East Sussex self catering barn, England
How this holiday makes a difference
Environment
Both the Games Barn and the farm use recycled rainwater. In the Barn we installed a very large tank in the old silage tip and that takes all the rainwater from the Barn and uses it to feed the toilets and the washing machine. It also tops up with mains water when the tank runs dry (which only happens in very hot prolonged summers) which ensures that the toilets always flush!. The washing machine has a "reduced water" setting which we keep on at all times and the toilets have a low flush option.
In the farm area we have installed a further 3 large tanks to provide drinking water for the animals and water for general cleaning out. We are just installing a further 2 tanks for which we have secured a Catchment Sensitive Farming grant. Our hope is that by the end of 2012, all our barns will provide water to storage tanks and our mains water consumption will be minimal.
We encourage recycling of paper, cardboard, glass, plastic, cans etc and provide separate bins for each of these items. We use unsold vegetables, flowers etc from the village and unused food items from oursleves and guests to feed our animals. The waste sytem for the toilets feeds into an environmentally friendly eco system (an Enso unit) which sorts and filters the waste, returning as much of it as possible to the stream. We installed the system when the Barn was converted and have also linked our house toilet to the same process. We get the system checked regularly to ensure it meets the stringent quality checks required by the water authorities.
We are in the Entry Level Stewardship scheme and have also just secured a grant to improve the fencing of our ancient woodland.
Community
We provide a Welcome Pack which includes details of all the main shops in the village, many local restaurants and a host of other attractions. We always encourage our holidaymakers to shop in the village - as we do ourselves - or to purchase our own produce from the farm (our eggs and jam are provided on arrival as a taster!) Our Visitors Book contains a lot of information about places other guests have visited, and we provide a pack of information from East Sussex tourism.
All of our produce is sold locally, including meat to the butcher and pubs and eggs to the greengrocer. We provide plenty of farm manure to the local horticultural society A number of local people also store items in our barns , including the local plumber and odd job man. The local Round Table holds an annual fireworks show with up to 10,000 people and they store all the temporary fencing etc here free of charge. We offer our holiday home to the local community at reduced rates and have even hosted a small local choir for rehearsals. We are members of the Small Farm Training Group which aims to help like minded people develop the skills they need to run their farms. Whilst we started as information gatherers, in recent times we have become confident enough to pass our knowledge onto others in the Group.
Landscape
Our farm provides 30 acres of wonderful countryside with a wealth of different experiences. In the 5 years we have lived here we have learnt how to make blackberry wine, a whole host of jams, we now know what a sloe is, we know that acorns and sheep are not a good idea but acorns and pigs work very well together. We have learnt how to butcher our own meat, how to smoke the meat and how to cure the bacon/ham. We know what a partridge looks (and sounds) like and what a hornbeam is. We know (sort of ) how to shear the sheep and trim their feet. The list is endless. We are very happy to share any of these experiences (and many others) with all our guests.
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