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Contact Old-Lands

Old-Lands
Dingestow Court
Dingestow
Monmouthshire
NP25 4DY

For general enquiries
oldlandsoffice@gmail.com

FOLLOW @oldlands INSTAGRAM

Happy cows under a leaden sky @sarah_newhousefarm

Happy cows under a leaden sky @sarah_newhousefarm #regenerativeagriculture #regenerativeagriculture #ecology #biodiversity #oldlands

Normally rain isn’t that welcome, but with the f

Normally rain isn’t that welcome, but with the freshly dug Natural Flood Management works, with every downpour we have been dashing out to see if what made sense on paper actually works in real life. Nudging old field drains and informed by annotations on historic maps , along with 21st century mapping software, things have actually fallen into place just as was expected. Thanks to Monmouthshire County Council for funding the project

#naturalfloodmanagement #catchmentsensitivefarming# #ecology #oldlands #rewetting

Old-Lands has been in the Bosanquet family for ove

Old-Lands has been in the Bosanquet family for over 200 years. Three generations now live and work in and around the estate. As Huguenots, the family fled persecution in France, and are a consistently modest, thrifty family; the big house being host to temperance meetings rather than hunt balls. While they have no intention of winding back the clock, the family comes from a long line of ecologists and naturalists whose experience taught them that in the natural world, slow is beautiful. The main house, a handsome building in red marly sandstone, was much altered by the Victorian generation to provide for a large family and staff, making change inevitable. The pattern for modernisation was set by a frugal postwar generation who separated the two wings from the main house for other families to live in and kept the house and estate in good repair. They installed solar water heating in the 70s, planted a walled garden to keep the household self-sufficient in vegetables and fruit, kept bees to pollinate the orchard and make honey, and had chickens to recycle leftovers and lay eggs.

Responsibility for the estate and its future has passed to Sam, an ecologist, and his wife. In a time of hard choices and necessary changes, their role is to make the estate valid and fit for purpose in a time so very different from when it was built. Lady B ( pictured on the motorbike ) was at the helm for 45 years and followed the practices of Newman Turner, an early pioneer in the regenerative farming movement. Carrying on where she left off, the land is being managed to support the biodiversity that depends on an open-farmed landscape. The aim being to ensure that future generations benefit from their good husbandry - just as those at Old Lands have benefited from the careful stewardship of the previous generations - by slowing down the way they farm and looking for ways to put back more than they take out #biodiversity #ecology #regenerativeagriculture #regenerativefarming #oldlands

With Alex & Emily at Court Farm, Sarah at New Ho

With Alex & Emily at Court Farm, Sarah at New House Farm & new tenants arriving at Ty Mawr later this year we have the beginnings of our regenerative farm cluster (pictured in yellow). Guided by the Holistic Management principles the well-being of the farmer and the environment will be placed at the centre of all decision-making. As more is gathered nature is noticeably bouncing back, with just over 3500 species recorded here. #holisticmanagement #regenerativefarming #regenerativeagriculture #biodiversity #ecology