Sustainable pioneers

We meet some of the leading environmentally friendly businesses in the county who all have the same vision when it comes to caring about climate change and positive adjustments

- Holly Louise Eells

Campaigners and environmentalists Peter Kindersley and his wife, Juliet, began their dream of self-sufficiency over 40 years ago when they founded Sheepdrove. They bought a dilapidated farmhouse on top of the windswept Berkshire Downs in Lambourn. “It was originally built around about the Zulu war period in the 19th century. Many people referred to it as Zulu because of its isolation,” explains Peter.

Sheepdrove Organic Farm is a model of environmentally responsible farming driven by a passion and concern for animal welfare, biodiversity and wildlife conservation. The couple’s original aim was to protect themselves from the polluting chemicals used by farmers all around them and recreate the original downland landscape.

Over the years, they purchased additional land and have grown Sheepdrove to its current 2,500 acreage. “It is not only a home but a way of life where we can show how the world would be a much better place if we farmed with the environment in mind,” says Peter.

Before running a phenomenal eco-friendly business, Peter was a publisher until 2000 and had offices all over the world, including London, New York, Delhi and Stuttgart. “I worked with several environmentalists on books that showed me the problems we were creating for the future. But this was something I had been aware of for a long time... insect Armageddon, the dying of the bees, the oceans awash with plastic and many species disappearing due to huge over-fishing, intensive industrial farming and chemicals,” he says.

It seems there is no place like Sheepdrove; a building which defines an environmentally sympathetic approach with ground-breaking architecture. It offers bespoke weddings, conferences, a physic garden, events and green burials within its natural burial wood.