Kate Humble’s Humble by Nature is a true labour of love. This busy working farm in the Wye Valley is home to a rural skills centre offering a wide range of day-courses. Whether you want to learn the art of raku pottery, bee-keeping or how to build your own wood-fired pizza oven, you will certainly go home with some impressive new skills. Even if you’re just passing by, and not on a course, you might like to drop into The Pig & Apple Café for a delicious lunch, Sunday roast or epic burger night.
Kate Humble and her husband, Ludo Graham, moved to Monmouthshire in 2007, where they bought a farmhouse and fell into becoming smallholders. In 2010 they heard about a 117-acre working farm that was due to be broken up and sold. Having been home to tenant farmers for at least four generations, Kate and Ludo persuaded the council to let them take on the farm and turn it into a rural skills centre, while keeping it tenanted.
The hands-on rural skills courses will introduce you to traditional, as well as some more modern, skills. Learn how to create your own edible garden; the perfect method to lay a hedge; build a clay pizza oven or even how to make cider.
The food and cookery courses are sure to make your mouth water. Spend half a day making bread with the experts from Hobbs House Bakery; head out around the farm on a wild food foraging course; learn how to make your own ham, bacon and sausages or how to cook on a wood-fired oven.
On the crafts courses, you may wish to master the art of dark skies photography; create lino print landscapes or botanical prints on fabric; learn how to spin sheep’s wool or how to plant dye yarn.
The smallholding and animal husbandry courses are really popular and offer plenty of hands-on experience with the farm’s pigs, sheep and goats. You could choose to spend a day in the lambing shed, learn how to care for pigs or how to keep bees.
The Pig & Apple Café is open to all and serves a menu of delicious, locally-sourced produce from Wednesday to Sunday. Check their website for opening hours.
Humble by Nature offers a variety of courses through the year. Check out their calendar to see what’s available.
Feeling inspired? Take a look at our luxury cottages near Monmouth here.
Images copyright Humble by Nature
