The Good Life Society

The Good Life Society Intimate events, experiences, workshops and holiday accommodation designed to bring you joy. And now we have our All Day Feasts, too.

We run intimate events focusing on the great outdoors, community, food, craft, culture and music in incredible locations on two of Britain’s most beautiful private estates. Each of our events aims to be the most friendly and inspiring anywhere. Currently we run Camp Good Life which is a small festival for under 1000 guests on the storied Hawarden Estate in North Wales. We also have Summer Camp, wh

ich is an annual event, running across four long weekends, for up to 100 guests on the Hawarden Estate. Our first ever one-day events, hosted within the storied Walled Garden of Hawarden Castle. We also run Camp Glen Dye, an occasional event for around 30 guests on the Glen Dye Estate in Kincardineshire, Scotland.

ENTER TO WIN 💥 The Good Life Society x The Kilometre ClubWIN a pair of day tickets to Summer Camp 2025 and a 2025 member...
11/12/2024

ENTER TO WIN 💥 The Good Life Society x The Kilometre Club

WIN a pair of day tickets to Summer Camp 2025 and a 2025 membership to The Kilometre Club!

We’ve teamed up with Kieran Smith () who will be joining us at Summer Camp to lead run clubs each weekend across our historic and beautiful estate.

To enter, simply:
✅ Like this post
✅ Tag the friend you would like to bring
✅ Follow both and
✅ Share this post to your stories for a bonus entry!
✅ Sign up to our newsletter for another bonus entry!

🍀 Good luck!

🧡

Terms and conditions:

The competition closes at midnight on Boxing Day. We will announce the winner via Instagram account on Friday 27th December. The prize includes x2 day tickets of your choice to Summer Camp, plus a 2025 membership to The Kilometre Club.

About Summer Camp ⛺️
Summer Camp is a series of luxury micro festivals that take place across three weekends in July and August, at The Walled Garden of Hawarden Estate in North Wales. Guests can enjoy workshops, feasts, lake swimming and wellness experiences.

About 🏃
Based in Chester, The Kilometre Club helps to bring like-minded people together who simply want to improve their health, as well as their physical and mental well-being. We understand that the freedom & flexibility of running is why we all fell in love with it. But there are times when we could all do with a bit of structure & the sense of feeling that we are not out there alone.

⏰ Early Bird tickets to Summer Camp 2025 end at midnight on Sunday 15th December ⏰Book before the deadline to save 10% o...
10/12/2024

⏰ Early Bird tickets to Summer Camp 2025 end at midnight on Sunday 15th December ⏰

Book before the deadline to save 10% on all tickets and accommodation options.

PLUS!
Our hugely popular payment plans are available, meaning you can choose to pay in one lump sum up front, split the cost in half, or split the cost into three equal parts.

Over 50% of tickets to Summer Camp 2025 are now sold!

A handful of FAQs, answered ✅If you have any questions ahead of booking your tickets please get in touch. Remember, ther...
09/12/2024

A handful of FAQs, answered ✅

If you have any questions ahead of booking your tickets please get in touch. Remember, there really, truly, is no such thing as a silly question!

Q. Can I bring my dog? 🐶
A. A big YES. ✅

Q. What’s the difference between a glamping tent and a bell tent ticket? 🏕️
A. Glamping tents come with a double bed with a duvet, pillow and sheets, as well as chairs and a table outside the tent. Bell tents come with camp beds with mattresses on and blankets and pillows - guests just need to bring sleeping bags for bell tent bookings. 🛌

Q. Do I have to pay for dinner? 🔥
A. Your dinner for all three evenings is included in the ticket price. This is two courses and there will always be vegan and vegetarian options. 🙌

Q. Can I come and visit the estate when your events aren’t running? 🏰
A. Yes! We have classes and workshops running all year round at and also lots going on across Hawarden Estate. You can stay here all year round in our holiday accommodation, , too.

Q. Do you have a question? 🤔
A. We have the answers! ✅

Where is Summer Camp? 📍Hosted in The Walled Garden of the historic Hawarden Estate in North East Wales, Summer Camp is a...
07/12/2024

Where is Summer Camp? 📍

Hosted in The Walled Garden of the historic Hawarden Estate in North East Wales, Summer Camp is a chance to escape, reset and recharge in beautiful surroundings among like minded people.

