The Retreat Animal Rescue

My daughter and I love it here, luckily it's just up the road. Billy and his staff are great and do a good job looking after all the rescue animals. The vegan cafe serves some lovely food. They also have a good charity shop.🥰

Today my wife, 1-year-old son and I visited The Retreat for the first time.
Even before we had properly entered we were greeted by a drove of gorgeous pigs - well worth the hour journey straight away!
As it was about 1.30pm by the time we arrived we headed straight for the café. The choice was plentiful but as my wife is still occasionally breastfeeding our soya-intollerent son the server suggested we avoid most items on the menu.
I decided upon the chicken-style burger with loaded fries and my wife had the chicken-style wings with loaded fries. This does sound a lot to eat but we were so pleased we did order this as there was a 90 minute wait for the food to arrive. I was told when I ordered 45 minutes but at least they offered to take my mobile number so we could enjoy The Retreat while our food was being cooked.
I received a message an hour later to say our lunch would be ready in 5-10 minutes. Unfortunately, it was still another 30 minutes. I think this was unusual for them due to how busy it was.
When the food arrived it was just what we wanted. Great portion sizes and very tasty. The chicken-style wings were the Biff's ones found in Waitrose and the burger was thick with a good crunchy coating. Normally we wouldn't wait this long and expect to pay £35, however it is worth this and more when you believe in The Retreat's mission.
The charity shop had a lovely Next polo shirt for our son and I found lots of food to take home in Jenning's Pantry.
Please note, the toilets were unisex and basic but clean. Also, next time we would not take the pushchair as the ground is understandably uneven in parts.

An amazing place to visit. Seeing so many animals that have a safe place to see out their lives is so heart warming. The volunteers do an amazing job here. The cafe serves really good 100%Vegan choices that all help towards looking after the animals. Great little shop with ambient and chilled items and also a great little shop with donated items to buy. Was a 140 mile round trip to come here but well worth it.

Cannot put in words what a magical haven this place is. It is filled with good vibes and 100% positivity. Everything about this place is beautiful - the people, the animals, the food and the atmosphere. I wish I lived closer - I would love to move in with the animals!!

Incredible place run by dedicated, lovely friendly volunteers. Billy, who I think was the owner was a joy to be around with such a great energy. So many animals to see, all I imagine that have been rescued under very varied circumstances. I have never seen such a huge selection of pigs of all shapes, breeds and sizes! The vegan cafe had a great selection of really good food, drinks and ice creams. There was even a charity shop with some very reasonable bargains to be had. We will definitely be going back.

If you want to visit somewhere where angels exist, this is literally the place to go. What an absolutely incredible perfect day and might I add life CHANGING, going in being animal lovers and leaving this wonderful place on a path to being vegan, not only because the cafe serves amazing food! with such a wide variety on the menu and NO FOOD goes to waste! Any food you have left over goes to the beautiful piggies ☺️.

Meeting Billy, his sister and his wonderful family and staff was such a pleasure they were all so welcoming and such amazing people to welcome us to their sanctuary they built from the ground up and hearing the story behind The Retreat was mind blowing.

I highly recommend the founders tour for your visit, meeting the animals and hearing their incredible stories and how they’re now in their forever homes being cared for every day. I promise if you visit this place your whole view will change. We’re animal people, cannot stand the human populace… but this place restored our faith in humanity.

We cannot recommend enough, counting down the days til our next visit.

Thank you for welcoming us and changing our lives ☺️❤️

Lovely place to visit and for the kids to learn about animals that have problems or need homes! Fantastic vegan cafe there too, never felt so safe to eat! 😋

A farm animal sanctuary, they have a wide variety of animals.. Chickens, ducks, turkeys, pigs, cows, horses, sheep, donkeys and goats etc etc. the animals all looked very cared for and must be relieved to be somewhere safe and sound. There are toilets, a second hand shop and their own (licensed!) vegan cafe selling a really good choice of hot and cold food. Plenty of parking as well. A really good cause and a lovely place to visit.