CANON FROME COURT COMMUNITY

Walking towards utopia

travelling by communities and ecovillages

CANON FROME COURT COMMUNITY

www.canonfromecourt.org.uk
+44 (0) 8707650711

This community-farm in Herefordshire was founded in 1979. About 45 adults and children live in the 18 self-contained homes. The property (buildings and lands) is owned and managed by a co-ownership housing association. You can read more info about the place and them in the web site.

The big and fully walled garden is one of the best and complete I have ever seen. It´s organized in small plots, working it individually for a common benefit. They grow lots of different vegetables and fruit. I knew and ate there rhubarb (a vegetable from Mongolia). They have animals to eat them (cows, goats, sheep, chicken) ant to get milk, cheese, yogur, butter, eggs and honey.

I think this also is an ideal place to grow up children. The process to become a member can take some months at least and, after an agreement between members and applicants, the new member/s would take the old member´s place. The prize of the dwellings increases in line with housing market.

Some of the spaces inside the main building are, besides dwellings, two kitchens, two guest rooms, living-room, meeting-room, dining-room and a big gym, because of its past as school. There is a lake in front of the main house and a small church that belongs to the Church of England.

The only common meal is the Saturday dinner, when some members will meet each other the first time in the week. Therefore, the diet depends on each dwelling, although the most of them are omnivorous. They buy together organic and fair trade food, availables in the small self-service shop.

There is a sheet to organize the work of the volunteer, who will work with several members in different turns. The volunteer also eat with those members in their homes. I remember one day of collective work (collecting potatoes) when I felt the feeling of “community” specially. When I arrived, the WWOOF coordinator gave me an useful photocopy with the map of the place, the names of the members and their homes.

I had never milked a goat or done a singing workshop (in English, of course). I also remember the extremely noisy and low flights of military planes. There aren´t public internet access or phone (only inside the dwellings).

I worked with more of the half of the members, which were always grateful with my collaboration. In my free time I was reading the Coventry Peace House´s book about asylum seekers and listening music (long life to Anari and Lisabö!).

Definitively, it isn´t one of the visited places with a greater degree of communal life and resources, although I think it´s a good example of people running together a big property and a complete farm. For example, they share the washing-machines, but I could see the same appiance to make bread in some dwellings. I met some people who were keen to go deeply into ecologic or sustainability matters, but maybe without the global support of the community.

BUS: from Ledbury

STAY: 25 September – 9 October’06

WWOOF member. Included in Eurotopia

Link to PHOTOS