Author: Jo at harefarm

It’s a Happy New Year for the EV community! The first piece of “Hare Talk” for 2025 is that we now have electric vehicle (EV) charger points for our guests. 

Two 7 kw charge points have been installed in the parking area of the Oast house, and they can serve both oast house and shepherd’s hut guests. They are managed by Voltshare, meaning they have 24/7 support and it’s very easy to use from the Voltshare app. You just drive up, plug in your charger cable and scan the QR code on your phone. There is a charge per KWH which will be highlighted. 

As an electric vehicle owner myself, I now always start with searching holiday cottage accommodation that has an EV charge point on site. There’s not a lot worse than having to hang around a public charge point when you are on holiday – it’s not fun! We’ve made this step to install the charge points, not just because one of us has an electric vehicle, but we know it would be a big  worry solved for holiday guests and it’s another step towards our carbon footprint goals on the farm. 

Plug in, walk 20 steps, and sink back into your sofa while you and the car recharge. Now that sounds pretty good dosen’t it? 

Holiday cottage accommodation at Hare Farm includes the Oast house sleeping 10 as well as the glamping option of staying in the Shepherd’s hut sleeping 2. 

If you have any questions about the holiday cottage electric (ev) charger points, please ask me (Joanna) on stay@harefarm.co.uk 

Ten years ago from now, on Sunday 4th November in 2011, around about lunchtime we caught the first glimpse of our new shepherd’s hut coming down the drive. What a thrill!

Having first heard about shepherd’s hut holidays a couple years before, we explored the idea for here at Hare Farm,  and after much thought and research, decided to order one from Plankridge in Dorset. We paid them a visit and were impressed by their knowledge and passion for their huts, and their skilled workmanship was superb.

So it’s a full decade since the dream became a reality, and when,  after a long journey from Piddlehinton, the shepherd’s hut was nudged into position by the John Deere tractor, finding her resting spot on the brow of a hill in Chestnuts Field.  We created a little haven inside, extended a path through the copse to reach her and completed a “mini barn” in the Sussex barn nearby, where there’s space for a wet room and kitchen.

Ten years on and the sweetest form of luxury camping is having a little rest whilst the pandemic passes. Roll on 2021.  

An oast, oast house or hop kiln is an agricultural building designed for kilning (drying) hops as part of the brewing process for making beer. 

An oast house’ striking shape and pointed skyline is so unique and interesting, mainly found in the current and former hop-growing areas of Kent and East Sussex. 

When the flowers were picked from the hop plants they were taken to the oast house. Here they were dried, cooled and packed up ready to be sold to the brewery. The ground floor of the roundel housed a furnace with the heat rising through the wooden slatted ceiling to dry the hops that had been laid out above. The steam then rose through the conical roof and out through the opening (the cowl) at the very top of the pointed roof. The cowl, on top of the oast house, was shaped like a cone. It was rotated by a wind vane so catching the best air flow. This allowed air to circulate in the roundel and also the cowl allowed moisture to escape. Most oast kilns had an attached barn which was used to cool and press the dried hops so they could be bagged and sold for beer making. It was found that square oasts were just as good at drying the hops and as they were much easier to build, most Oasts built after 1900 were square rather than round. 

Many oast houses converted into homes have had many additional windows added, plus much of the original fabric covered up. Our oast house at Hare Farm is unique in that we have first and foremost wanted to protect its heritage. Those who holiday there are constantly reminded they are staying in what was once the main hive of activity on the farm and which once smelled of beer everywhere!

What extraordinary times we are all going through. Our last guests were here mid March and since then, sadly we have had to find a solution for all guests to postpone or cancel their stays. In the meantime, the farm, sheep and lambs have basked in beautiful weather. It’s soul-destroying to not share it with the families and couples who had booked – we had guests arriving from Australia, Norway, Spain and Ireland. We had numerous birthday or anniversary celebrations for families to get together that have had to be delayed. Our shared priorities though focus on keeping everyone safe, and we patiently await a firm set of guidelines and dates for when tourism re-opens here in Sussex.