If you’ve never seen Hawarden on a map before, we’re just east of Chester, over the border into Wales.

Sumer Camp is:
📍 20mins from Chester
📍40mins from Liverpool
📍1hr from Manchester
📍just over 2 hours from London

📸

🏕️ Summer Camp 2025🔥 The Outdoors, Wellness & Adventure📆 1st - 4th August 2025First, two headlines:• Over 50% of tickets...
06/12/2024

🏕️ Summer Camp 2025
🔥 The Outdoors, Wellness & Adventure
📆 1st - 4th August 2025

First, two headlines:
• Over 50% of tickets to Summer Camp 2025 are now sold.
• Early bird prices end at midnight on Sunday 15th December.

And now the deeper dive:
For the first time, at Summer Camp 2025, we’re hosting a weekend which stands proudly upon these three key pillars.

​They’re ever-present at all of our events, but next summer we’ll be turning these themes up to 11 for one outstanding weekend.

This is the escape, and adventure, you’re looking for.

Our outdoors, wellness and adventure weekend is designed to speak to the souls of people who, above all else, cherish time spent outside.

This will be rooted in activities set within our beautiful landscape, with The Walled Garden providing the platform from which everything starts.

There will, of course, still be super comfortable accommodation and facilities but with a greater emphasis on the elements and the stuff that both raises the heart rate and settles busy minds.

💛

Whichever weekend at Summer Camp you choose, we guarantee you a blissful long weekend spent with likeminded people in the serene Walled Garden of Hawarden Castle.

When the making is done we’ll dip into the lake, practice sunrise yoga, engage with fascinating talks, dance to live music, explore a historic estate and come together for evening feasts cooked over fire by great guest chefs and the award-winning team from Hawarden Estate.

All weekend you’ll have access to our wood-fired hot tub and sauna, guided foraging walks, paddle boarding, live fire cooking demos and proper showers and loos.

That’s all included when you book your tickets.

And we have some amazing places to stay, too.

🏕️ Summer Camp 2025💛 The Family Weekend📆 25th - 28th July 2025First, two headlines:• Over 50% of tickets to Summer Camp ...
06/12/2024

🏕️ Summer Camp 2025
💛 The Family Weekend
📆 25th - 28th July 2025

First, two headlines:
• Over 50% of tickets to Summer Camp 2025 are now sold.
• Early bird prices end at midnight on Sunday 15th December.

And now the deeper dive:
At Summer Camp 2024, we hosted a spectacular long weekend, designed for families.

It was a smash hit.
So we’re doing it again!

The central themes, the stuff that makes Summer Camp unique, aren’t changing.

So there will still be amazing food from the fire, invigorating wild swims, early morning yoga at Hawarden Old Castle, inspiring talks and tastings, campfire cooking workshops and true connection to craft and the outdoors.

What will be different about this weekend is the set up of the workshops themselves, which will allow the whole family to enjoy activities together and apart.

Everyone, children and adults alike, will gain new skills, friends and confidence.

Create core memories within the sanctuary of The Walled Garden, to allow time for individuals to thrive as well as coming together as a family.

💛

Whichever weekend at Summer Camp you choose, we guarantee you a blissful long weekend spent with likeminded people in the serene Walled Garden of Hawarden Castle.

When the making is done we’ll dip into the lake, practice sunrise yoga, engage with fascinating talks, dance to live music, explore a historic estate and come together for evening feasts cooked over fire by great guest chefs and the award-winning team from Hawarden Estate.

All weekend you’ll have access to our wood-fired hot tub and sauna, guided foraging walks, paddle boarding, live fire cooking demos and proper showers and loos.

That’s all included when you book your tickets.

And we have some amazing places to stay, too.

🏕️ Summer Camp 2025 🎨 The Craft Weekend📆 18th - 21st July 2025First, two headlines:• Over 50% of tickets to Summer Camp ...
06/12/2024

🏕️ Summer Camp 2025
🎨 The Craft Weekend
📆 18th - 21st July 2025

First, two headlines:
• Over 50% of tickets to Summer Camp 2025 are now sold.
• Early bird prices end at midnight on Sunday 15th December.

And now the deeper dive:
We’ve always believed that there is magic in making something with your hands. And that you do not need to be an expert to extract the joy found in creating something new, something beautiful, from raw materials.

At our first weekend of Summer Camp in 2025, you will discover great disappearing crafts in the presence of their contemporary masters.

