Canterbury retreat cottage, England
How this holiday makes a difference
Environment
Witherdens Hall is an organic spa Retreat; we only use organic products and offer Neal’s Yard remedies in our bathrooms. They are an independent, British owned company who were the first to be certified organic health and beauty and hold a fair trade certificate.
We have our own vegetable garden that we grow a number of crops in. We do not use pesticides or sprays and we encourage our guests to harvest from it, try our home grown beans or use our nearby farm shops for locally sourced, healthy foods which we have seen growing in the fields around us. Everything we use is organic, from our lovely fruit to our cleaning products!
We aim to recycle 80% of our waste, re-using where we can, aiming to make the least environmental impact whilst maintaining a high quality standard throughout.
We keep Kune Kune pigs, they help recycle food waste and their manure helps to grow next year’s garden. You may also see our free range chickens wandering the family garden. Their eggs are divine and we would offer nothing else with our breakfasts!
Our electricity is mostly produced by our solar panels, letting us put back into the National grid and keep environmentally friendly. Sustaining our ethos of keeping off grid, our next project is to find our spring and tap into its natural resource.
We drive a low emissions car for business purposes, and encourage guests to come by public transport wherever possible. We offer the use of bicycles to guests and encourage them to explore the local area by bike, bus and on foot.
Community
Witherdens Hall looks to employs local people on every occasion possible. We always use local therapists for all our treatments that we offer in our MiniSpa which is based in our ChillSpace, taking no commission so that you know that what we recommend is what we truly believe in and we are honoured to be able to recommend them all. Every person on our team is locally based from housekeeping to secretarial, with local tradesmen providing any extra services needed.
Our recommendations to our guests are all for our local business’, from pubs and restaurants to places to go and visit or local attractions, all of our produce is bought from nearby farm shops and locally sourced. We work closely in partnership with other accommodation providers in the village as we also run courses for larger numbers of people and use partners for additional bed and breakfast facilities. We encourage our guests to go local as most things are within walking distance.
We helped form the Lower Stour Valley Tourism group. This is a group of like minded local tourism businesses showcasing the best of the Lower Stour Valley in Kent. We organise events to promote local business, highlighting new attractions and promoting the outstanding local facilities.
Louise & Craig Chester have explored the area extensively and are happy to give recommendations of their favourite places to visit and of course the best places and to eat and drink in. Whitstable and Canterbury Cycle Hire have lovely bikes stationed at Witherdens Hall for your use and have worked out beautiful routes to take you around some of the prettiest villages and most interesting attractions.
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