Border Holidays at Ffrydd House

About Martin Holborow and Margaret Leach

Owners Martin Holborow and Margaret Leach are in their early 60s. Martin spent most of his life working for Barclays Bank, ultimately as a small business manager, while Margaret was a market researcher, marketing consultant and publisher. They still run their own publishing company, Pyrabelisk, specialising in Russian and East European business reports on the timber, paper, packaging and printing industries. They bought Ffrydd House in 2003, having been warned by the estate agent that they should ‘take no notice of the front of the house as you will think you have come to the wrong place’. The internal photos turned out to be just as misleading, as they were surprised to discover a large, elegant 200 year old town house with 25 foot reception rooms, a farmhouse kitchen and wooden staircase, not to mention extensive gardens. The only drawback was the distance they had to travel on business trips. This resulted in them buying a house on the German-Czech border in autumn 2004, with the idea of letting an apartment in the house to help cover the running costs as that part of Bavaria has all year lettings due to winter sports on the Arber mountain. This lead to a ‘mini-empire’ of 4 houses and 9 letting apartments in the Bavarian Forest, due to unexpectedly high demand from German and especially non-German guests. They currently spend most of their time there, running ‘Bavarian Forest Holidays’.