Devon self catering accommodation

We hold Gold awards in both the Devon Wildlife Trust’s approval scheme, and the Green Tourism Business Scheme, recognising our commitment to sustainability and wildlife conservation.

Your accommodation: The lodges are extremely well-insulated, and all our electricity comes from 100% renewable sources. So your heating and power is entirely green. Firewood for Otter cottage’s wood-burning stove comes from our own managed woodland. When we have to replace appliances, we always buy ‘A rated’ for energy efficiency.

We hope you’ll join us in recycling paper, cardboard, glass, cans, drink cartons and food-plastic, and putting food waste in the biodigesters. We collect hazardous waste, like batteries, separately so they don’t end up in landfill sites. We estimate doing this is reducing our landfill rubbish by at least 75%.

All three lodges have solar water (with immersion back up) and we’re planning the same for Otter cottage. We plan to switch laundry and our own house from mains to well and rain water supplies. We are on private drainage, so we take care what we put down the drains, minimizing harmful cleaning products, and using easily-biodegraded washing up liquid and laundry detergent.

We offer free station transfers to those arriving to our Devon self catering accommodation by train, loan guests free ‘farm bikes’ for local trips, and encourage walking and cycling holidays by offering advice on routes and working with a local company who leave hire bikes with us, or at start points of rides.

We promote local food producers and retailers (including a neighbouring farm shop with organic produce). You can ‘order ahead’ through our website.

Using traditional management, we’re reverting the meadow in front of the lodges to wildflowers.
Wherever possible, we manage the land without chemicals. It’s our policy to use hand tools where practical (scythe rather than strimmer etc).

We like to put fresh flowers on the tables, but not ones with airmiles attached!
All our Devon self catering accommodation was built as holiday lets - they are not second homes, and there's no planning permission for year-round occupation. So your stay boosts the local economy without taking accommodation away from local people.
We now have planning permission to build a new very low carbon lodge, using straw bales, timber from a local woodland conservation project, rainwater harvesting, grey water recycling and as many eco-features as we can cram in. We're determined to build something with a really low carbon footprint.

The farm: We took over the farm in October 2006, and use the revenue from the holiday cottages to manage the land for wildlife – so your stay makes a very real contribution to conservation in Devon.

We’re particularly privileged to own Popehouse Moor, 7 acres of Culm grassland. It’s designated as a 'Site of Special Scientific Interest', marking it out as one of the country's very best wildlife sites.

It is lightly grazed by cows in summer and sometimes burnt (or ‘swaled’) in winter. This helps maintain habitat for the rare Marsh Fritillary butterfly, now threatened throughout Europe. Several rare and locally important plants grow here, including Wavy St Johns-Wort, and a botanical survey in 2009 found 190 species of plant.

However, before our arrival the site endured a decade or so of neglect. To reverse this, we are cutting back encroaching brambles, opening up over-grown ponds and marshy areas, and regenerating old coppiced hazel stands. Our guests are welcome to explore, or just ask if you want a guide. We are developing better-marked paths and more interpretive information. We ask you not to take dogs into Popehouse Moor (we don’t take our own), and to leave flowers and dead wood for the bees and the minibeasts. Devon and Cornwall have lost a staggering 92% of their culm grassland since the 1900s, with 62% of sites and 48% of their total area disappearing between 1984 and 1991. We’ll be taking good care of this special place.

Elsewhere on the farm, small fields are delineated by overgrown hedgerows, some on traditional Devon banks. We’re starting to manage them actively for birds and animals. Our land has a covenant that specifically bans intensive agriculture.

We have nest boxes for barn owls, dormice and bats, as well as garden birds, and we’re growing plants around our five ponds to improve their value for wildlife.

In autumn 2008 we re-shaped our largest pond, making it better for wildlife and introducing more wetland areas for birds, flowers and dragonflies. With help from the Environment Agency we gave the fish away to a local community angling club. With no carp water plants, tadpoles etc will thrive (you can still fish the small pond).

The business: The holiday accommodation makes managing our land for Devon’s wildlife financially viable, but it’s not just about the wildlife. Maggie is a PhD ecologist and science communicator. Ian has 20 years experience in sustainable tourism and is a ‘greening mentor’ for Devon’s business network for green tourism. We strive to make our lifestyle and business truly sustainable.

Our office is now almost entirely paper-free. Wherever possible we reuse paper, and when we can’t, we use recycled.

Our environmental policy is on our website and in our visitor information packs, and we also have a green choices blog, where we record and assess the sustainability of our business decisions. We are a green business, but you don’t need to be super green to stay here – it’s for everyone. We want to show that a sustainable holiday doesn't mean giving up all the good things.