Sustainable Eco Friendly Glamping Holidays

​​We do our best to be environmentally conscious and aware of our carbon footprint, both in our daily life and running our farm and glamping business.  These are a few of the things we do:
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• Providing guest recycling - each glamping field has a dedicated recycling area with bins provided for: compost, glass, paper & cardboard, plastics, metal and general waste.  
• Solar panels on our barn roof (we have two arrays) contribute to the power on the farm, glamping and holiday cottage.  We hope to be able to store the power we generate by battery in the near future when the technology is more developed (and affordable). 
• We are an farm with organic principals, we're not an intensive farm, we don't plough, or spray our fields.  
• Every year we plant 50-100 trees, you can see all the tubes around the young trees in all our fields.  Since we arrived on the farm in 2015 we have planted new native hedging along all the bare fence lines.  
• Our guests are provided with Ecover washing up liquid and their own eco cleaning products and eco cloths.  We use refills for the washing up liquid and shower gels rather than replacing the plastic bottles every time.  Where possible we use vinegar and bicarbonate of soda to clean on changeover days.  All our cleaning cloths are eco - old towels are converted to cloths, we don't use J cloths or any disposable cleaning cloths. 
• Stocking our larder with recycled loo paper, eco kitchen paper and natural fire lighters.  We try not to stock foods containing palm oil.  We have recycled wellies in our larder for visiting children to borrow!
• We use hedgerow flowers in our guest accommodation instead of buying flowers. 
• Heating our house and holiday cottage with Biomass heating.
• Reusing and recycling as much as we can, even if it means putting on gloves and checking through our guests black bags after check out as Patrick is demonstrating in the photo above! 
• Composting veg scraps, cardboard, lawn mowings and loo rolls which after rotting down go back to our veg patch.   Our vegetable garden provides homegrown veg for our larder and guest vegetable hampers. 
• Returning egg shells to our chickens instead of buying plastic packaged chicken grit.
• Buying vintage items from charity shops.  We often buy preloved farm items from farm sales too, including our 1973 tractor! 
• Upcycling with old pallets, old tyres, galvanized metal sheets and wood scraps from our building projects.  All the coffee tables are recycled pallets.  The kitchen shelving in three lodges is recycled apple crates.  Wooden walls within the glamping units is from sustainable local sources. 
• We try and stock lots of local products in our larder. You'll find Somerset ciders, Somerset apple juice, pies and pasties from Devon, local cheeses, butter and milk. 
• We do all our own laundry and dry guest bedlinen and towels on the washing line - we avoid using the tumble dryer. 

​Our Eco Policy. 

• At Middle Stone Farm we aim to be as environmentally friendly and self sufficient as we can be.  We use green energy sources throughout the farm and within our holiday accommodation.

 

• Electric Power: Most of our electricity is generated by 2 arrays of Solar PV on our barn roof.  Heating and hot water for the farmhouse and cottage are produced by a biomass boiler that uses locally sourced sustainable firewood from renewable forestry a few miles from our farm. 

 

• Lighting: All our bulbs are low level LED, the lighting in the shop is on a motion sensor so the lights are off when no one is in there. The power in our shop and safari lodges is turned off out of season.  We use rechargeable batteries for the any fairy lights in our accommodation.  The solar panels on the barn roof generate power for this. 

 

• Heating: All our accommodation has wood burning stoves, the logs for the stoves is delivered by Exmoor Woodfuel , a local business a few miles from us who sources local wood from sustainable sources.   The cottage also has central heating and this is generated by the Bio Mass (which uses the same sustainable firewood). 

 

• ​Water:  Our water is from our own bore hole supply, is filtered by a UV light.  Water from drainpipes is captured in water butts around the farm then used for watering plants and flowers.

 

• Cleaning: Our guests are supplied with environmentally friendly cleaning products produced by Ecover and we use eco cleaning cloths not plastic sponges.  This also means that waste water is not contaminated with anything harmful either.  Eco clothes are washed and re used and cleaning product bottles are filled up using refills.

