Ecocabin was featured in the August issue of Countryman. A copy of the article follows:

Building for future

Farmer’s wife Kate Grubb was appalled at the environmental costs of tourism in the county-side. So she did something about it, as Katherine Gow discovers

A FEW months after the birth of her baby daughter, Kate Grubb made some extra cash by cleaning holiday cottages near her home on the borderlands of Shropshire and Herefordshire. Tourism is as important as agriculture in this remote and beautiful part of England. Kate and her farmer husband Jamie live in the lee of the Black Hill of Bruce Chatwin fame.

What Kate discovered in her cleaning job angered her and outraged her environmental principles. “These holidaymakers brought with them large amounts of supermarket food, spent very little locally and then left huge bags of waste behind them. It just didn’t seem fair.”

So she decided to try and change things by designing, building and running her own eco-friendly holiday cottage. “The amount of energy consumed and waste generated by shopping from the supermarkets was the spark for the whole thing. In this holiday home, local produce and local materials are absolutely integral to the whole idea.”

With the help of a rural business grant from DEFRA, Kate has created a beautiful, two bedroom timber cabin at the foot of the Black Hill. All the materials used in its construction are local and environmentally friendly. The kitchen counter top is made from recycled yoghurt pots. The garden table for alfresco eating looks conventional enough, but was created from recycled plastic bottles. Much of the furniture is recycled or made by local craft workers. Some of the art work on the wall is fashioned from recycled wellington boots.

Solar energy heats the hot water much of the year. Sheep’s wool insulation helps keep the house warm and Kate installed it herself. The curtain rails were created by a local blacksmith and the living room furniture upholstered by friends nearby. The dining room chairs were rescued from a clear-out at the church hall. The bedding and towels are made from organic materials and the larder stocked with food approved by the Soil Association.

Of prime importance to the whole project, Kate also runs a local shopping service for holidaymakers. ‘Avoid bringing over-packaged supermarket food with you’, says the guide to new arrivals. Boxes of local meat, fruit and vegetables are delivered to the door. One of Kate’s friends makes superb cakes (another farm diversification business). “The milk comes in old-fashioned, reusable glass bottles from the milkman.” On the dining table sits a jug of local wild flowers.

Visitors are also encouraged to sort their kitchen waste in the recycling bins. “I have to be careful not to preach to people,” says Kate. “I have to coax people gently. It is a business, after all — my own little bit of farm diversification — and I have to make it pay. Still, most people have gone away with a new idea.”

One entry in the visitors’ book says: “We will recycle more at home instead of throwing it all in the bin.”

Eco-conscious cost

People who may be worried that having a clear environmental conscience means wearing a holiday hair shirt need have no fear. This is a beautiful, contemporary home by any standards — light, warm and a joy to live in. The big veranda faces south-west and sunlight pours into the kitchen and dining room. Outside living and eating is possible for much of the year.

“To be honest, if I’d gone to a holiday cabin company this place would have been half the price. I can’t do anything the easy way, but I wanted to be honest and justify the name Eco-cabin.” The house cost around £70,000 plus VAT and opened last Easter. The business is going well and looks as if it will provide a real help with finances on the small family farm.

The real irony of the project is that this kind of home is far beyond the means of most ordinary young country people like Kate and Jamie. “I’ve never lived anywhere as nice as this. It’s a bit posh for us. If Jamie comes in, he says: ‘Is it all right for me to sit down here?’” The couple began their life together in a caravan on the same site and now live in a rented cottage nearby. Planning rules say the Eco-cabin can only be used as a holiday home. DEFRA gave their grant to help start a business, not build a home.

“It’s impossible to get a foothold in the countryside for people like us. Jamie has farmed all his life and I worked as a vet’s nurse before the baby came along. All the little old cottages are bought cheaply by people from away and they’ve been turned into mansions.

“It not only stops people like us from buying a home, but it changes the nature of the countryside and that is something I feel quite passionately about. I love natural, old-fashioned houses with chickens and a bit of muck outside and wild flowers left to grow in the verges.

“And among the incomers, there are very few families with children. They are couples of a certain age who’ve made their money from property in the city.”

The other irony is that Jamie and Kate have so little time for holidays themselves. “The hours my husband works on the farm are unbelievable. We’ve only had one real day off in seven years and that was for our honeymoon. We got married on a Saturday, had the whole of the Sunday off and then were back at work on the Monday morning. Sometimes we nave a day at the sea or an afternoon cycling, but only after all the animals have been seen to.”

Kate and Jamie Grubb are a family to be treasured. They are young people devoted to the countryside who want to maintain a traditional life on the land. They believe that small is beautiful and local is always better. They believe in respecting the land on which they live and all its resources.

They have embraced the modern mantra of diversification, but in a way that benefits the community they love. I hope they prosper.

To contact Kate Grubb ring 01547 530 183 or email kate@ecocabin.co.uk