Toad Hall Lodges near Southwold to host yoga retreats

Gavin Crossland “discovered” Suffolk while taking part in an ultra marathon near Walberswick but several years on, he's made it his home.

When we met a year ago, Gavin and his partner, Emma, had just finished setting up Toad Hall Lodges, an intimate lifestyle retreat nestled beside their home in Wangford.
 
The site offers five hotel-standard timber lodges, which each have gardens and luxurious, design-led finishes, including memory foam mattresses and Nespresso machines.

Gavin says the site is designed for group getaways and organised retreats, with almost 10 different events already booked in for this year. The line-up covers everything from yoga and pilates to oil painting, floristry and women’s wellness.

Online reviews have praised Toad Hall Lodges for the calm it offers - thanks, in part, to its remote location in the Suffolk countryside (Image: Nato Welton)

“Everything we do goes back to wellness, whether it’s physical health or mental health,” Gavin explains. Online reviews have praised stays at Toad Hall Lodges for their sense of peace, and several guests have commented on the sense of “calm” it offered their otherwise busy lives, allowing them to walk or cycle to explore the local area and enjoy the space.

And that’s been Gavin’s experience of Suffolk too.

He says he loves life in the county more than he did a year ago, despite his initial concerns that he might miss London. 

“I’m from Sheffield, quite a big city but it’s quite quiet,” he says. “Then I moved to London for 20 years [and] thought I’d miss the buzz. I don’t.

“I’ve got a dog now, who is a proper Suffolk girl. She can jump out of the car, no lead, no worries about London madness, and I’ve met a very good friend here, which has changed my life a little bit. 

“I was loving it then, but now I’m settled.”

Now settled, Gavin says he's even more in love with life in Suffolk (Image: Nato Welton)

The location itself has proved to be one of the biggest differences in Gavin’s life. “We do feel quite remote here,” he says. “There’s grass growing in the middle of our road – I’m not used to that!” he laughs. 

“It’s a quiet lane so there are a lot of walkers, cyclists, horse riders. It’s a big, big difference to London.”

The past few years have been busy for the pair. They’ve not only set up the lodges but also renovated their home – also known as the ‘Toad Hall’ behind Toad Hall Lodges. 

The house was originally two cottages, dating back to the early 20th century, although they were joined together as one around 20 years ago. When they bought the property, just before lockdown, they knew they wanted to renovate it. Now, three years on, it’s almost complete.

After relocating, Gavin and his partner Emma have renovated their home, as well as set up the business, including adding a new extension and laying a terracotta floor from a French chateau (Image: Gavin Crossland)

The couple, who both have backgrounds in the creative industries, have used their skills to redesign the space and enlisted the help of a team of contractors to carry out the work. 

“I don’t know which end of the hammer to use,” laughs Gavin. “I’ve done very little in the house – quite a bit of the manual labour but none of the technical stuff.”

The changes have included adding a new kitchen extension, by Grahame Bolton of Bungay, and re-doing the floor using reclaimed terracotta from a French chateau. The result is striking, giving the space a warm, Mediterranean feel – in stark contrast to the living room, which they’ve turned into a cinema space complete with dark green walls and a painted Artex ceiling. 

Upstairs, they’ve reconfigured the space to create three bigger bedrooms and maximised the views – even from the bath. “When I’m sat in the bath I literally look like I’m looking at a piece of art,” Gavin says, pointing to the window. Through it, you can see bright green foliage, dappled by the winter sun.

The views from Toad Hall are like looking at a piece of art, Gavin says (Image: Gavin Crossland)

Doing both the lodges and the house at the same time has been a long journey – but it’s also been worth it, Gavin says. “People have been blown away when they’ve come here. When you do it yourself, you think ‘oh yeah, it’s nice, I really like it’, but it’s been really nice to see people’s reactions. Everything seemed to go to plan.”

Gavin admits they were nervous about doing up the property, worried that they might lose the money they had initially invested. 

“We were always a little bit nervous of over-investing and then pricing ourselves out of the market and never getting the money back,” he says. They had, in fact, been in that situation before. 

After putting a new, high-end kitchen into their house in Hertford, they hoped it would increase its value but it didn’t. “We were the best house on a bad road,” he says. “We out-priced ourselves.”

But here, with few neighbours and in a sought-after location close to one of Suffolk’s coastal hotspots, that doesn’t seem to be the case.

Gavin says his dog, Florence, has become a real Suffolk girl (Image: Gavin Crossland)

Gavin has also incorporated health and wellbeing into the design of the main house. 
“I’ve transformed the triple garage into an exercise space,” he says. 

“That was part of the old house, now it’s a gym. I’ve got a Peloton bike in there now, a punching bag, free weights.”

He’s just started up his personal training business again and is re-introducing his “passion for fitness” back into his own life, as well as to Suffolk – something he doesn’t think he would have been able to do in London. He’s also built a sauna that’s open to customers too.

“It’s evolved a lot,” he says. “We have got all kinds of things going on, and everything is around wellness.”

So, does he still love life in Suffolk? 

“Even more so,” he says.

For more information, visit toadhall.life

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