Ed and Rowena have been living On the Hill for eighteen years and it’s here that they built the Big House and The DugOut themselves (you might recognise them from Grand Designs fame). They brought up their four children, living off the smallholding whilst building their home and promoting handcrafts and a SLOW lifestyle: Sustainable, Local, Organic, Wholesome.

Ed and Rowena’s smallholding is a hive of activity all year round, with seasonal projects, vegetable and fruit production, lambing and kidding, milking and cheese making and natural horsemanship. On the Hill is also home to an array of farm animals providing a plentiful source of milk, eggs, muck and wool: chickens, ducks, goats, Shetland sheep, Kune Kune pigs, a Welsh Mountain Pony, a Gypsy Cob, two cats and a dog!

The DugOut itself is a real labour of love for its architect, Ed – from the pulley light switches to the bath encased in books to the Roundwood, chestnut king-size bed. Self-confessed to embrace the “quirky and eccentric”, you can find all this and more in the roundhouse. In fact, for interested guests, woodworking and smallholding workshops are on offered on-site and tailored to suit the individual.