Having lived in the village since 2002 I had known the land since I moved to what is now our house – I used to walk the dog here – and dream….. I had been inspired by the story of the MacDowell Colony in America. 

Edward MacDowell was a composer and conductor, and in 1896 he and his wife Marian bought a farm in New Hampshire and eventually turned it into a nurturing retreat for Artists (read the whole story at www.macdowellcolony.org). I dreamt of a place that would welcome people and surround them with peace, quiet and space to think, to be: to strengthen the rapidly declining link between modern life and the natural environment. Being a self employed landscape gardener and artist was never going to produce this – anyway, at the time of my dreaming, the land firmly belonged to our neighbour, and I was simply happy to have her permission to walk it and enjoy. 

In 2015 our neighbour decided to sell up and move to be nearer to family. She initially put the house and land separately for sale, with the land divided in several parcels. We made an offer for one field, wanting to develop a wild flower habitat, and plant an orchard. Our offer was accepted and we were very excited and started to make plans. One day, I suggested to David that he might like to walk through the rest of the land, as he was not familiar with it, so we did a tour of what we could actually access – so much was by now hugely overgrown and barred by 10ft high brambles. 

We walked down what is now the Sanctuary field (hayfield) and came to the clearing surrounded by Birch trees and the fiery autumn shades of Rowan, Dogwood, Guelder and Spindle. He didn’t say much, but I knew it had created a huge impact on him. Several days later he suggested that we offer to buy the whole 12 acres, which didn’t come as a surprise – I had seen the land work it’s magic….. It took one email, and 30 seconds later a 3 letter response ‘YES’! We’re glad to report that in the end she decided not to move house, and has been a valued source of information, history and encouragement to us. 

Six weeks later, and the land was ours. We walked up the first Sunday after signing, armed with secateurs, loppers and saws and got to work. We worked on the river from April to October, clearing the land for the rest of the year. We repeated this process over the next few years, right through the 12 acres, clearing and discovering glades, rides and trees. There was a barn – wood framed and part concrete, part corrugated metal, and completely covered at the front by more brambles. It did actually overlook the river, but it was built facing into the hillside, open on that side, and closed toward the river. We used it for tools, lots of wood chopping, splitting and storage, and gathered anything we found buried in hedgerows etc… 

Our first couple of years were spent walking, observing and learning about what we had on the land. We discovered bluebells – thriving in the newly created light and space, native daffodils, foxgloves and common orchids. The trees seemed to stretch and breathe, and started to flourish. We were inspired by Martin Crawford’s story of creating an edible forest garden at Dartington, and planted the top, cleared field with a selection of apples, pears, nut trees, medlar, mulberry. Quince and plums. I also started a small patch trialling raspberries, gooseberries, hops and honeyberries, but the difficulties lay in protecting it as naturally as possible from deer and rabbits. The solution seemed to be letting the brambles grow back around, creating a thorn hedge. We named this field ‘Phil’s Forest Garden’, after our neighbour’s late husband who would have relished the task we had started, being endlessly energetic and creative. 

During these years we were so lucky to be able to host ‘workaways’ international volunteers who combine travel with practical projects, in exchange for board and lodging. We have met and are still in contact with many wonderful individuals from all over the world. Every time I look at a part of the land or a project I think of the person who helped – they were a wonderful help, inspirational and good company! 

Whilst we were building, very little happened on the land, as the project took all of our time, energy and money! Part of the barn field had to be dug out, so the top soil was put to one side, and all the shale was transported to the top of the Sanctuary field as so much had eroded down the hill. A part of the landscaping was building a long row of gabions (wire cages filled with stone), but unusually we also used earth as well as stone as we wanted to encourage wildlife and plants. Eventually this has also given us a platform to place raised beds for growing veg and herbs.  A large pond was eventually created from the topsoil heap, along with a smoothing out of the land at the bottom of the field. 

Then after our first short season we found we were locked down – better for us than many people, as we were able to get outside and catch up with all the landscape jobs that had been neglected. So I built raised beds for vegetables, using cardboard, manure, compost and straw, managed to get hold of some fantastic wholesale fruit bushes and created several fruit gardens, put a small polytunnel up and restored a second hand greenhouse from Sue, the original owner. We also built a large deck around the pond, and we started to plant more apple, plum and pear trees in our fledgling forest orchard.