Abbey Home Farm Cirencester: Camping Review & Organic Farm Shop

James
Aug 2
7 min read

Updated: Aug 3

View at Abbey home farm campsite

Abbey Home Farm Quick Summary

Spent a night at Abbey Home Farm in Cirencester, camping at their Greenfield Campsite right next to one of the best organic farm shops in the Cotswolds. Quiet, hippified, back to nature setup with an award-winning shop and café on the doorstep, but the compost loos and patchy phone signal won't be for everyone.

Campsite Scorecard

Location ⛺⛺⛺⛺⛺

Setting & Views ⛺⛺⛺⛺

Facilities ⛺⛺

Value for Money ⛺⛺⛺⛺⛺

Food & Drink Nearby ⛺⛺⛺⛺⛺

Peace & Quiet ⛺⛺⛺

The Info

Location: Abbey Home Farm, Burford Road, Cirencester, GL7 5HF.

Hookup: None. Non-electric grass pitches only.

Dogs: Not allowed, it's a working stock farm, no exceptions.

Fires: Braziers only, off the ground, either your own or hired on site. No fires directly on the grass.

Showers: Two gas-heated shower huts, built from reclaimed timber and cedar cladding from the farm.

Toilets: Compost loos only, no toilet roll provided, bring your own.

Check-in/out: Check-in at the farm shop, 11am –5pm. No admission after 5pm or on Mondays (shop closed). Check-out 11am.

Facilities: Freestanding wooden washing-up points, drinking water straight from the farm's borehole, wheelbarrows at the car park for hauling gear to the field.

Play area: Family-friendly site with plenty of open space; farm trail on site.

Best for: Couples and families wanting a proper back-to-nature, off-grid stay, or anyone visiting Cirencester who wants to be a few minutes from a genuinely excellent farm shop. Website: theorganicfarmshop.co.uk

Getting to Abbey Home Farm, Cirencester

Route was Birmingham → Moreton-in-Marsh → Stow-on-the-Wold → Cirencester, about 1.50 hours all in. Straightforward drive, no problems.

Check-In & First Impressions at the Farm Shop

Lovely place, really friendly staff on check-in. Farm shop is the first thing you see and it's seriously impressive, everything's organic, and I mean everything you'd need. There's a section with Indian pots, clothes and furniture in there too, alongside the usual coffee, chocolates, frozen stuff, and a proper local range of ciders, beers and wines.

Setting Up Camp at Abbey Home Farm

Got the solar panels set up, the fridge plugged in, and the beers chilling. There were only three other people in the whole field when we pulled up, exceptionally quiet and properly peaceful. It was roasting, easily pushing 35°C, making it one of the hottest summer days in recent memory. With a strict ban on open fires and barbecues due to the dry heat, dinner was going to have to be on the gas hob instead.

There are two camping fields here and it's worth knowing the difference. One's completely vehicle-free, you leave the car in the gravel car park and use the wheelbarrows provided to wheel your gear down to the field yourself. Handy touch, especially if you're arriving on a motorbike or without a vehicle to pitch next to, and the field's a fair size so it saves a lot of legwork. The other field is for campervans, trailer tents and cars parked right next to your tent.

Worth saying, the tent only field has the better views by far. It's more open, looking right out over the fields and countryside. The campervan pitching area is a bit more closed in by comparison, so you don't get as much of that open view.

Campervan setup with solar panals
Great view at Abbey home farm
The map they give you to find the campsite

Abbey Home Farm Shop & Café Review

Went back down after getting set up and picked up Rockford cheese, organic tomatoes, red onions, sourdough bread, kimchi, harissa sauce and a ribeye steak. Had a look at eating in the café while I was there too, only other options on the menu were a salad or a pie, neither of which I fancied, so ended up just having a coffee instead of a proper sit down meal. Otherwise would have eaten in. Flat white was £3.50, not expensive, just wasn't quite strong enough for my liking.

Worth knowing if you're staying over, the café doesn't do a proper breakfast during the week, just muesli. Not really my thing first thing in the morning, which is part of why I headed to Stow-on-the-Wold for breakfast instead the next day. They do seem to run a few specials at weekends though, so might be worth checking if you're there on a Saturday or Sunday.

Inside the Abeey home farm shop
The Cafe at Abbey home farm
The Indian shop inside Abbey home farm

Camping Tips: What to Know Before You Go

The campsite itself has a proper "hippified," chill-out, organic feel, compost toilets, freestanding wooden washing-up areas and drinking water points dotted about, and a nice chill out spot in the woods right next to the site. It's about a 2–3 minute walk through the woods to get to the farm shop and café.

One of the reasons I love camping, you can walk around barefoot most of the day, get a bit of grounding in, lean into the hippy side of things a bit. Can't really do that in the city. It's part of why you get out and into nature in the first place. And Abbey Home Farm's got exactly that energy, chill out vibe, proper organic feel to the place.

