Celebrating Welsh Start Ups: By-the-Wye 

11/01/23

For this week’s celebration of Welsh entrepreneurs, we bring to you ‘By-the-Wye’, a luxury treetop glamping accommodation in the heart of Wales. Steve and Dawn Farnworth have prior experience running an accommodation as they managed a B&B for close to 19 years. Being avid travellers and enjoying camping and the woods, they took up the first opportunity to convert the woodland next to their house into a glamping location.

Steve and Dawn were excited to build a campsite in the woods but realised that they wanted to be unique and build something that wasn’t commonly available. After looking at multiple options, they came up with the idea of investing in elevated tents. Perched on elevated platforms, the tents are up in the trees and give By-the-Wye its unique selling point.  

By-the-Wye is a family run, luxury business, located on the edge of the Brecon Beacons National Park, that offers an eco-friendly and sustainable experience for its guests. Safari tents come with roaring campfires, beautiful beds, sumptuous sofas, running water, flushing toilets, eco-friendly toiletries, and fully equipped kitchens. The glamping site runs on solar energy and generators and is designed to minimise impact on the environment as it attracts a lot of wildlife.  

Running a niche business of this sort has its own set of challenges and requires expert business support. Edith Farnworth, daughter of Dawn and Steve and co-founder of the business, contacted the Focus Newtown Enterprise Hub who supported them with business advice and helped draw out a structured business plan.

Edith says, “Sitting down with an expert in the field gave me huge insights into how to structure our planning process. This advice was extremely valuable as I had never accessed business support before, and the process helped provide structure and direction for our business. The experts at the Hub also signposted me to some relevant courses that proved to be very useful.”

At Business in Focus, we aim to recognise home-grown talent and celebrate Welsh start-ups. If you have a dream to create a business, we can support you