Established in 2017, this was a residential learning space for creative professionals, offering courses and events in a retreat like environment, based on a converted farm in Somerset. @clayhillarts
Our programme included hands on practical courses which took place in the communal learning spaces, as well as outside in our gardens.
Our 8 ensuite bedrooms offered rest and recuperation, having been sensitively converted from a series of old cattle sheds and a milking parlour.
Our open kitchen sat at the heart of the main barn, the granary, offering home cooked seasonal meals. Each course had a menu that was inspired by its content, from edible flowers during a botanical illustration course, to fire cooked food which complimented smoke fired ceramics. Creativity and education sat in community in this place. All of it was about connection.
Sensitivity was given to the buildings that were here before – a threshing barn, a granary, a milking parlour, a collection of dilapidated old cattle sheds. Using only the materials that we found around the site, we gently rebuilt this place and put it back together. Using our hands, it taught us something about ourselves.
With expansive views, this place sat amongst the landscape. Arable farmland wrapped around its very perimeter. The views expanded, both mind and soul, leaving the guest open to discover themselves and gain a reconnect with the environment around them.
deborahjparkes 