If you’ve ever visited Salisbury Plain, you’ll know what I mean about big skies. There’s something unbelievably magical about its wide heavens and the intense light – at any time of year. Summer and spring are riots of colour, when the periwinkle blue skies envelope you, autumn is aglow with ambers and umbers, and winter, when it snows, is truly Narnia-like. And now we’ve discovered another magical reason to pay a visit to The Plain: Christmas at East Farm in Codford.

Josh and Jennifer Stratton have converted one of their old farm barns into a Christmas extravaganza. It is truly magical; Nativity animals happy to be stroked, Christmas trees (sourced from a nearby farm) and decorations of all shapes and sizes, and best of all, Santa’s wonderful grotto!

Father Christmas reads the children a story, listens to their Christmas list requests and gives each child a gift to take away. Barnaby, my five-year-old son, and his chums, were totally enamoured and came away thrilled with their experience.

After the grotto, the shopping began in earnest. The barn housing the decorations is a phenomenal sight: every festive bauble, every novelty, every trinket,  every stocking filler you could possibly imagine under this one roof; from wreaths to chandeliers to bunting to handmade angels, it’s all here, and the prices are considerably lower than most high street or online shops.

Next we paid a welcome visit to the adjoining café for pots of tea and huge slices of cake. Always on the lookout for the gluten free option, I was thrilled to find that their selection of gluten free cakes all came from a small producer on The Plain.

We left, Christmas tree tied to the roof, feeling totally festive and cheery, marvelling at the big skies as we drove home across The Plain.

Images courtesy of East Farm