Observatory House. Large Georgian home in Bedford

Period Georgian home which can accommodate 15 guests: roaring fires, kitchen range, large living rooms, third-acre garden, lawn tennis, croquet, swimming pool, piano, cinema room. Easy walk to a huge variety of restaurants, pubs, park, shops; five minute walk to town centre, thence to a beautiful embankment and river walks beyond; also to the bus station, or ten to the railway station with easy access to London. 45 minutes' drive to Cambridge, 20 to Milton Keynes shopping centre and theatre &c. Please note that (in normal times!) we will usually be here to welcome and look after you: this is our home and we live here. (Airbnb has no category for this; hence their slightly misleading strapline.) Built in 1825, our quintessential blue-plaque Georgian English town house once housed the largest observatory in England. With its own swimming pool, croquet-and-tennis lawn and home cinema (with free Netflix) it is large enough for several families to stay in together: our bedrooms are very spacious. We also have a third of an acre garden as if we were miles into the countryside, and yet it is extremely convenient for the town centre (five minutes' walk) and river, for London (37 minutes by train) and Cambridge (45 by car or just over an hour by very convenient and comfortable bus). Those interested in astronomy will be intrigued to learn that the first inhabitant of the house was Admiral Willaim Smythe, who built the observatory for which the house is named – now in the Science Museum – and after whose son Piazzi Smythe a sea on the moon is named. It is a house full of history and we keep it as true to its Georgian original as is compatible with the comforts of modern living. With the run of our house and garden, in the summer you will have the use of our pool, croquet and tennis court (please say in advance if you want the tennis court marked out); in the winter open fires and a lovely warm range in the kitchen; also our conservatory, dining and drawing rooms, home cinema, et cetera. You will also have access to some of the best of the South of England... though many of our guests say they love our house and garden so much that they want to stay in! The garden has been planted as much as possible with plants, flowers, trees and fruit available in 1825, to be in keeping with the house itself, including rose garden and year-round clematis and vine walkway and open pergola: rose-fanatics have been known to say it looks better than Kew and in June it can be breathtaking. You can spot our house easily from the street by the seasonal window-boxes, and we have now opened up the Georgian balconettes which had fallen into disuse. We are constantly working to improve our home, restoring it to its original design whilst also making it practical for the current century. Please refer to the floor plan which can be found among the photographs. This is our home: we live here! This means that we are on hand to show you around, open the pool for you, show you how to use the cinema, referee the rules of croquet, &c. You will have the use of everything except our private rooms, including: the main kitchen; dining and drawing rooms; cinema room; conservatory. We will not (of course) impose on your stay unless you invite us to join you. When we are away we can usually arrange for our housekeeper to be on hand to help or answer any questions you have. (Please note that not all the bedrooms photographed are necessarily available for every stay: if a particular room is important to you, please ask.) Our Great Dane, Horatio, is extremely popular with guests and usually happy to model in many a group photoshoot at no extra cost. (If you are unfortunate enough to suffer from cynophobia or an allergy, as long as you give reasonable notice we can usually arrange for him to stay elsewhere.) We also have cats, chickens, doves and bees. This is a residential area. Therefore please quieten down and come indoors at 11 o'clock pm, and please don't play amplified music outside at any time without pre-arrangement with us. Bedford is a pleasant town on a river, with all essentials a few minutes' walk from our house: plenty of well-equipped shops, a lovely river with a pleasant embankment for walks, numerous good pubs and restaurants of all ethnicities and lovely English villages and countryside a few minutes' drive away. Bedford's most famous inhabitant was John Bunyan and there is a free Bunyan museum a few minutes' walk from the house, suitable for children and small enough to exhaust in an hour (you might need to book your visit in advance). There is also a ruined castle; a Marina; a local kiln where you can decorate your own pottery; a choice of different styles of church on a Sunday morning, a mosque within a very short walk and a Hindu temple also within easy walking. London is a mere 37 minutes by fast train; Cambridge even nearer; and should you be mysteriously tempted, the thriving purpose-built shopping centre of Milton Keynes more accessible still. You are of course welcome to arrange for a supermarket delivery. If you forget anything, there is an excellent local Sainsbury's at the top of the Crescent, under a minute's walk away, with a superb bakery for your fresh breakfast croissants, &c. Public transport is extremely convenient, with bus and rail station being very easy walks from our front door (about five minutes and ten, respectively). We have room for two vehicles to park in our drive and several more in our courtyard. Parking on the street outside is not expensive, and the wardens do