South downs self catering cottage, England
How this holiday makes a difference
Environment
We have an abundance of wild life around us, from the declining house sparrow and the spectacular buzzards which are now frequently heard / seen flying over the Downs. Badgers roam our wood opposite Copper Beeches and quite often I meet them on late summer evenings, as well as deer, fox, hares, weasels, squirrels and rabbits etc.
We keep our household waste to a minimum, recycling as much as possible, and we encourage our self catering guests to save all vegetable wasteand give to our pigs. Any waste bread, rice and pasta etc. our chickens and ducks love to devour.This is a double sided pleasure, both for our guests and animals/fowl.
We have recently fitted solar panels to our south facing roof and are extremely pleased with the results. Our wood is sourced from sustainable woods locally, this generates all our heating, cooking and hot water during the winter months.
When we changed the use of our farm outbuildings, to our self catering cottages, this was done in a sympathetic way, by using existing materials and replacing tiles, stone etc. with used materials when needed.
Where possible we use our own meat and vegetable produce for the breakfast table as well as our own chicken and duck eggs. Our jams and preserves are gathered from either our garden or the hedgerows.
Community
We recommend that guests use our two local pubs, 'The Ship' and 'The White Hart' for eating out. The pubs obtain their beer from Ballards Brewery, which is located about 5 miles away at Nyewood. The pub food is locally sourced when possible, i.e.seasonal vegetables, in fact The Ship has our own 'Torberry Pork' on their menu at times. Our local village shop in South Harting offers many local products for sale as well as newspapers etc, that our guests may require.
Once a month (the first Friday in the month) South Harting has a local market in the British Legion Hall, where local producers sell their goods - eggs, vegetables, cakes, jams, marmalades, post cards, jewellery etc.
Once a month we also have a Farmers Market in Petersfield which we use and encourage our guests to visit for even more fresh and local produce.
Once a year 'South Harting Festival' takes place ( the last Bank Holiday Monday in May), when the main street is closed to traffic. It has all the usual activities for all ages - the War veterans march throug the village from the church, face painting, tombola, book stall, cake stand to mention just a few. Money raised is for the Village and Local Charities.
Landscape
As owners of a young Weimaraner called Oscar, who needs plenty of excercise, we walk ourselves a great deal, so we are in an ideal position to tell our guests of the very many places of varied landscapes interest. These include 'Beacon Hill' at Harting Down, 'Butser Hill' and 'Old Winchester Hill', all on the South Downs Way. A very different landscape is 'Kingley Vale', an ancient Yew Tree Forest. Petworth House and Grounds, where wild (semi tame) deer herds, roam the Park and you can walk quite close to them, is also worth a visit. We have O.S. maps which are frequently lent to guests so that they can explore the local area.
We also suggest that maybe guests would like to walk to the village, using the footpath opposite Copper Beeches which leads up to the South Down Way, along it and then following the footpath down into South Harting, which takes less than an hour.
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