Land
Gardens
Designed in collaboration with RHS Chelsea Flower Show gold medallist Juliet Sargeant, the gardens at The Dreaming are enchanting places to wander through and wonder at, but serve practical purposes too.
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The Elemental Garden
The Elemental Garden stretches out in front of the house over 5 acres. Two rolling rivers of flowers sweep across the land, mirroring the streams that run at the boundaries of The Dreaming, and honouring the elements: fire, air, water, earth. This garden has been designed with our bees in mind, and so serves to help our pollinator friends do what they do best.
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The Moon Garden
The Moon Garden, shaped like the Triple Goddess from Celtic mythology and representing the Maiden, Mother and Crone, is an ethereal collection of white flowers that open their petals to the night sky, releasing their scent to night-time pollinators.
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The Physic Garden
The Physic Garden provides medicinal herbs for our apothecary, where we can craft teas, balms, tinctures, soaps and other lotions and potions.
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The Rings of Rhydoldog
The Rings of Rhydoldog are our permaculture market gardens, that along with polytunnels and our burgeoning food forests, will feed our kitchen with seasonal delights from the earth’s bounty.
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The Potting Shed
The Potting Shed is exactly what it sounds like. Here we mix soils and pot seeds, offering skills and insight into compassionate and responsible horticulture so our guests can apply them to their own gardens and house plants.
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The Japanese Tea House
One of our agile activity spaces. Outdoor but undercover, and nestled at the edge of the forest, here we can keep sheltered during activities whilst still being immersed in nature.
Animals within the Ecosystem
(Free-range chickens, sheep, bees, native birds, and mammalian predators) provide eggs, wool for crafts, and help to maintain balance by breaking pest cycles for our crops and contributing to the broader ecology.
Ceremonial Spaces
For the vast majority of human history we have used ritual and ceremony to help us integrate things that have happened and to grow as individuals and communities. Being witnessed by community as we transition through life is an essential part of a soulful existence. In Western culture we still mark the big transitions, mainly through a religious gaze, in christenings, weddings and funerals.
There is however huge power in also marking the smaller, but no less important transitions. Making ceremony a regular part of life can transform old patterns of behaviour and bring about clarity and focus. That’s why we have a number of different ceremonial spaces, that help us to elevate the experiences of our guests, and bring rhythm to the year.
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The Waterfall Shower
A sensitively crafted addition to one of the waterfalls at The Dreaming. Carefully, so as to not disturb the ecosystem around it, we constructed a wooden platform that allows you to fully immerse yourself in the mighty torrent of the falls.
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The Court of the Holly King
In ancient Celtic tradition the Holly King is the personification of winter, and locked in an eternal battle with the Oak King. The court honours the holly trees that surround it, and is our Earth ceremonial space.
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Woodhenge
It was understood by ancient Celts that before a genuine stonehenge can be built, it has to be preceded by a woodhenge. The power invested in the land by years of human ceremony at that place earn it the right to have stones. That is why we have built a woodhenge, so that many years from now, when the posts have started to fall, we can replace them with stones, safe in the knowledge that we have imbued the space with enough energy to warrant them.
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Pool of a Hundred Reflections
It goes without saying that water holds special significance in every spiritual tradition in the world. It is purifying, clarifying, the source of life, and our ancestors’ first way of seeing themselves. More recently, research at the University of Exeter has suggested that human environments that prominently feature water have immense health and wellbeing benefits; perhaps even more than green spaces. Our Water ceremony space focuses upon reflection, and can be used for cold water immersion, bathing, and for deep meditative practice. Fed by one of the waterfalls at The Dreaming, it is a place of fairytale beauty.
Walks
We are blessed at The Dreaming with a number of enchanting walks on the land. The Waterfall Trail is an easy to moderate walk that takes no more than an hour, and leads up the falls and through forests of oak, beech, Norway and Sitka spruce, and many others species.
The Red Walk to the Seat of the Empress is harder, requiring some scrambling up hills, but offers the best views of the Cambrian Mountains for miles around. The Ascent is a straight path upwards on to the moors, and is ideal for anyone looking to push themselves physically.
