Willowmere House Care Home

The Hartley family opened Willowmere House in 1998, and nearly three decades later they still own and run it themselves. That kind of continuity tends to show in unremarkable ways: staff who stay for years rather than months, and routines residents can rely on rather than have to relearn. In 2019 the family extended and refurbished the building, adding the Orchard Wing for residents living with dementia, along with a sensory garden room next to it.

Willowmere House has 62 rooms in total: 54 single rooms and 8 companion rooms for couples or friends who’d rather share, all of them en suite. The main house provides residential care, while the Orchard Wing next door is organised into two households of ten to twelve residents rather than one larger dementia unit, so the people around each resident, staff and neighbours alike, are ones they come to know well.

Each resident has a named key worker, and staff in the Orchard Wing are trained specifically in dementia care. Rather than large rotating shifts, teams are kept stable and worked in small groups, which matters most to residents who find change unsettling. The Orchard Wing also has its own sensory garden room, a quieter space built around planting, texture and scent rather than open lawn, for days when the main garden feels like too much.

Respite stays and short trial stays are also available, for families who want to see how the home suits a relative before making a longer-term decision. If it looks like it could be the right fit, the best next step is to get in touch and arrange a visit.

Dining at Willowmere

Willowmere House has an in-house chef and catering team who cook meals on site each day, rather than relying on food delivered in or reheated. Menus rotate regularly and take account of individual preferences, allergies and dietary needs, and residents are asked what they’d like rather than given one set option. In the main house, residents eat together in the dining room. In the Orchard Wing, each household has its own smaller dining space, which tends to suit residents who find a larger, busier dining room harder to settle into.

Life at the home

Daily life is built around what each resident wants to do, rather than a fixed programme everyone is expected to join. The activities coordinator plans a weekly programme across the main house and the Orchard Wing: a Monday gardening group at the raised beds, a Tuesday hairdresser morning, baking with the kitchen team on Wednesdays, seated exercise on Thursdays, and a Friday reminiscence session in the Orchard Wing using photographs, music and familiar objects. A visiting chaplain leads a short weekly service for residents who wish to attend, and a fortnightly minibus outing runs into Meadowvale or along the coast.