West Wight self catering apartment in Brook, England
How this holiday makes a difference
Environment
We have restored the properties using local skills and crafts where possible. This has included restoring Italianate plaster ceilings and fine Victorian stonework in the main house. We have a fantastic group of local tradesmen who provide us with a wonderful service for ongoing maintenance and repairs. (The Forth Bridge springs to mind....!)
As the properties are Grade II listed, there is much we cannot do to conserve energy, such as double glazing. What we can do, we have done, including roof insulation, thick curtains to conserve heat loss, and new boilers to be as energy efficient as possible. We use energy efficient light bulbs, and we have fitted solar PV panels to Brook House which produces electricity for the house.
Walking is a major attraction of this area, and much can be done from the door of the property. We encourage this, and cycling, by promoting the available walks and cycle paths (and local cycle hire), and offering bike storage if needed. Our local bus service is limited, but we provide details of it. For example for the Isle of Wight Festival, we have visitors who rely on the bus service to get them to and from the festival site.
We support the Island Waste's efforts to recycle and reduce rubbish, and we ask our visitors to do likewise. We compost what we can for the garden. We have lots of apple trees, and we encourage our visitors to enjoy them if they are here at the right time of year!
We have recently offered a home to 3 hives of bees, and we are already enjoying the honey, and looking forward to seeing what extra benefit these busy bees bring to the garden.
Community
We promote the use by our visitors of local shops and services. There are wonderful local food and farm shops, of which we provide details in our information book, and we encourage visitors to find these and use them in preference to the major supermarkets. There are also many good Island pubs and restaurants. For these, we provide a list of local establishments, and our current favourites, for visitors. We also encourage visitors to leave details of places that they have enjoyed for later guests.
We couldn't offer our cottages to visitors without the excellent efforts of our local team of cleaners and other help, including the expert work in the garden.
There are many local activities that visitors can enjoy, and we provide information about these - such as the dinosaur walks on the local beaches, looking for the dinosaur footprints (they are there...!) There are also a wide range of activities that can be enjoyed locally by visitors and residents alike, including fishing, paragliding, sailing and golf, just as a few examples. We provide information about these local opportunities.
Belinda has been a member of the committee running the Seely Hall (in Brook, and a charity) for many years and we both supports its events and fundraising. The Brook House garden has been opened every other year in recent years and the money raised has supported the Hall.
Belinda is also a Harbour Commissioner for Yarmouth, which is a trust port and has an important impact on life in the West Wight, both because it provides moorings for local residents, but also brings many visitors to this part of the Island.
Landscape
We are lucky to be located both in the Isle of Wight AONB and the Tennyson Heritage Coast. Within the AONB, and the Island generally, there is an extensive rights of way network with fabulous walks (and views) for walkers, cyclists and horse riders. The landscape offers a wide choice of aspect - from dramatic cliffs and the coastal downland to rolling farmland, and quiet woodlands and estuaries with rare wildlife. The area around Brook consists of large, regular gently undulating fields, predominantly arable, with low hedgerow with few hedgerow trees.
Added to the unspoilt AONB surrounding us is the Tennyson Heritage Coast, which is breathtaking, with long distance views to the Channel and multi-coloured cliffs.
And along with the unspoilt beaches and undeveloped coastline, there are the chines and fossil rich habitat; during your stay, a trip to find the dinosaur footprints at Brook Bay is a must!
To help to share information about all of this with visitors, we provide information about the AONB and Heritage Coasts, plus books and leaflets with details of local walks and cycle trails together with an OS map. We are keen walkers, with two spaniels to exercise, so enjoy many of the local walks ourselves, and are very happy to talk to visitors with suggestions.
A wonderful book about the history of Brook has recently been written and published by neighbours; called "Brook, A Village History", this is a lottery funded project, and a copy of this book is in each cottage for our visitors' enjoyment. With the recent interest in Warhorse, both with the play and film, visitors may be interested that the real warhorse, called Warrior, owned and ridden by General Jack Seely in the first World War (and dubbed as the horse that the Germans couldn't kill) was bred and lived here in Brook.
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