Sarah had been determined from the outset that guests shouldn't feel disconnected from Fowey's charm, even with the farm sitting a mile or so above the town. So she put the pools in. And she has never stopped working on the land itself, making it pesticide-free, planting and restoring. It is the kind of patient stewardship that rarely makes headlines but makes all the difference: the difference between a place that looks finished and a place that feels genuinely cared for. Higher Lampetho is not a finished project and never will be. It is a living landscape, and Sarah would have it no other way. But the holiday homes are only part of the story. Because before the first bedroom was fitted out, before the first pool was filled, Jonny had already started building a bike park.

It wasn't originally part of the plan. Jonny had been riding his mountain bike across the farm's dramatic hillside terrain, talking with a friend, trail-builder Jasper, about what the land could become. One conversation led to another, and what started as a hobby became Woody's Bike Park, Cornwall's first dedicated mountain bike park, built in 2016 and opened to the public in 2017. "The bike park got built first," Sarah confirms, still faintly amused by it. "That probably tells you something about Jonny too."

Designed like a ski run with blue, red and black-graded trails cascading down the open hillside, Woody's is unlike almost any other riding venue in the country. There are no trees to navigate, no stumps to dodge, just wide, beautifully sculpted trails with dramatic jumps, perfectly shaped tables and doubles that demand commitment and reward it handsomely with serious airtime. At the bottom, an uplift service returns riders and their bikes back to the summit, so the only direction of travel is blissful, adrenaline-soaked descent. The views from the top are, predictably, extraordinary.

The park is British Cycling-approved and hosts major events, including the South West XC Series and the National XC Championships, as well as the Veterans Race with the Royal Navy. It also works closely with the Cornwall Bicycle Project. When I visited, nineteen young people from the project were making the most of the trails. Riders come from across Cornwall and far beyond; international visitors regularly describe Woody's as among their favourite parks in the world. One commentator at an Olympic cross-country event noted that a competing rider had faced harder terrain here. "That kind of thing doesn't get old to hear," Sarah admits.

The hub at the centre of it all, where I sit with Sarah on these two glorious sunny days, provides everything a rider needs: toilets, coffee, snacks, essential bike supplies, and a carefully curated selection of Woody's merchandise. Riders under 16 must have a parent on site; those tackling the black run need a full-face helmet. Safety, Sarah is clear, is never an afterthought.

What makes Higher Lampetho Farm so special is how all of this coexists. On the same 110 acres, a guest at Little Polkkerris might spend a morning soaking in the hot tub with nothing but birdsong, a few inquisitive sheep, and sea views for company, entirely unaware that fifty metres away, in another world entirely, a rider is dropping into a black run at speed, heart in mouth, drone overhead, grinning all the way to the bottom. The two things share a farm. They share almost nothing else. It is a harmony born of good design and smart thinking: the holiday properties tucked into the hillside with their own rhythm, the bike park flowing down the open slopes with its own energy, noise and community. Neither intrudes on the other. Both are the better for the other being there.

The hub, where Sarah and I have spent two sunny mornings talking, ties it all together without forcing it. Recently it has begun hosting yoga sessions with Gather and Flo, the hilltop setting lending itself naturally to something grounded and contemplative. That feels right for a place like this: expansive enough to hold many different things, coherent enough to make them feel like one.

As for what comes next, Sarah is characteristically clear-eyed. The holiday properties will keep being refined and improved. The bike park will keep evolving. The hedgerows will keep being tended, the trees will keep growing, the gates will keep being rehung when the wind takes them off their hinges. "It's not really about what's next," she says. "It's about continuing to make everything better. There's always something to do." 

From this particular hilltop, with Cornwall unfolding to the sea below, that sounds less like a business plan and more like a life well chosen. A very good one at that.