Couple of things to flag though. You can hear the main road in the background from the pitch, so it's not total silence. And the phone signal is bad, even with a signal booster, I was down to one or two bars on both EE and Three when it should've been full signal. Genuinely don't get why it's this bad in the UK. Go to Europe and you get 5G pretty much everywhere, rural coastlines included, no bother at all. Here you are, just outside Cirencester, nowhere remote, and you can't get a signal. Whole infrastructure in this country feels like it's falling apart.

Also, the compost loos don't provide toilet roll. Bring your own or you'll be caught short.

Cirencester itself is only about 3 miles away, so the location's spot on if that's your plan. I didn't cycle in this time, too hot, and I've been loads of times already, so wanted to save it for a visit where I can actually do it justice.

Compost toilets
Chill-out area at Abbey home farm camping
The two fields left side for tents, right side for campervans

Cooking Dinner at the Campsite

Cooked the merguez sausages as planned, wrapped them up with all the trimmings, halloumi cheese, salad, harissa sauce, chillies, pickles, garlic mayo, avocado. Really good quality sausages made all the difference: not the cheap supermarket stuff, these came from a French chef's restaurant in London. Superb. That was plenty, really full after, so finished off with some watermelon bought from the farm shop. Had a couple of Newton Court cider's with it, organic, 5.8% ABV, won a Great Taste Award in 2025 (2 stars). All went down very well.

Merquwz wrap with halloumi cheese
Harissa sauce and pickles
Merquez sausages

Evening at Abbey Home Farm

Chilled out, watched a bit of Netflix before bed, signal had picked up slightly by the evening, so no trouble streaming.

Day Two: Waking Up at Abbey Home Farm

Woke up after a great night's sleep, had a bit of a lie-in. Shower at the block down at the bottom of the site. Packed up and headed off.

Breakfast at The Hive, Stow-on-the-Wold

Stopped off in Stow-on-the-Wold, hit the farmers market there, which runs every Thursday. Then breakfast at The Hive café, after hearing good things from friends who'd been. Went for the full English at £16.95. The ingredients themselves were decent, Gloucester sausages, Gloucester bacon, Cracklebean eggs, sourdough toast , but the execution let it down. Sausage was dry, beans were too sweet and not cooked down enough even though they were homemade, and the mushrooms tasted rehydrated and dry, wasn't keen on those at all. No bubble and squeak, no hash browns, no black pudding either. With a £3.70 flat white on top, felt a bit steep for what you actually got on the plate. Not the best as far as i am concerned.

The Hive full English breakfast
The Menu at The Hive
The Hive shop front

Moreton in Marsh to Pebbly Farm Campsite

From Stow it was on to Moreton in Marsh, then over to Pebbly Farm Campsite for the night, one of my favourites, already covered on the blog as one of the top six places to camp in the Cotswolds. Went back because it's a great site and handy for Moreton in Marsh. Plan from here is one night at Pebbly, a pint in Moreton, then back to Birmingham.

Final Verdict: Is Abbey Home Farm Worth a Visit?

Abbey Home Farm is a genuinely lovely spot if you want proper back-to-nature camping with an excellent organic farm shop right on your doorstep. The setting's peaceful, the shop and café are some of the best I've come across at a campsite, and the tent only field gives you real open countryside views. But it's basic by design, compost loos with no toilet roll provided, no hookup, patchy phone signal, and you can hear the road from the pitch. Know what you're getting into and it's a great one nighter, especially if you're heading into Cirencester anyway.

Would definitely go back, it's a really nice, cool little spot. Next time I'll probably take the motorbike and camp in the tent-only field to get the better views, and make a proper trip of it into Cirencester for a beer and a wander round, since I didn't get the chance to this time.

The Non-Negotiables: Small Kit That Makes a Big Difference

It’s the small details on a trip that make the biggest difference between a smooth setup and a headache. Whether it’s getting proper coffee on the move, avoiding a pitch black stumble across a quiet campsite at night, or getting a fire roaring without fuss, these are some of the bits of kit I never go camping without:

🔦 Energizer Vision HD+ 260 Lumen Head Torch, Super Bright LED, for the 3am toilet run when the curry's kicking in

☕ AeroPress Original Coffee Press – 3 in 1 Brew Method, 3-in-1 brew method, unbeatable travel coffee kit that permanently lives in the van.

💨 Flextail Portable Air Pump, Not only does it make quick work of topping up the airbed and stoking campfires, but with its built-in light and USB rechargeable battery, it eliminates the need for extra lanterns and bulky manual pumps.

🔥 200 Firelighters – Ecoblaze Natural Firelighters , hands-down the best natural firelighters you can buy for getting the BBQ and fire pit going effortlessly.

Overall 8.6/10