A Permaculture Inspired Community
Who are we?
We are Rebecca & Luke - back in December 2021 we moved to this beautiful 6 acre smallholding on the western edge of the Bannau Brycheiniog (Brecon Beacons) National Park.​ We’re passionate about all things food - how to produce it, preserve it, and most importantly, how to turn it into delicious meals.​ We’re both mid 30s, and spent the majority of our lives working office jobs in London so this has been a whirlwind learning experience!
Our Vision:
A community inspired by the three ethics of Permaculture - Earth Care, People Care, Fair Shares - that lives in harmony with nature. Filled with people who care for the land, and in return are cared for by the land. Actively working as an integral part of the wider community surrounding us.
What we've done so far...
We’ve set up a 1/3 acre market garden, growing organic, no-dig fruit and vegetables - we’re almost fully self-sufficient in fruit and veg, and share plenty with our neighbours and community.
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We’ve helped kick off community food projects - regular “farm to fork” feasts, community “crop swaps”, and a village potato field that feeds 25 households (including us) with more potatoes than we know what to do with!
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We’ve restored an old orchard, and planted a new one based on "syntropic agroforestry” principles, integrating berries, herbs and beneficial support species.
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We’ve planted thousands of trees - setting fields up for future livestock management following “holistic grazing” techniques, and starting coppices for both firewood and wood crafting.
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We’ve kept pigs, and a flock of chickens mostly raised from eggs we hatched. The chickens provide us with an abundance of eggs, and are integral to our composting systems.
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We’ve started an annual music festival, and built a stage / outdoor shelter out of roundwood timber harvested from a neighbours woodland.
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We've been able to do all of this thanks to the amazing help from our neighbours, friends, WWOOFers, and folks who've stayed here for a week, a year and anything in between!
Our plans for 2026
This year, we're going all in on community food production, in a mission to support local food sovereignty. We'll be launching a "share of harvest" veg box to get amazing healthy food to more people in the community. We're continuing the village potato field, and building a root cellar to store them through the winter. We'll be running weekly crop swaps & monthly farm to fork meals through the growing season. We want to bring more people on to the farm, through volunteer days, and trainings / workshops on food production.
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We’re really keen for this land to support people’s livelihoods going forward, so we’re very open to the idea of people coming here and setting up their own land based businesses. It would need to fit into the overall vision of land stewardship and ethics, but we’d be very excited to chat about any ideas!​
Housing & living here:
We’ve been working on setting up the large farmhouse as a communal space with private bedrooms so that others can join us here. There’s a big kitchen & utility room, plus dining/living room with a lovely wood burning fireplace
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There are three good sized double rooms of between 11.5-12.5 sqm. A 1 bedroom annexe adjoins the main house, with a private living room, bathroom and patio garden, suitable for a single person or a couple.
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We believe it’s important that everyone has sufficient personal space, so each person moving here will have their own room. Couples are welcome, but are expected to rent a room each, or the annexe - we hope that costs are low enough that this is reasonable.
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We will shortly be moving into a caravan on the farmyard, though continuing to use the communal kitchen and bathrooms spaces.
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Unfortunately, we are unable to accommodate pets in the shared areas at this time, but if you were renting the annexe then pets are welcome!
Costs:
Bedroom in main house: £375 per month including bills​
​Annexe: £725 per month (single person), £800 (couple) including bills.
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NOTE: We will provide a "Lodger's License Agreement", which is suitable for claiming housing benefit. The local rate is £335 per month.
Helping on the land:
It's important to us that everyone shares in the responsibility of tending to the land, maintaining buildings, and producing our own food. As such we ask that everyone living here spends the equivalent of 1 day a week helping with the holding - in exchange for a share of every harvest.
This might entail growing food, cleaning gutters, chopping firewood, repairing tools, trimming hedges, looking after the chickens, canning excess harvests, or a whole bunch of other stuff! This could be a full day (maybe all together?), an hour every evening, or however suits you best.
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If you're not confident (yet!) with growing or tending to land, we will teach you!
Communal living:
As a shared living space, we hope people will be clean, respectful and considerate, as well as bringing positive energy to the place. We're keen to have some communal meals together, where we each take it in turns to cook.
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We're also interested in exploring bulk purchasing of community things together (like loo roll, dish soap etc), and have an account with Suma (the organic wholesaler) which could help minimise costs.
Our goal for "Land Ownership"
We never want to see this place treated as an “asset” to be bought and sold. As soon as we are able to, we intend to set up a “Land Trust” to take ownership of the house and the land. In the worst case, this will be once the mortgage is paid off - but we are always looking for options that would make this happen sooner (grant funding, community purchase etc).
Why we are charging rent:
When we moved here, we had a different vision for our life - one which involved us continuing our remote jobs, needing home offices, and living much more conventionally. Now we find ourselves driven to spend more time working the land, and have no need for a large farmhouse with an expensive mortgage.
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So, we have two options - sell the house, and go live a simple, cheap life on the land.
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Find others to join us here who are able to contribute towards the costs of the property, meaning we can afford to keep paying off the mortgage and get to our end goal of putting the whole of the land and buildings into a trust.
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We’re not particularly comfortable with the idea of becoming landlords, but it seems like that’s the lesser evil compared to us just selling this place.
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For total transparency, the total monthly cost of mortgage, utility bills & insurance is just over £3,400 per month. Renting rooms in this way covers just over half of that cost, and we’re confident we can cover the remaining amount until the mortgage is paid off, or we find another way to put the property into a land trust.
Get in touch!
If all of this sounds like it might be a fit for you, then please get in touch! There’s a link to a form below where you can tell us a bit about yourself, and we can take the conversation from there!
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https://forms.gle/vjkZeRTh5c2ckksq8
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Luke & Rebecca​