 

• Laundry: Laundry from our accommodation is washed on site and where possible the machines are switched to economy settings.  Our bedlinen and towels linen is dried on washing lines on the farm, we avoid using tumble dryers.  We don't send any laundry away so there is no environmental cost of travel.


• All sewage is dealt with on site with no chemicals by use of septic tanks, clean water waste system and a BioEficient sewage treatment plant.  

 

• All our showers are eco with low water pressure settings we also have dual flush lavatories. Waste water from the hot tubs is used for watering the plants and our new apple orchard.

 

• Rubbish and Recycling:  We are committed to recycling and re-using items where possible.  We love to upcycle and actively seek out vintage pieces, you’ll see furniture made from pallets and rescued items around the farm!  In 2019 we added some upcycled features to our playground too.   To avoid using plastic packaging we always buy in bulk where we can – we use Ecover refills for laundry and cleaning products.  Food items and animal feed is bought in bulk where possible.  We recycle all paper, cardboard, glass, plastic (where possible), cans and tins.  Vegetable waste is composted to produce rich soil for the flower beds and vegetable garden in years to come.  We have two areas of guest recycling on the farm with labelled bins. 

 

• Accommodation: Our safari lodges were manufactured in Wellington, Somerset, wood for the decks and interiors has been sourced from local sawmills in Milverton and Devon.   Our builders, plumbers, carpenters and cleaners are local people within a 10 mile radius.  In the school holidays we offer employment to young people who we know find it difficult to find casual work elsewhere.  We pay our staff above the National Living Wage. 

 

• Transport: Travel by car or taxi is advisable from Taunton although once here guests can explore on a bicycle and there are lovely walks straight from the end of our drive.  Buses are available from nearby Wiveliscombe. 

 

• We don’t allow supermarket deliveries for our glamping and encourage guests to use our shop, the village shop in Brompton Ralph or the independent shops and farmer’s market in Wiveliscombe.  Guests do not need to travel very far for food and drinks.

 

• Supporting the local economy:  Our own meat is butchered by Thorne’s in Wiveliscombe.  Local food and drink can be found in our shop from local producers such as:  Chunk of Devon, Discover Chocolate, Redhill Farm Apple Juice,  Braziers Coffee of Wellington, Miles Tea of Minehead, Exmoor Gin and lots of local beer and cider.  The newspapers are delivered by The Paper Shop in Bishops Lydeard.

 

• We encourage guests to shop locally and eat at the local pubs and restaurants rather than travel into town for large supermarket and pizza chains.  Local pubs and restaurants are listed in the guest folders and found here on our website. 

 

• Tourism:  Most of our guests stay here for more than 2 days so the majority will leave the farm to explore the local area of West Somerset and Exmoor.  We encourage guests to take a trip on the West Somerset Railway, to visit the local cider farms, Wiveliscombe Farmer's Market, Dunster and the local National Trust properties.  Our accommodation has 'what to do' folders and examples of places we recommend to visit found here on our Explore page.   The majority of our guests have never been to West Somerset so they look to us to recommend quality places for them to visit. We also post news and events about other businesses on Social Media via our Instagram and Facebook pages. 

 

• Farming: We are re-establishing hedgerows along all our fence lines in co-ordination with The Woodland Trust.  Three ponds have also been created in conjunction with FWAG to slow the water flow and protect Somerset Levels from flooding.  We became a certificated Organic Farm in summer 2019.  

 

• We are also in The mid-tier Countryside Stewardship scheme.  The majority of our animals are local rare breeds, not commercial.  

 

• Hills to Levels:   In 2018 we put in three intersecting ponds with The Hills to Levels Project.  This was set up aiming to 'slow the flow' to reduce flood risk, reduce erosion, improve water quality, deliver wider environmental benefits and increase resilience on the floodplain (eg Somerset Levels).