Outside life-style pioneer and staycation retreat favorite – fforest – will open its first lodge throughout two Grade II listed former warehouses this August. Alive with historic treasures, the lodge is themed round Cardigan’s maritime previous and the native legend of the brig, Albion, which sailed 180 passengers from Cardigan to Canada in 1819. The lodge will present a everlasting legacy of that voyage and the spirit and endeavour of these aboard.
Positioned in West Wales, within the more and more widespread city of selection for creatives and laid-back residing – Cardigan – The Albion sits straight on the River Teifi waterfront. On this first part of opening, there can be 12 double bedrooms (en-suites, no household rooms) within the ‘Bridge’ warehouse with 11 additional rooms and household suites out there within the second Granary warehouse constructing subsequent spring 2023. The 12 rooms have been designed across the current historic options of the constructing, all restored to full heritage requirements with views over the river from all rooms. Every room will honour these authentic emigrants and take its title from a log of the unique settlers in New Brunswick.
Interiors are designed across the theme of ships cabins, however way more luxurious than the situations that the Albion voyagers would have skilled two centuries in the past. The cabins are lined completely in wooden panelling and this, along with most furnishings, has been repurposed and customary from reclaimed timber in fforest’s personal workshops.
All rooms are designed individually and have Welsh wool blankets, cushions and bedhead covers constructed from 100% pure new wool, woven simply upstream from the Albion at an outdated mill, ‘Melin Teifi’. The mill was powered by the identical waters that run into the river Teifi, and previous the Albion earlier than heading out to the ocean. The textile motifs are based mostly on conventional designs, however bespoke to fforest, designs perfected over 15 years with native craft legends. The bedding is licensed British wool Duvets sourced from Devon – Devon Duvets – the primary bedding firm within the UK to attain accreditation from British Wool. The wool blankets, textiles, socks, knitwear and enamel tableware in rooms are all additionally out there to buy.
Albion’s reception welcomes visitors with a lounge space that includes relaxed seating and ‘The Galley’ cocktail bar, which can be open to the general public and can have an intensive slate flagged riverside courtyard. The primary flooring has a visitors solely lounge/workroom which may even serve breakfasts previous to the restaurant opening later within the yr. Yr Odyn restaurant (The Kiln in English), named after the remnants of the Lime Kilns forming a part of the wharf complicated, will open within the autumn of 2022 and can serve the most effective of native and seasonal delicacies, together with meat from animals reared at fforest farm, with an emphasis on cooking over fireplace and influences from Scandinavia and Japan. Announcement on head chef to observe.
Different options to come back will embrace an outside sauna and onsen (Japanese impressed bathing facility which fforest farm is understood for) in a non-public elevated woodland glade housed discreetly behind the lodge. That is deliberate to open in December 2022. The facilities accomplice for the lodge is cult luxurious skincare model Aesop, that includes their recycled bottles and vary of merchandise for hair and physique care plus fragrances to scent the communal areas. Uniforms for the employees have been designed in collaboration with Neem, a local weather acutely aware model producing workwear shirts constructed from recycled shirts. Friends can stroll straight into city over the bridge or alongside the river straight into the wildlife reserve and even as much as fforest farm.
The design of The Albion has been meticulously deliberate to retain as a lot of the unique buildings as attainable, leaving components uncooked to inform their very own story. A spotlight is the historic graffiti etched into the unique limewash partitions of the third flooring – pencil sketches depicting tall ships, signatures, calculations for rope and sail material – courting again to the second half of the nineteenth Century.
The inside design of every room has the essence of a captain’s cabin: reclaimed wooden traces the partitions, while 150 yr outdated beams make up the flooring. The furnishings has been custom-made utilizing Welsh-grown cedar and beeswaxed cement boards, full with luxurious king dimension beds and hand-picked reclaimed fixtures.
The Albion
Wales, SA43 3AA
United Kingdom
+44 1239 623633