The working date for a re-opening is 4th July, that’s when the government have indicated “tourism’ restarts. We hope self-catering accommodation will fall into the first phase, and are now busy working on preparing for a safe opening. Visit England are leading the charge in coordinating the standards, supported by the local tourism bodies (for us it’s “1066 Country“) and many other associations are also involved (UK Hospitality, Association of Self Caterers, and many more). We will be following the UK-wide standards, and more, to ensure Hare Farm is a relaxing, safe haven for guests to enjoy again.

SO WHAT ARE WE FOCUSSING ON TO BE READY FOR RETURNING GUESTS?

That our changeover team are safe, protected and well when working here
That our guests are safe, protected, and well when staying here
There is a very long list of measures we will be adopting, and changes to make in our offering and procedures at the Oast and Shepherd’s Hut. Just a handful are here to illustrate the depth of thinking and planning that is firmly underway:

• Moving information packs, guest feedback to digital versions only
• Self checkin and check-out. We, the owners, will be available (as always) on the phone, and if requested, to meet but at a distance
• The usual high standards of cleaning, plus more – extra attention to hand-touched items (light switches, door handles, cutlery etc)
• Removal of loose, unnecessary items (eg toys, books)
• Liaison with guests re bedding supplies
• Catering variations: fresh and frozen meals delivered to your door, by local fabulous caterers
• Guests to complete pre-arrival Covid-19 checks

YOUR OWN PRIVATE SPACE

So where better than on a farm, tucked well out of the way, to escape the pressures of Covid-19. We are a quiet, spacious location for you, offering so much space, tranquility and inspiration around you.

OPEN FOR BOOKINGS AND ENQUIRIES

With the 4th July date in mind, we are accepting bookings for arrivals after this date, and await the rollout of news, updates, and official guidelines from government in order to set all our thoughts in concrete. If you’d like to go ahead and book a stay with us, please check latest availability for the oast house and shepherd’s hut here.

We will continue to keep future guests posted on any updates and are happy to answer any questions you might have along the way, it’s our absolute priority to share our beautiful slice of Sussex with you again soon, as soon as we are allowed to and ready to do so. That’s safely.

The Oast was built around 1840 and for the following 130 years it was the kingpin on the farm when hops were Hare Farm’s main crop and income.

The hops were dried and stored within the Oast’s three round kilns. A lucrative crop in their heyday, hops gradually lost their viability in the 60s. The 1970 season was the Oast’s last. From then, the Oast wasn a redundant building, no longer useful for modern farming methods. The Oast’s restoration started in March 2010, and its full conversion into a self catering holiday home completed in June 2011.

After fifteen years’ duty as the roof over Mum and Dad’s garden tools and bits and bobs, holes in the roof and ever mounting instability, meant it was a “do or die” situation. The building needed to be saved. Our brief throughout was to restore the building, and to sensitively repair the original design, even to retain its interesting mix of window and door shapes and styles.

The oast had been built into a bank. Damp was a major problem. Tonnes of soil were dug out to reveal the full height of the beautiful roundels. Then the oast house could be fully underpinned. We kept all we could by way of original materials, and only replaced what we really had to.  Today, as much of the brickwork and timber is exposed internally as possible. The roof repair included at least half of the original tiles, with new coming from the only remaining Kentish kent peg tile maker, Babylon Tile Works.

Danny Butler and his team from down the road in Westfield led the build project and tirelessly nurtured the building back to its original state. Every roundel’s roof was rebuilt by hand, a tremendous technical challenge when the building is not square. And when there’s three roundels to do (not many oasts have three roundels for sure). After many years naked of cowls, the oast could stand very tall and proud again. Two of the cowls were airlifted in and the largest one, complete with boxing hares on its weather vanes, was carried up by human hands on a very cold day in November.

Restored again, the sleeping beauty has finally awoken  and can be enjoyed by all who stay in this large, spacious and stylish self-catering holiday home. We can be sure now she’ll live for many generations to come.