Show Gallery (7 images) Add to Favourites

Shepherd's Cwtch

UK Wales South Wales Monmouthshire Cwmbran

A unique shepherd's hut experience that enjoys all the benefits of a four-star hotel.

The Parkway Hotel is a modern spa hotel on the outskirts of the south Wales new town of Cwmbran, just outside Newport – not at all the sort of place you'd expect to find a glamping site. Yet this is no ordinary hotel. Privately owned for years, it's an accessible, extremely friendly place to stay, renowned for its great service, and never afraid to try something new, with the result that they recently proudly opened their first Shepherd's Hut in the extensive grounds – Shepherd's Cwtch (literally 'hug') , which is an appropriate name for such a cosy, comfortable little love-nest for two.

It may be a shepherds hut but it's frankly a cut above most glamping, with an en-suite bathroom, underfloor heating and a wood-burning stove that makes it a cosy place to stay all year round. Situated behind the main hotel and making the most of the property's seven acres of grounds, it's a fabulous getaway yet very easy to get to – just half an hour's drive from both Cardiff and the Wales-England border. It's a good base if you're visiting Newport's RSPB reserve or the Big Pit coal mining museum at the top of the valley, while the lively regional centres of Abergavenny and Crickhowell lie just beyond.

The hut has its own parking along with all the sorts of things you'd expect to find in a decent hotel room – toiletries, a Nespresso machine, hairdryer, tea and coffee and complimentary nibbles, along with a bottle of wine in the mini-fridge – yet it also has logs for your wood-burning stove and a firepit outside with sunloungers: all the things, in short, that make glamping so special. Uniquely, the facilities of the hotel are also on your doorstep – not just the bar and a restaurant but also the hotel's spa with its pool, sauna, steam room and gym, which are open to hut-dwellers all day long. Not your a average glamping experience, then, but then this isn't your average hotel.