ACCESSIBILITY
Brackenthwaite Farm is a fabulous destination that offers you a truly unique experience, and we want to make sure that it is accessible to as many people as possible, no matter what challenges you face. Inclusivity matters. While we cannot yet confidently meet everyone’s accessibility needs, our ambition to do so remains a cornerstone of our values.
InCLUSIVITY PLANS FOR MOBILITY
Becoming mobility accessible is our greatest challenge. Brackenthwaite is a farm and the grounds are uneven and/or topped with loose chippings. All of our properties have stairs and only The Old Farmhouse has a ground floor WC. It is for these reasons that we do not yet promote ourselves as an accessible stay for those with mobility concerns. We do, however, have plans to convert a space that will be fully accessible for wheelchair users and supporters that you may need for travel. In due course, our outdoor areas will also be improved for everyone’s use.
Visual Impairment
Our Welcome Pack, website, and correspondence are all available in large print. In time, we hope to be able to add braille, hearing loops, and audio guides to our offer for those with visual impairments.
Inclusivity for Mental Health Conditions
Harry has ADHD and Matthew struggles with anxiety and SAD, so we know first-hand some of the difficulties people face with poor mental health and some mental conditions. It is perhaps no surprise that Brackenthwaite Farm seems to have naturally introduced several sensory and uplifting experiences since Matthew and Harry took over full ownership in 2022.
The ten acres of land offer quiet seating (or swinging) in beautiful surroundings, walks among nature and wildlife, stillness and serenity, and some truly remarkable views to get lost in. Similarly, we have created little pockets pleasure with our rose garden, outdoor fire pit, and tucked-away outdoor children’s play area, and add to that the sheer delight to be had from interacting with our pet sheep, goats, and kunekune pigs – not to mention the hens and ducks, and in no time at all you can feel truly at peace in the world around you.
DIVERSITY AND INCLUSIVITY
No matter who you are, you are welcome at Brackenthwaite Farm. Here we treat everyone fairly, with respect, dignity, and with love.
Community
From promoting local businesses and engaging with our local communities, Brackenthwaite Farm is an advocate of collaboration and shared benefit. We have stored firewood for a Silverdale fuel poverty community group, Permitted the siting of a beehive on our grounds for a local bee enthusiast, Harry volunteers with a local Beavers colony (6-8 year old children) and worked with them on the farm for their ‘Animal Care’ badge, and an archaeology student at Lancaster University visits us to do some metal detecting work, occasionally landing some interesting finds!
REGENERATIVE TOURISM
There are four key areas to regenerative tourism, and each is considered in turn:
1. Climate
At Brackenthwaite Farm we believe we can and should tale steps to make our business as environmentally friendly as possible. It’s a long road, but we have already made some great steps towards reducing our emissions and behaving in a way that makes us climate positive.
Each of our onsite properties have benefitted with improvements including new double glazing, external doors, loft insulation, and, where possible, wall insulation. The old and inefficient storage heaters have been removed (and recycled) and new, energy efficient electric radiators (with an assistive app) have been installed. We have 26 solar panels on a south-facing roof and a large battery storage system for providing electricity during those non-sunny times.
We’re also helping the climate by re-naturalising some of our land to allow wildlife to come back and do its thing, and we have planted new trees and hedgerows within our ten acres to break up the monotony and monoculture that was simply one big grassy field.
Finally, we provide details for local public transport and have plans to install some EV chargers soon.
2. Circular Economy
The circular economy relates to sustainability by reusing, reducing, and recycling. The aim is to eliminate waste and pollution by extending product lifecycles.
At Brackenthwaite Farm we provide recycling boxes and bins to all properties and include a clear instruction to our guests what needs to go where in our Welcome Pack and on the bins, themselves. When someone doesn’t properly recycle, we do it on their behalf, but we would much rather people did it in the first instance! Food waste also gets used up, usually into dogs, pigs, or hens, depending on what it is. The eggs produced by our hens goes straight back to our visitors as part of the welcome pack, and any spares get sold or gifted out.
Grass clippings and other organic, non-food waste (including horse poop) goes into one of our composts and gets turned into fantastic fertiliser for plants or around our fruit trees in the orchard. Soon, we will be making some raised vegetable beds too, and the compost will be added to these to give next year’s vegetables a hearty helping hand.
It’s not just about food though: as a farm, we often find ourselves owners of lots of wood, be that from trees that have been felled, old fencing posts, and palates. These get reused in many creative ways including making animal shelters, wildlife habitats, or simply adding to the pile for winter firewood.
Throughout the business and once again in the properties, we buy refillable containers for our cleaning and bathroom products for guests. This alone saves a lot of single-use plastic.
Future plans include us making stronger connections with local producers and, possibly, opening a bike repair shop and little honesty café onsite for everyone to use.
3. Biodiversity
Biodiversity is about improving our surroundings so that life may flourish.
To do this, we have planted new hedgerows, trees, and new woodland to provide shelter and food for insects, birds, mammals, and all. The hedgerows create safe corridors for small animals to move about, and about one acre has been set aside for nature to take its course with only a minimal amount of interference from us.
Around the farm you may also spot bird boxes, bat boxes, bird feeders, and inset hotels dotted about the place, and from April until late September we provide residence and nesting grounds for visiting barn swallows. We even had a visit from a pair of swifts this year and hope they will return next year to use their swift-specific nesting box.
Leighton Moss also plays a big role in supporting the biodiversity of the area, and we are working closely with a local community group in improving its condition so that it can support more life. A big part of this is not using harmful agricultural chemicals, which we haven’t done for over a decade now. It takes time, but we are now seeing the gradual improvements for wild flora in our grounds, which tend to prefer a poorer soil condition. Our animals – especially the hens, ducks, and pigs – are also very good and getting into and beneath the grass, which then creates better opportunities next spring for wild flowers to germinate and take hold.
4. Place Based Long Term Resilience
This key aspect considers how we Intentionally improve and revitalise our environment for long-term resilience.
We’ve already mentioned building closer ties with other local businesses for shared benefit, and our work on bringing new plants, trees and wildlife to the farm.
Brackenthwaite Farm has been in the same family for 50 years already, and we hope to keep it going and thriving for another 50 years (making us 95 and 10 years old), and over these next 50 years or so, we hope to introduce new aspects that will keep things interesting for locals and visitors alike. These include bike hire, further improvements to The Long Barn (our shared events space), and being a great venue choice for retreats, events, and celebrations where there is a shared commitment to protecting the environment for generations to come.