Expect masterclasses in techniques such as signwriting, brush making, printmaking, willow weaving, floristry, indigo dyeing and more.

This is for everyone: adults, children, dogs.

💛

Whichever weekend at Summer Camp you choose, we guarantee you a blissful long weekend spent with likeminded people in the serene Walled Garden of Hawarden Castle.

When the making is done we’ll dip into the lake, practice sunrise yoga, engage with fascinating talks, dance to live music, explore a historic estate and come together for evening feasts cooked over fire by great guest chefs and the award-winning team from Hawarden Estate.

All weekend you’ll have access to our wood-fired hot tub and sauna, guided foraging walks, paddle boarding, live fire cooking demos and proper showers and loos.

That’s all included when you book your tickets.

And we have some amazing places to stay, too.

Life-affirming experiences, incredible food, new friends, great dogs, sweet woodsmoke and joyful memories await all who ...
05/12/2024

Life-affirming experiences, incredible food, new friends, great dogs, sweet woodsmoke and joyful memories await all who enter Summer Camp beneath this sign.

Join us in 2025!

📸

Hawarden Estate in high summer, as seen by the excellent 💛
01/12/2024

Hawarden Estate in high summer, as seen by the excellent 💛

“Summer Camp is something I’ve often dreamt of creating; a small, friendly, comfortable retreat based on the fabled camp...
29/11/2024

“Summer Camp is something I’ve often dreamt of creating; a small, friendly, comfortable retreat based on the fabled camps of America but for all ages and with better food.

It will be about nature and the great outdoors; you’ll learn new skills, try new activities and make new friends.

Summer Camp will be a retreat, a place to recharge and to explore new places and ideas.

It will be beautiful and super-comfortable. There will be woodsmoke and starlight.

This is the place of your dreams.”

- , co-founder.

📸

“Summer Camp is a life-affirming, heart-warming, soul-connecting experience.” - Sam, a previous guest, with one of our f...
25/11/2024

“Summer Camp is a life-affirming, heart-warming, soul-connecting experience.” - Sam, a previous guest, with one of our favourite testimonials of all time.

Over half of the tickets to Summer Camp 2025 are now sold. We’d love to see you there!

Choose your perfect weekend from:

✅ The Craft Weekend
📆 18th - 21st July 2025

✅ The Family Weekend
📆 25th - 28th July 2025

✅ The Outdoors, Wellness & Adventure Weekend
📆 1st - 4th August 2025

📸

How to Cook on Fire by 🔥Chris Roberts is a chef, television personality and enthusiast.His rules for fire are pretty si...
23/11/2024

How to Cook on Fire by 🔥

Chris Roberts is a chef, television personality and enthusiast.

His rules for fire are pretty simple:
• Stoke the fire
• Don’t overcomplicate
• Have fun
• Delicious food will follow

For many at our Good Life Experience and Summer Camp events, Chris Roberts is a legend and not just because he’s a fine chef; it’s his radiant enthusiasm, kindness and boundless energy that really do it for our guests.

Anyway, over to Chris…

“Fire runs in our blood; it’s seared into our DNA.

“Before gas, electric, microwaves and George Foreman grills, we all cooked with fire. But life moves fast nowadays and fire cooking has almost become a lost art.

“Luckily, my dad instilled a love of fire in me that dates way back to my Welsh ancestors, who emigrated to Patagonia in 1865 and embraced the asado way of life.”

📸
📝 Read the full piece in our Journal

A gift card to live The Good Life 🎁These vouchers are good for holidays, events, experiences and products by The Good Li...
21/11/2024

A gift card to live The Good Life 🎁

These vouchers are good for holidays, events, experiences and products by The Good Life Society and Hawarden Estate.

A straightforward, and beautifully presented gift to help you get started on presents for those people who seem to have everything.

💛

Hawarden is the place for me ❄️Photos by on his afternoon estate walk yesterday afternoon.
20/11/2024

Hawarden is the place for me ❄️

Photos by on his afternoon estate walk yesterday afternoon.

Could Summer Camp be the perfect corporate away day/weekend?For three long weekends each summer we take over the bucolic...
19/11/2024

Could Summer Camp be the perfect corporate away day/weekend?

For three long weekends each summer we take over the bucolic Walled Garden on Hawarden Estate for Britain’s best micro-festival of craft, adventure, wellness and the outdoors.

