Category: Middle Coombe Blog

Select a news topic from the list below, then select a news article to read.

Farm and Woodlands

Farm and Woodlands

Posted on by Woodquist

There has been quite a lot happening this past month (February) here at Middle Coombe:

We have just commissioned a massive wood boiler/burner to replace 90% of the gas and oil use at Middle Coombe Farm, a massive dream come true for us, (see below for pictures of completion).

We have completed building one storage barn in the woodland and the second drying barn we hope to complete next month, in order to commence our sustainable logs business for supplying to our local community.

We have made a stone pathway with rails starting at the pond and bringing you up to the middle road track on the way to the oak tree, to make it safer for all to walk.

This month we are resurfacing the middle track which the 4-wheel drive uses to bring guests up to the oak tree, and we have also cleared out trees around the oak tree to make wooden benches for seating instead of using hay bales.

The barn itself has had lots of work done regarding wind drafting, having erected the biggest curtains ever over the doors, these can be tied back if it is not windy, and we have doubled up all the sheeps wool which we use to insulate between the thatch and where it meets the cob walls, together with replacing the small windows with draft proofing material.

The Old Cider Press and Threshing Barn

The Old Cider Press and Threshing Barn

Posted on by Woodquist

One of the barns here on the farm is an old threshing barn with massive doors either side so the wind could blow the winnowed chaff out the door leaving clean wheat behind. Then sometime in the eighteen hundreds a sophisticated twin screw cider press was installed. In those days agricultural labour was paid for largely in cider. Unfortunately parts of the barn’s roof and walls were allowed to collapse in the early nineteen forties, The walls were constructed from cob, a mixture of stone, clay and straw which is an excellent building material but no use if allowed to get wet. And the roof was thatched from local straw.

Future projects to improve sustainability

Future projects to improve sustainability

Posted on by Woodquist
If you want to be sustainable you can never stand still – there are always new improvements to be made – it’s a bit like the Queen of Hearts in Alice in Wonderland.
Apple juice and cider – During the year we will also be investing in modern apple juice machinery – crusher, pumps, pasteuriser, bottle cleaner, training etc (we already have a modern manual apple press) so that come next autumn we can start production of both organic juice and cider. Apple juice requires much cleaner machinery than cider, whose fermentation process disposes of most of the germs, and whose wooden construction renders it impossible to clean to modern hygienic levels.