Field of dreams at Feather Down Farm

It was a dark and windy night in a field near Devizes. The rain seeped through our clothes, our head torches were running out of batteries and we could hear a cow snorting nearby.

We thought we would never reach our destination, but then Farmer Joe flipped open a tarpaulin door to reveal a large tented room, twinkling with candles and warmed by a wood-burning stove, a vase of wild flowers on the table. I'll be cutting the sheep's hooves tomorrow morning, if you'll be wanting to watch,' he said.

This was our first introduction to a Feather Down Farm, a concept imported to this country from Holland by the man who invented CenterParcs. But the Feather Down approach couldn't be more different from a surreal holiday in a glass dome; it is about staying on working farms and engaging with nature in a simple way. So simple, in fact, that there is no electricity, and when we woke the next day we had to get the wood-burner fired up to heat the water before we could even have a cup of tea.

In recent years there has been much talk of glamorous camping – yurts with cashmere throws and the like – but this holiday is definitely more about experience than luxury; in fact, we decided it was rather like staying in one of those medieval re-enactment villages. An impression only reinforced by our first visitors that morning, a muddy-faced couple followed by about eight unwashed children (all fellow guests), their hands and pockets brimful of eggs just collected from the hen house.

We took a dozen, and by the time we had scrambled them, the sun had burned off the clouds and we were able to sit outside and review our surroundings. We were in a large field with four other tents, all far enough away to maintain privacy. The adjacent meadow was inhabited by geese, sheep and cows who squawked, bleated and bellowed as Farmer Joe trundled into the field in his John Deere tractor for the farm tour.

As we bounced around on hay bales in the back of the tractor, Joe told us about his decision to take his farm, Belle Vue, organic in 1999, showed us the glossy black and white cows responsible for Waitrose organic milk and pointed out the ant hill where the badgers who live by the stream stop off for a snack every night before making their way to the maize fields. There were acres of swaying buttercups, 400-year-old oak trees and tales of gentleman highwaymen who hid out in these parts.

Farmer Joe could have spun his stories all day, but we had a date with some trees. Westonbirt Arboretum is the home of England's most rare and venerable specimens; here we wandered along dappled lanes beneath great green canopies and danced about in heady flower meadows busy with bees and butter-flies. I particularly loved the yews with their twisted trunks and rust-coloured bark. Called the tree of life because of its longevity, the yew was revered by druids and early Christians alike, and recently has been found to contain a chemical that inhibits the spread of cancer. You learn a lot at Westonbirt.

On our way back to our Wiltshire base camp we stopped off at The Barge Inn in Seend Cleeve for a pint of local Wadworth ale by the Avon canal, stately barges gliding past as we drank. After which we felt sufficiently fortified for a second night under canvas.

The following morning we headed for Lacock, a village gifted to the National Trust in 1914 and unchanged since then. With its well-preserved Tudor buildings and strict diktats on modern aberrations, the village is the spiritual home of BBC period drama. Cranford is filmed here – we saw a poster advertising for local extras – and even the girls working in the bakery sport floppy white bonnets. We ate a rich cottage pie at The George Inn, a pub with an ancient roasting spit, before looking around Lacock Abbey, home of William Fox Talbot, the inventor of modern
photography. The house, Gothic with Victorian updates, was built on top of a 13th-century abbey that, most unusually, was not razed during Henry VIII's Dissolution. Its medieval stonework and elegant cloisters still remain and are today used as a location for the Harry Potter films.

We returned to Belle Vue Farm one last time to pack our belongings, acquire yet more fresh eggs and bid farewell to the bedraggled yet wildly happy children running amok in the fields. For despite, or perhaps because of, its privations, this is a place where all modern cares are banished.