In many ways, these weekends are our flagship events.

They are the perfect distillation of what we value most:
✅ Fun
✅ Food
✅ Craft
✅ Straightforward luxury
✅ Connection to nature
✅ And supremely friendly

So, whilst Summer Camp 2025 is not a corporate event, far from it, it can be used as a blueprint to create a corporate retreat which will live long in the memory for your team.

We ran our first version of this, in private, earlier this year. It was a smash hit.

Get in touch ([email protected]) if this sounds like your kind of thing.

Day tickets to Summer Camp offer all the fun, adventure and food without the full weekend commitment.*You’ll fill a long...
17/11/2024

Day tickets to Summer Camp offer all the fun, adventure and food without the full weekend commitment.*

You’ll fill a long summer day swimming among lily pads in our private lake, discovering modern and heritage craft, dancing to live music, listening to inspiring talks, joining open-fire cooking workshops, soaking in the wood-fired hot tub and exploring the beautiful Hawarden Estate in high summer.

Come on your own.
Come as a family.
Come with friends.

Summer Camp is for everyone.
And the dog!

The Craft Weekend
📆 18th - 21st July 2025

The Family Weekend
📆 25th - 28th July 2025

The Outdoors, Wellness & Adventure Weekend
📆 1st - 4th August 2025

As a day ticket holder, you’ll have full access to Summer Camp from 10am-11pm on the Saturday or Sunday of your choice.

Your dinner, cooked over fire by the award-winning Hawarden Estate Farm Shop team and outstanding guest chefs, is included with your ticket.

As are all cooking and craft workshops, lake activities, yoga at the Old Castle, sauna sessions, foraging walks, talks, tastings and much more.

You can book a spot at our pop-up spa for massages and treatments, too.

Parking is free, and you’re welcome to come and go as you please.

📣 This is the escape you’re looking for.

*Full weekend commitment is very much encouraged, of course, with over 50% of tickets sold and accommodation options running low.

📸

A gallery of (Rob Walker) murals and signs found in public, and hidden, parts of Hawarden. Plus a handful of joyful rep...
15/11/2024

A gallery of (Rob Walker) murals and signs found in public, and hidden, parts of Hawarden. Plus a handful of joyful replicas in LEGO and postcard form.

Many of these amazing pieces have been created alongside Summer Camp guests: both adults and children alike. But some of them, like our brand new sign at or the emphatic GROW stamped on the wall, were all Rob (for obvious ladder-based reasons, among other skill-related ones).

Sign writing is one of many ways in which you’ll re-discover the magic in making things with your own two hands at Summer Camp 2025.

The Craft Weekend
📆 18th - 21st July 2025

The Family Weekend
📆 25th - 28th July 2025

The Outdoors, Wellness & Adventure Weekend
📆 1st - 4th August 2025

⏰ Early bird tickets end soon!

Dreaming of midsummer sunrise/midday/sunset swims down at the lake.As a guest at Summer Camp 2025, you’ll have access to...
13/11/2024

Dreaming of midsummer sunrise/midday/sunset swims down at the lake.

As a guest at Summer Camp 2025, you’ll have access to this beautiful private lake and nature reserve all weekend long.

All that and so much more is waiting for you.

Early bird tickets end soon!

📸

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Hawarden Estate
Hawarden
CH53FB

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THE GOOD LIFE EXPERIENCE 29 APRIL - 2 MAY 2021 HAWARDEN ESTATE, FLINTSHIRE A festival of discovery and adventure.

Now in its seventh year, The Good Life Experience on the Hawarden Estate, Flintshire is absolutely unique. Founded by four friends –Cerys Matthews MBE, Steve Abbott and Charlie and Caroline Gladstone- if it fits in with their idea of The Good Life, it features at the festival. Expect to pitch your tent in the shadow of two castles, great locally produced food, axe throwing, foraging, campfire cooking, mass sing-a-longs, over 40 expert craftspeople, comedy, beer served by experts, talks by explorers, a canine circus, raucous music, abseiling, a free 1930s fairground, tree climbing, butchery displays, poetry, literature and endless How To… talks. And everything is aimed at adults and children alike; there aren’t many festivals that truly do that. 29 APRIL - 2 MAY 2021 Tickets on sale now. Dogs welcome. 15 minutes from Chester.

Come & explore: www.thegoodlifeexperience.co.uk

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