their job well so it's not economic to risk this without paying. There is a two-hour-max stay rule, so guests may have to alternate with each other, or park a few minutes' walk away. If you are parked on our premises for the weekend we ask, please, that you move your cars onto the street by 9am on Sunday (parking is free on the street from 6pm on Saturday till 8am on Monday) so his carer can get my father's wheelchair out for him to attend church. Because of the residential nature of the neighbourhood (and other factors) we are not suitable for: loud noise; excessive drinking; late partying; blatant sexism including propositioning any members of the family; non-biodegradable glitter intended to mimic various organs of the body in a biologically very approximate way; strippers. Optional extras: 1. We can provide catered meals for you, subject to availability and booked in advance. Please ask for the menu. 2. Our son is a musician, both pop- and classically-trained. He plays in the originals band Albany Down, and has access to musicians of all kinds, including string and other quartets and close harmony or barbershop groups. Our daughter is a harpist. Please note: this is our family home, not an hotel! It is full of books, musical instruments, beautiful antiques and many precious things, so we ask you to care for it as if it were yours. And however hard we try before your arrival, it is never going to be as clinically clean as single-use travel-lodge: we are a large and happy family with a number of pets, and the house is lived in. Nevertheless we will do everything we can to make your stay as luxurious and comfortable as we can. OPTIONAL FURTHER READING... You have now read everything you should need for your booking. The following is an optional questionnaire, to check that we are right for you: 1. Do you realise we live here? a) Yes. b) No. Answer: a) You are welcome to book. b) Please read the listing! 2. What kind of venue are you expecting? a) A rambling, eccentric, delightful and lived-in Georgian home, full of musical instruments, animals and antiques where some of the bedrooms run into each other and most of the bathrooms are shared. b) A spotlessly-clean and immaculately empty characterless house with en suite shower to every bedroom and nobody living here. c) The Premier Inn. Answer: a) You are most welcome to book. b) or c) Please book the Premier Inn instead. 3. If you find a cobweb in a hidden corner of the outside loo or behind a very tall wardrobe, will you: a) Tell us that you are sorry, but you are severely arachnophobic so please could we come and remove it? b) Say nothing at the time, but complain to Airbnb on Monday morning, give us a stinking review and demand a refund? c) Eat the spider? Answers: a) You are very welcome to book. b) PLEASE go to the Premier Inn instead: this house is really not for you. c) Ask for a discount. (And by the way, you might be interested in our son Ben’s interesting pets.) 4. On meeting Horatio (our large, beautiful and very dippy blue harlequin Great Dane) will you: a) Say, aww, he’s gorgeous! Will he pose in our group photograph, please? b) Spot his mug-shot in the listing beforehand and tell us with plenty of notice that one of the group is allergic to dog-hairs or terrified of Chihuahuas and might it be possible for him to go to his dog-sitter for the weekend please? c) Not read the listing, turn up, say the children are terrified of dogs (when the children have obviously fallen in love with him and it’s clearly a nervous adult too proud to say) and look grumpy all weekend. d) Feed him without asking us. e) Take him for a walk along the river on Sunday morning before you leave Bedford. f) Comment on how big he is for a Dalmatian. Answer: a) or b) You are most welcome to book. c) or d) The Premier Inn is reported to be very nice, for certain stays. e) Ask for a discount. (You won’t get it just for this – nor indeed for eating spiders – but you lose nothing by asking.) f) We are out of your price bracket. 5. If anything isn’t quite how you expected, will you: a) Tell us immediately, so we can fix it? b) Hardly notice because there are so many other wonderful aspects of your stay? c) Complain to Airbnb after checking out? d) Write us a horrible review? e) Demand your money back long after the 24-hour-window allowed by Airbnb, thus wasting dozens of hours of my time in protracted negotiations reminding Airbnb agents in a completely different time-zone what their policy is for the next three weeks and not resulting in satisfaction for any of us? f) Embrace the surprise and pour another glass of Prosecco (preferably for me as well as yourself)? Answers: c) d) or e). Please, please, please go to the Premier Inn. You will have a miserable time if you come here... and more to the point, so will we. a) or b) You are very, very welcome. f) What was that I said about not dishing out discounts...? In summary you can expect: a fabulous, huge home with lots of character; masses to do indoors and out, in the house and wider neighbourhood; lots of indoor and outdoor games; a library of films; thousands of books to dip into; and a very warm welcome indeed. You should not expect: an all-weather tennis court suitable for an international tournament; the pool to be artificially heated; no arguments in your family over the rules of croquet; not a speck of dust anywhere... this is a two-hundred-year-old house not a modern minimalist box, and even if we sweep every inch of it before you arrive, some enterprising spider will have found a private nook somewhere to spin a little web.