Couple’s ‘mixed feelings’ as they put country wedding and holiday business they built from scratch on the market for £2.2m
A beautiful countryside wedding venue and holiday retreat in the heart of Holderness is on the market.
Couple Liz and Dave Clapham spent almost 20 years building up Clapham Holme Farm, with a number of holiday-let cottages and a glorious wedding barn, on around 11 acres of land at Great Hatfield.
Now, it is with “mixed feelings”, said Liz, that they are upping sticks and have put the home and business venture they lived and breathed for almost two decades on the market for £2.2m. While it is with heavy hearts that they are leaving, the couple are also full of hope for a retirement that will bring them some quality time together for as long as possible.
“Dave has got Parkinson’s and I have had a heart attack – I’m 67 and Dave is 64 – and we think we really should be retiring,” said Liz. “We think it’s for someone younger to take on and to move it forward.”
Liz said when they first drove down the lane to the site about 19 years ago, they were surrounded by fields full of a stubble with a derelict pig farm at the end. “I’m a builder’s daughter, so I think I could see its potential.
“We’re very proud of what we have done. We wanted a caravan site - we had no experience of running a wedding or holiday business - but it was turned down by planning.
“We’d had a landscaping company when we moved here. All the buildings needed sorting.
“My son and daughter-in-law actually married in a marquee here and people said to us, why don’t you do weddings?”
Liz and Dave lived in caravan for a year – “it was fun” – while the farmhouse itself was renovated. “It’s been absolutely wonderful,” Liz said. “There have been so many lovely couples who have married here and when they’ve had children they’ve brought them back to see us – we have a petting farm and they come to see the animals.
“With our cottages, we have lots of regulars who have now become friends.” Liz said: “The potential here is enormous for someone to develop it more – we only do one wedding a week and someone else could do more.”
The Claphams do not want to move far away – they have their hearts set on a property they have seen in Aldbrough and their daughter is moving to Withernwick, so will be nearby. “We want to spend more quality time together while we are able to,” Liz said, “we don’t know what we are facing.”
Agent in the sale of Clapham Holme Farm, Our House, described it as a “one of a kind opportunity” for a buyer - you can find full details on Rightmove. They said: “Clapham Holme Farm is more than just your ordinary wedding venue, it is an intimate and magical place for holidays, special occasions, extended family get togethers, adventures and memory making.”
The property, in Hull Road, Great Hatfield, includes owner accommodation in the three-bedroom farmhouse, six two/three-bedroom holiday lets - The Hayloft honeymoon suite and Bluebell Cottage, which is wheelchair-friendly, among them - and an additional three-bedroom barn conversion.
On the site is the fairytale-themed Granary Barn that can seat 200 and has a kitchen, bar, dance-floor and toilet facilities. There is the Tin Shack Barn for meeting and greeting with its bottle bar, and a further Atrium Barn for civil ceremonies.
The whole site, described as “private and picturesque”, extends to about 11 acres and includes a caravan site, a fishing lake and paddock areas. With bookings up to 2026, the property is being sold as a going concern with the new owners to honour all bookings, including weddings.