Sustainability
A Slowly Evolving Family Home
Homme is first and foremost a living family home, with continuous family links from 1574 to the present day. Over centuries the house and grounds have been host to the many important moments of life – births, seasonal gatherings, milestone life events, and deaths – layering Homme with the strata of family history which define the unique and special character of the place.
While making Homme an incredibly important place for us, inter-generational custodianship also engenders a groundedness in a sense of place – in an intimate knowledge of the buildings and the land, and in the gentle changes which occur through the seasons and with the passage of time. This rooting fosters sensitivity to change, and its impact – both positive and negative – encouraging slow, careful and considered decision making for the long term.
A Rapidly Changing World
We are also alive to the accelerating effects of the climate and biodiversity crises, the impacts of which we can see unfolding in the landscape around Homme. We are acutely aware of our own contribution to this crisis, caring for poorly insulated listed buildings currently dependent on carbon hungry heating systems (equating to over 40 tonnes of CO2e emissions per year) with a wedding-supported conservation model, a single day life event widely documented as having emissions on a par with the annual carbon footprint of the average UK household (14.5 tonnes). The very idea of a ‘sustainable wedding’ often feels oxymoronic.
There are changes we will struggle to make, whether for financial, logistical or legal/regulatory reasons, but we know we cannot allow these to be a barrier to the changes we can make to lessen and mitigate the impact of life at Homme.
Our Vision: Regenerative Events
Our vision is that every event we host should be as regenerative as possible, with an enduring positive impact and legacy at Homme, in the surrounding landscape, and on the community in our beautiful corner of England.
Over the last 20 years this has manifested in the restoration and conservation of Grade I, II* and II listed heritage buildings at Homme, to which all proceeds generated from weddings have been directed.
In this next chapter of life at Homme we are excited to broaden this focus to encompass conservation efforts across the habitats at Homme and initiatives in our local community, alongside our ongoing efforts to ensure our weddings tread as lightly as possible on the environment.
Our Sustainability Journey
We are early in our sustainability journey but led by the common sense principles which have guided past generations at Homme. Look after things and make them last. Do more with less. Make the most of available resources, repairing, renewing and giving them new life where possible. Be cautious of change, and its impact. Understand that sometimes the decision to do little or nothing is the best one. And do it yourself, embracing the reward of results achieved through the limitations and hard work of your own hands.
The Buildings
In the Main House, Coach House and Summerhouse, examples of this ethos abound. Frugal decoration with existing antiques and artefacts collected over the generations is combined with gentle, considered modernisation. Curtains find new life in armchair upholstery. Doors are reinvented as bed heads. Much loved chairs are endlessly refreshed and renewed (taking full advantage of our resident Upholsterer). Materials are salvaged, sorted and stored for future use.
This ethos is coupled with practical changes to minimise the resources we consume – LED lighting, 100% renewables electricity tariffs, elimination of single use plastics, eco-friendly cleaning products, toiletries and loo paper, refillable glass water bottles in all bedrooms, equipment to borrow or hire. Careful consideration is also given at end of life, with segregation of all waste for recycling, food waste composting, green waste composting and landfill. We have invested in a hot composting system for the disposal of on site food waste (the compost is used in the garden).
The Land
The presence of the house has protected the land immediately around it, the parkland and woodland preserved as ‘landscape setting’ – and therefore wildlife haven – rather than exploited as agriculturally productive land.
A priority habitat for wood pasture, the 110 acres of parkland around the house is gently managed in a stewardship scheme with continued planting of English oak and other species alongside grazing and annual hay cutting to restore and conserve the flower rich species diversity of the grassland. In doing so we aim to benefit wildlife, soil and water quality, and provide natural flood management for the local area. We work in partnership with local organisations like Herefordshire Meadows, under whose guidance we have restored the 7.5 acre Church Meadow below St. Bartholomew’s.
The 60 acres of woodland behind the house is also managed with nature in mind. Studies have shown that managed woodlands support a greater range of biodiversity than unmanaged woodlands, offering a dynamic mosaic of habitats and diverse species at different ages and stages of development. Our 10 year conservation-focused management plan aims to further open areas of the woodland, encouraging a greater diversity of species and structure, and allowing more light to reach the woodland floor. The forestry activity will widen rides, create glades and thin monocultural, closed canopy stands of trees of a similar age class, allowing natural regeneration and enrichment planting to create a richer understorey and habitat for local wildlife.
Closer to the house, our maturing Walled Garden orchard supplies us with apple juice to serve our overnight guests, and we have planted herb and perennial cutting gardens to provide ingredients and blooms for use on site.
We try to be good hosts to all who visit us, while also good neighbours to the wildlife around us. There is always more to learn and do as we work out how to balance both, and to answer the complicated question of moving forward with lower impact. We hope to do so in gradual, considered steps, outlined in more detail in our sustainability policy below.
Sustainability & Your Wedding
If you are reading this it is hopefully safe to assume you are interested in how your wedding can tread as lightly as possible. That’s something we would love to explore together.
You can learn more about sustainable weddings at Homme here.
