I’m in a deep sleep when the voice of an angel causes me to stir. Charlotte Church is wandering the corridors of Rhydoldog House at 6am, rousing her guests with a soulful rendition of Nat King Cole’s Nature Boy. Who needs a cortisol-raising alarm clock when a lullaby from a multi-platinum artist can gently soothe you from your slumber?
You learn to expect the unexpected at The Dreaming, a wellness haven set in 47 acres of ancient woodland in the Elan Valley in mid Wales. Once home to designer Laura Ashley, Charlotte has transformed the mansion into a magical setting for three-night retreats to reconnect people with the land, and themselves. As someone who rarely looks up from her screens, this sounds hugely enticing, so I book a mid-week stay, when you’ve a far higher chance of a musical adventure with the songstress herself.
A large blackboard in the refectory runs our itinerary – journaling, foraging and feasting, crafting and campfires and something called Singing to the Land with Charlotte, which gets all the guests a little giddy. But first we have a sound healing journey to go on…
Now a trained practitioner, Charlotte gets to work with gongs, crystal bowls, a shruti box and bird whistles, adding her voice to the resonant rainstorm soundscape. I’m finally falling into the hypnagogic sweet spot between sleep and wakefulness the practice aims for when I’m pulled back into the room. Charlotte has moved on from her Amazonian anthem and stands above me, intoning my name in her unmistakable Celtic lilt.
“I resist the urge to giggle, but by the fourth “A-a-a-a-a-a-aaamy” break into an awkward grin, thankful when she packs us off to bed with the words, “You’re all adults, but I’d recommend an early night, these vibrations will be running through you for some time…”
At 6.30am the next morning, I find Charlotte on the lawn dressed only in stripy blue pyjama pants and a spaghetti-strap vest top, in spite of the dawn chill that hangs in the air. Her arms are raised, fists pounding a rhythm on the sky, bare feet sinking into the mossy, dew-drenched lawn.
The air is filled only with birdsong, but she is rocking out to a specially curated playlist of ambient dance tracks playing on her wireless headphones.
“Welcome to Celestial Blessings,” she smiles, motioning for the rest of the group to help ourselves to headsets. “It’s the best way to start the day,” she beams, her cheeks pink from her own efforts. We each put them on, pick from the three playlist options and begin to find our own rhythm. A shoulder twitch here, a sway there, we walked out into the herb-filled garden to find some space of our own and let the music move us.
Returning back up the stone steps to the house, a breakfast of overnight oats and berries awaits, just one of the hearty, homemade vegetarian meals that sustain us for our stay. I eat mine back out on the lichen-covered stone steps, spellbound by the sweeping views of meadow and ancient woodland.
An hour later and we’re deep in those woods. Charlotte is greeting a 350-year-old oak she informs us is called Bryn while walking clockwise around it – the traditional way of introducing yourself to a tree, apparently. I’ll have to take her word for it, he doesn’t say hello back.
So much of The Dreaming is about therapy through immersion in nature, and easing us gently out of our comfort zones, Charlotte asks us to sing something, anything, as we wander. Next, koshi wind chimes are shared out and we are taught a short refrain – “I bless this land as I walk, I bless this land” – with which to serenade the forest and left to roam free. Finally, Charlotte – who readily admits she will be found “quite far along the spectrum of woo” these days – instructs us to sing directly to the plants and flowers. I find this supremely awkward, but squeak out some admiration for the purple grasses and ancient pines before we return to more familiar territory, wandering back to the house to warble Amazing Grace in unison on the lawn.
Time stretches ethereally at The Dreaming, where the lack of wifi prevents you doom scrolling. Forager Aimee Cornwall leads us back into the forest to teach us about tinctures, pointing out perennials to pimp salads and the common stinkhorn, a mushroom that smells of rotting flesh and resembles… well, you can work that out from its latin name, phallus impudicus.
As engaging as each activity is, I’d have been equally happy to spend my entire time on Rhydoldog’s patio, watching house martins flit in and out of the eaves and red kites soar high above the valley. My bedroom – The Mushroom – has a frestanding bathtub offering the same aspect across the valley and I find myself fixated for hours on the horizon. The view is the most mesmerising of any property I’ve stayed, and I’ve been reviewing spas for over two decades.
Irish musician and author Colum Sanson-Regan is the week’s artist in residence and is set to perform on our second evening. When we realise he’ll inhale a mouthful of midges with each verse, we regretfully agree to abandon our campfire and reconvene in the cwtch (aka the snug), where he regales us with stories and folksongs until dark.
Water is one of the things that Charlotte says drew her to the property, but in the weeks before my visit the waterfall that feeds the forest plunge pool has dried up and what’s left is teeming with tadpoles. The hot tub on the roof is out of action too, so we head to the Pool of a Hundred Reflections, which provides a bracing, peaty brown dip. It’s refreshing, but I don’t linger long. Instead, I head off to handcraft a woodland wreath. Despite it being extremely amateurish, I thoroughly enjoy the mindfulness getting creative allows. For someone who spends about five hours a day fixating on her smartphone, I’ve gone cold turkey surprisingly well and my brain is enjoying whirring at a slower pace.
A final afternoon is dedicated to a session called Logging and Cream Teas with The Dreaming’s groundsman, Bubsy. It delivers exactly what it says on the tin. There’s some talk of the ancient art of log splitting as ‘a mystical practice steeped in tradition and resilience’, but in reality it’s just a decent excuse to dispel pent up aggression and eat cake – and who wouldn’t want to do that?
I’m niftier with an axe than I expect, but, having put away more scones than I split stumps, when the session finises I follow a mossy path into the ancient forest to work off the clotted cream. Walking in the woods isn’t something I would ever contemplate as a lone woman living in London, so the time and space to myself feels like a supreme luxury, as birdsong and a waterfall sounscape my final hours at the retreat.
Back home, my wreath has found a home on my garden wall, a reminder to find time away from screens, and I can’t stop talking about my stay, recommending the experience to everyone I meet. My slumber, however, is troubled by vivid visions. I dream endlessly about returning to Rhydoldog House, but each time I do something different prevents me from viewing the valley I’d been so captivated by.
In one, I stay for days but realise only as I’m driving away that I never looked outside. In another I keep trying to get to the patio but am waylaid again and again, like Odysseus trying to get home to Ithaca. In the most recent, I finally stepped outside, only to discover the garden, meadow and valley beyond had been entirely engulfed in an enormous black tarpaulin, not a speck of green to be seen… I woke to darkness, my heart pounding, a lurch in my stomach. It feels like The Dreaming and I have unfinished business.
A three-night retreat at The Dreaming, including all meals and activities, starts at £540 per person in shared accommodation. Every retreat also has one “pay-what-you-can” space.
