Green discounts for self-catering guests
Keep your carbon footprint down
Discounts, rewards and challenges to help you help the environment
We’d love you to join in with our green ethos from the moment you book. Consider your greenest transport options getting here (train to Sudbury, car-sharing?), and please use our bikes when you’re here. Consider your Buy British and local shopping options (farm shop, butcher, strawberries etc) and please minimise plastic bags and decorations! Our tap water is great so there really is no need for plastic-bottled water. And don’t forget to bring some tupperware boxes to take home the excess food and avoid waste. Layer up in winter and keep the doors shut! Here are some other ways you can also help the environment at no real cost to you ….
Winter Eco-Tariff - Tudor barn
In January, February and early March, the draughty parts of the ancient Tudor barn are very expensive to heat and environmentally difficult to justify for smaller groups. So we’ve come up with an eco-option for the adventurous which forgoes the use of the giant blower heater but includes the following:
underfloor heating in the well-insulated cartlodge end of the barn which houses the large kitchen, two bedrooms, small sitting room (with a daybed) and two bathrooms
the radiator-heated potting shed double with loo and basin
the heated loo & shower block accessed via stepping stones outside
the main open plan barn being heated by a giant wood-burner only that chugs away day and night with our own coppiced, seasoned, woodland fuel
electric blankets on all beds with 20 tog duvets in the main barn
This option usually suits groups of less than 14 guests who are happy to eat at the large kitchen table in the underfloor-heated cartlodge, cosy up around the giant wood-burner in the evening, and then jump into super-warm beds. If you're a group who are going to be out and about walking or cycling in the daytime, this option could work well, save you some money, and keep your carbon footprint down.
Green discounts & rewards
To help you - and us - save energy, we have devised some ‘green rewards’ for your group to consider whereby you save energy and we donate money to local conservation projects via Suffolk Wildlife Trust. Every £1 donated to the Trust is multiplied by eight during special fund-raising appeals, for example for local nature reserve land acquisition. We are delighted to have contributed hundreds of pounds to the expansion of the wetland nature reserve Carlton Marshes in north Suffolk.
So can your group help with the following?
‘Green Towel’ challenge: Whilst we do provide towels, if you decide to bring your own bath towel, we will donate £1 to Suffolk Wildlife Trust for every one of our towels not used.
‘Bike to Milden’ challenge: We encourage you to use our bikes included in your hire when you’re here but if you arrive on your own bicycle rather than car, we will donate £5 per cyclist to Suffolk Wildlife Trust.
Public transport challenge: For every six guests who arrive by public transport, such as train to Sudbury or Bury St Edmunds, and then onward journey by taxi or lift by a friend already here, we will give you a pack of our own very delicious, low-food mile sausages and donate £5 to Suffolk Wildlife Trust.
Plant a hedgerow tree
Dutch Elm Disease has ravaged the English countryside and Ash Dieback is now causing our ash trees to die. The loss of both elm and ash trees has a large impact on wildlife and the landscape. We have established several woods but will you help us put back more hedgerow trees to replace the lost elm and ash - and offset your holiday’s CO2 emissions ?
If your large group donates £22 (£1 per guest), we will establish a native hedgerow tree and ensure it survives the deer, the rabbits and the hedge trimmer - into maturity where it can absorb carbon by using it for its roots, branches, trunk and leaves.
And in years to come, the song thrush can sing from it, and when it finally has holes in it, the kestrel can nest in it….