Brithdir Mawr Community A community of people living and working together in a sustainable way How to VisitCoursesContact UsApplying to JoinHome

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Important Note Sept 16th 2008 Are you looking for information about the recent planning decision about the various buildings at The Roundhouse (built by Jane Faith and Tony Wrench) and Tir Ysbrydol (built by Emma Orbach)? If so, you are in the wrong place. We are delighted to hear that these projects of our neighbours have gained planning approval. But we are not a contact point for them. The press keep calling us about it - we're really sorry but we cannot help you with this. The Roundhouse and Tir Ysbrydol are our neighbours - they are two separate holdings further down the lane. While we are pleased to hear of their planning result, they are not part of Brithdir Mawr Community and we can't represent them to the press. You need to leave a message for them directly on 01239 821099 or check their website at www.thatroundhouse.info If you are press wanting a reaction from us about our neighbours project, we have here a press release.

 

Welcome to Brithdir Mawr Community

 

We are a collective of people working towards sustainability who wish to share their aim with others.

We take care of the land, recycle and conserve resources, garden and farm organically and are off the grid for electricity and water.
We are 8 big people and 4 little ones who choose to live here: working, eating, meeting and laughing together.
Being a community is a large part of what we do.
To sum up the rest; we are striving towards a life in which our footprints are as light as they can be.

In the course of our communal and personal lives we weigh up the pros and cons of our decisions against these 3 principles:

SUSTAINABILITY	to live a lifestyle that leaves the environment - both local and global - better, or at least no worse, at the end of our lives.
PEOPLE	to live such that the benefits of collective living outweigh the difficulties; so that working together is easier and more enjoyable than working separately; so that we will all flourish and feel at home.
EDUCATION	to share and exchange skills and experience to help both others and ourselves move towards a more sustainable lifestyle.

Whatever decision we come to in the end, we have arrived there conscious of the ethical implications of that choice and that action.

Living in the Community

General
Community life is centered around the farm yard.
Each person/family has a private living space either in the farm house, or in one of the converted farm building round the yard. Each unit or flat has its own kitchen, sitting room and bedrooms, but the bathrooms are shared.

Downstairs in the 'big house' we have large communal areas where me may eat, meet, cook, and wash the milking buckets. We have shared evening meals together several times a week, and work together part time to run the farm.

Those who live here put in both time and money to make the place work: we all have a monthly bill for the rental and upkeep of the site, and we all contribute our labour round the farm and buildings doing all varied things needed to keep an 85-acre site running.

As well as doing 18 hours communal work each week (which is very varied and ranges from milking to book-keeping), everyone also has their own part-time paid job locally to provide their personal income and pay the rent. So living here is a full-time occupation.

We all try to take on a mix of things that are suited to our skills and interests, as well as things that just need to be done. For things like milking, the milkers have a rota, so no-one has do it every morning.

Legally, we have a housing cooperative to lease the buildings and land, and a limited company to manage our business/farming activities.

We consider these legal structures merely as tools that we can use to interact with the outside world; allowing us to communicate more clearly with official bodies and giving structure to our financial affairs.

Food
We grow a lot of our own food, and we have two main garden areas of about 1/2 acre each, looked after by different people, with lots of help from volunteers and other community members.

We also have polytunnels, and a chunk of land set aside for growing field-scale crops such as potatoes.

It's fantastic having fresh vegetables all year round, and following the seasons as different things come to harvest.

We do a lot of bottling and preserving to last us through the winter and spring, too.

Click here to read more about The Top Garden & The Bottom Garden

Energy

For electricity, we are off-grid, and make our own mains from the wind, sun and rain. We have plenty of power almost all the time, and have most modern appliances like DVD players, wireless broadband, and powertools - but we are very efficient in our use of them.

By not leaving things on standby, and using big things only when there is surplus power, we only consume 1/20th of the electricity that the 'average' person uses each day. (That makes it much easier to generate enough for our needs.) Later, you'll be able to click here to read more about our electricty system.

