Tel. +44 (0)1273 600030 (UK)
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We hold Gold awards in both the Devon Wildlife Trust’s approval scheme, and the Green Tourism Business Scheme, where we were also shortlisted for a coveted Gold Star Award (shortlist of just 40 across UK and Ireland) in 2011. We won a Silver award for sustainable tourism in the Visit Devon 2010/2011 awards and a Bronze in the South West Tourism Excellence Awards 2010/2011. We are in The Times Top 20 Farm Stays 2011 for our environmental ethos.
Your accommodation: We are a green business offering 'mainstream' accommodation (sandals and hair shirts not required). A responsible holiday shouldn't mean giving up all the good things! Our ethos is simply sustainability and relaxed comfort, not consumption and 'luxury'.
Our grid-connected wind turbine produces more power than our lodges, home and business use in a year, making your stay effectively carbon neutral (and if it's calm your electricity comes from a 100% renewable grid tariff). Firewood for Otter cottage’s wood-burning stove is from our own managed woodland. When we have to replace appliances, we always buy ‘A rated’ for energy efficiency. We buy recycled products wherever we can.
We ask you to join us in recycling paper, cardboard, glass, cans, drink cartons, and food-plastic, and putting all food waste in the biodigesters. We collect hazardous waste, like batteries, separately so they don’t end up in landfill sites. Your help already lets us keep nearly 80% of our waste out of landfill. Our ambition is 'nearly nothing to landfill' by 2015.
All three lodges and the cottage have solar hot water (with immersion back up). We plan to switch laundry and our own accommodation from mains to well and rain water supplies. We are on private drainage, so we take great care what we put down the drains, minimizing harmful cleaning products, and using easily-biodegraded washing up liquid and laundry detergent.
We will collect and return you to the bus or train station if you arrive at our Devon self catering accommodation without a car. You can borrow free ‘farm bikes’ for local trips, and we encourage car-free, walking and cycling holidays by offering itinerary suggestions, time tables and our local knowledge.
We promote local food producers and retailers (including a neighbouring farm shop with organic produce). You can ‘order ahead’ through our website.
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 North Devon's economy without taking accommodation away from local people.
We are building 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. Come and see it being built and maybe get some ideas for your own home!
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 wildlife 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 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.
We've 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 are thriving (fishing is now in the small pond!).
In 2011 we were admitted to the government's Higher Level Stewardship Scheme, which will really accelerate our management for wildlife.
The business and beyond: The holiday accommodation is what 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. She is a local councillor and takes a strong interest in community sustainability issues. Ian has 25 years experience in sustainable tourism and is active in local 'greening networks' for tourism in Devon. 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 invite every traveller who books a holiday via us to send in a review. Because we don't run the holidays they're completely independent and unedited... remember to read between the lines though, as two people on the same holiday can have different views!
