophisticated hubbub to marshal their children. There are a lot of Matildas, Cecilias and Ollies.
Everyone here is either famous and fabulous — or would sell a kidney to be. The latter is, unsurprisingly, the vast majority.
The wannabes frantically star-spot while trying to lounge around the untreated floorboards and overstuffed sofas looking like they don’t give a hoot.
They idly smoke cigarettes, chomp on radicchio and exude an air of, “We’re here, we’ve made it . . . and isn’t that the fit one off Holby City?”.
That’s another thing. The original Soho House members’ club in London — the Farmhouse is part of the group — was always stuffed with stars, and this place has seen its fair share of A-listers.
Chances are you will be hoping for a glimpse of Pixie or Becks but get the drummer from a Nineties indie band instead, or some bloke off an insurance advert.
Having said that, Sam Smith shows me how the lockers work in the swimming pool changing rooms.
I am standing in a knackered M&S cossie clutching my knickers, leggings and top next to one of the world’s biggest music stars.
Moments later, I am doing (half-a**ed) lengths in a stunning outdoor pool that overspills gently into the lake beyond with just my besties and Sam for company.
Where’s a smartphone when you need it? But photos and social media posts are frowned on here — a strange irony considering every activity seems tailor-made for a frenzy on Instagram.
From the glass jars of different coloured facial toners in the spa to the row of pastel bikes in ye olde courtyard, the polished whimsy gets under your skin.
Yes, I cry, I will have an espresso martini from the “cocktail float” then hop in a cart to make my 8pm booking at Pen Yen, the Japanese restaurant.
It will not seem odd that Jonathan Ross is sitting two tables away because I am at Soho Farmhouse . . . and I, too, am a celebrity now.
Eddie Redmayne has been here. the Clooneys as well, and Daisy Lowe, Cara Delevingne and the Camerons. Some of that stardust must rub off.
There is even boozy bingo on a Friday night, at which I get hammered and flirt with a famous DJ whose name I cannot remember.
Hungover the next morning, I dread heading out for food when the breakfast van pulls up outside.
I can order anything I like and the chef will cook it on the van’s grill, then carry it inside to where I am sitting, slumped and regretful.
As I lounge in my PJs, restaurant-quality food is put right under my nose.
Hang on a minute, this is bloody amazing! The small voice muttering about how fake everything is was wrong — there is so much to love!
Suddenly, it will hit you: It is the PEOPLE that are awful here, not so much the place itself. It is a gorgeous, flawlessly efficient theme park full of tight-bottomed Londoners demanding almond milk lattes.
And now I shall probably never be invited back, nor get the chance to go dry-stone walling with Alexa Chung, or badger culling with Nick Grimshaw.
MOST READ IN FABULOUS
Luckily, I indulged while I could. Plump with local sausages and all the avocado toast I could handle, I booked in for a £50 blow-dry after breakfast.
Lounging over a £60 pedi an hour later, I gaze out over a sunlit beech tree as the whir of a chopper beats down close by.
Soho Farmhouse is just like any other farm, really. Only with helicopters . . . and sushi.