Escape the World Cup: a quiet corner of Suffolk for the final weeks of the tournament
Updated: Jul 16
Escape the World Cup: a quiet corner of Suffolk for the final weeks of the tournament
The World Cup runs until 19 July this year, and if you don't follow football, the last few weeks of any tournament can feel like the whole country's living room has been taken over. Pubs packed for kick-off, group chats full of predictions, someone's garden with a projector screen and forty people in it. Even if you don't mind football, there's something to be said for a weekend where none of that reaches you.
We run The Firs, a six-lodge retreat in Suffolk, four acres of grounds with nothing much on television. Here's what a proper break from all of it looks like.
No shared screens, no group chat notifications
Each of our six lodges is self-contained — your own kitchen, your own living space, your own front door. If one half of your group wants to catch the quarter-finals and the other half would rather not think about it, distributed lodges make that easy in a way a single shared house doesn't.
A private wood-fired hot tub instead of a packed pub garden
Six lodges, six private hot tubs, none of them shared. Wood-fired, lit a few hours ahead, ready for the evening — a genuinely different kind of "watching something happen slowly" than extra time and penalties.
The Piggery Spa, sauna included
If a countryside break's appeal is switching off entirely, our sauna is booked exclusively for your stay — no crowds, no queue, no shared changing room.
Somewhere for the football fans in your group too
We're not anti-football. There are no televisions in the lodges — that's deliberate — but the wifi is good, so anyone who wants to stream a match on a tablet can, and the pubs in Halesworth and Southwold will have it on if you'd rather watch it properly. It just isn't the whole point of the weekend unless you want it to be.
Things to do instead
The kitchen garden, the giant firepit, the pizza oven, a walk to the coast at Southwold or Aldeburgh (25 minutes away), or simply the natural swimming moat on a warm July afternoon. None of it requires a screen.
Worth booking now
The final is on 19 July — if you're planning to actually watch it, plenty of pubs will still have it on. If you'd rather be somewhere quiet with a hot tub instead, the weekends either side of it tend to book up fast precisely because everyone else has had the same idea.
Email Alison directly: info@thefirssuffolk.co.uk
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If you do want to catch the match
The Lord Nelson in Southwold, Adnams' own pub, will have it on for anyone in your group who'd rather not miss it.
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