For heating the houses, and domestic hot water, we have solar water heaters, and wood-fired boilers. We use 36 tons of wood a year - the wood is from coppice woods cut every 10 years, so it is endlessly renewable and carbon-neutral.

Currently some of the wood comes from other peoples' coppice elsewhere.

But we have just planted a 4700-tree coppice onsite, when this comes into production in 2018 then we will be completely self-sufficient in wood.

Click here to read a bit more about The Woods

For cooking, we use wood, and a bit of gas. It varies depending on what sort of stove each flat has fitted. We would like to use less gas in the future.

Our Animals

We have working horses, dairy goats, a retired cow, and good flocks of chickens & ducks.

There are compromises involved in any animal-farming system, and we try to meet these in an ethical manner that everyone can agree with.
We make our own cheese & yoghurt from time to time, and also have a large number of cats to keep the rodents in check.

Currently no-one is managing the bees, but we have several hives dotted around the gardens. The land is also fantastic for wildlife, we have a huge range of residents including badgers, foxes, doormice, bats, buzzards and newts.

Click here to read more about The Animals

History
The 180-acre farm was originally bought by a couple, Julian & Emma Orbach, who restored it & set up a community on site. Several years later they separated and left, splitting the property in half. The current community now rents the farm buildings and 85 acres of land from Julian, who lives in town nearby.

The ethos has remained similar, but the structure of the community has changed at times over the years, so if you visited in the early days you might find some differences now. And when the owners of the site separated, then quite a lot of things had to be rethought.

In 2003-04 the new legal structures were set up, and our formal principles worked out, and since then things have been quite stable, with things working really pretty well most of the time.

Click here to read a more detailed History of The Community

The Farm
Our 85 acre site is really varied, from ancient woodland to newly planted coppice, grazed fields, a lake, streams, gardens and orchard areas. The place is beautiful, with green lanes, quiet spots for picnics and even a stone circle. It is a working farm so there are also less pretty things like old tractors, machinery sheds and barns dotted around too.

We keep the farm yard vehicle-free, which is nicer for everyone, especially the children and free-range ducks.

People
Some of us have been here for years and years, and others are more recent arrivals. The "community" itself simply consists of those who are living here at any one time, and so changes slowly as people come, and sometimes later move on.

There is usually a mix of members (both old and new) plus volunteers and visitors. We are WWOOF hosts, so people can come and stay, volunteering half-days for half-board. It's nice to have new people visiting with new ideas to share with us.

While working together on our common aims for the site, we each have our own personal ideals and reasons for being here. Here are some pages where people can say their own personal bit about living at Brithdir (to be linked soon)

• Catherine
• Ben, Kate & Josie
• Paul & Grace
• Adrian
• Izzy
• Anja, Naomi & Mika
• Tony

If you're looking for a community to join, then check out the Potential Applicant pages.

Visiting the Community

Lots of people would like to visit us, but for different reasons.
We've worked out four different ways you can come - click on each to get the details of how it works.

You can come:

WHAT TO BRING AND EXPECT - ALL VISITORS
You'll definintely need wellies, work gloves, a torch, and some slippers or indoor shoes ( the slate floors are cold). It would be really wise to bring waterproofs, too, as it can be quite rainy here sometimes.

Accommodation is fairly basic. It can be anything between a private bedroom in the farmhouse to a mattress on the floor in a dormitory depending on the event and the circumstances.

Course accommodation is usually in our loft dormitory with four beds, segregated by curtains. Please note this is a mixed-gender dormitory. If this causes problems for you please let us know; an alternative may be available.

This is a working farm so conditions are often pretty basic & muddy in places (both indoors & out!) - but most people love it.

GETTING TO US
We are on the west cost of Wales, near Fishguard. Click here for information on getting here, with detailed info for public transport. (Some courses have discounts for those arriving by public transport.)

Diary for 2008/2009

Are you looking for information about the Roundhouse or Tir Ysbrydol?
These projects by our neighbours have their own websites at
www.thatroundhouse.info and Tir Ysbrydol