The
Main House. On the right of the picture you can see the coach house
which has been converted into 6 two-bed roomed flats. They could continue to be
used as flats or, subject to planning permission, converted into 3 houses
alternatively we could take out the kitchens and create at least 21 double
bedrooms for residential guests attending workshops at the main house.
The Main House. On the right of the picture you can see the coach house which has been converted into 6 two-bed roomed flats. They could continue to be used as flats or, subject to planning permission, converted into 3 houses alternatively we could take out the kitchens and create at least 21 double bedrooms for residential guests attending workshops at the main house.
Through the Medieval arch in the top left picture you can see one side of the L shaped museum block which has a cafe and shop. We hope to get planning permission to turn it into houses.
Aerial Photograph
On the aerial photograph you can see a small building with a pointed roof roughly in the middle of the built up area. We were originally told this was a medieval prison and wondered why it was there. Being in the centre could have some significance energetically and we thought it might be regarded as the Hara or ‘one point’ of the property. We explored our own relationships to the ideas of freedom and imprisonment including how we can be trapped by ideas and not realise we are free. We saw the polarity and wondered how both freedom and imprisonment could be embraced in ‘unity consciousness’. After finding some personal insights we also found out that historians don’t think it was a prison after all. We still don’t know what it is but we will probably use it as a meditation room.
The main house, courtyards, cottages, coach house and museum block are visible on this picture and plans are below. Also on this picture are 3 walled gardens, a long greenhouse and shed. There are 10 acres in all including 2 poly tunnels and a large tractor shed, not shown.
B House
Community
The Foundations
B House is a Grade 1 listed, Queen Anne country house with Tudor origins. Next to it is a coach house which has been converted into six 2 bed roomed flats. Beyond that is a modern museum block which includes a café, shop and a 1 bed roomed flat. Most of the property is currently empty for work to be carried out. The previous owners used it as 11 residential units and a tourist attraction with car boot sales on Sundays. They also intended to build 6 holiday lets and to add another staff flat in the museum. Planning permission was passed.
B House was bought in 2001 by Richard and Maggie Taylor who saw it as a way of ‘giving something back’. They intended to convert it into a Health Spa, which would generate enough income to freely serve those in need. We are very grateful to them for the work, the love and the vision that they have put into the estate. They have made our job much easier. Our vision is similar in that we are also committed to creating a place that can benefit a lot of people.
Richard and Maggie didn’t buy the property to make a profit, so they generously agreed to sell it to us for a price that doesn’t reflect all the money they’ve spent on it and the hard work they have done. We feel blessed by their support.
We would also like to acknowledge the ancestors of B who built and cared for it over the centuries. There is a lot of work to do here but it would be a lot harder if we were starting from scratch.
Vision
B House is bringing together people who have dreamed of living in a community, are realistic about what that involves and willing to do what it takes to make it happen.
We have a vision of a small community, similar in some ways to the Findhorn Foundation, that fits into the Eco village hyperlink framework (see below). There will be a Centre for Sustainable Life-Change but the most important focus is the quality of the relationships between people. As a community we can share a lot of resources and benefit from being in the heart of a group of people who care about each other. We can also enjoy self-contained living accommodation, spacious grounds, and the thriving alternative culture of Totnes, Dartington and the surrounding area.
The vision is becoming clearer as new members join and we go through the process of establishing the community. The founding members see the vision as a jigsaw and need the people who recognise that they may hold a piece of this jigsaw to step forward.
Eternal
Choir. In the 13th century when the old Bardic knowledge was written down, it was recorded in the
Welsh Triads that there were three eternal choirs in
Alchemy. Claudia Schaefer is an intuitive
astrologer. (more to come later)
Legal Structure
We are currently exploring the legal implications of how we
divide up the property so that individual households can have a shared sense of
community along with some form of ownership of their accommodation.
The community’s aim is to be as ecological as possible and yet we want to avoid stress being created by strict rules. Each of us draw our ecological line at a different place and so we will hopefully be able to gently educate each other and create a culture which will encourage us to move our line, e.g. sharing cars, tools, washing machines and other resources. There will, however, be some outline rules such as not releasing chemicals into the environment.
Water
B House has the rights to spring water, which is piped from a nearby spring to a reservoir (underneath the oval shaped construction beside the red car on the aerial photo). The water comes from an exceptionally good source but is currently has the potential of being polluted by surface water running into the stream from the fields. We need to spend about £10,000 to cap the spring so that it cannot be contaminated. B House also has its own water supply from a bore hole in the grounds so it doesn’t need to use the spring water. We have a strong sense that the spring water has healing properties. B is supposed to be the oldest residence in the area and hundreds of years ago water was appreciated more than it is today. They wouldn’t have piped the water to B if it wasn’t special.
Near the spring, which is no longer on land owned by B House, there is a large pond where the monks used to bathe. This used to be beautiful but is currently silted up. Even now it is a magical place.
Power and Leadership
At B House we will be building on the discoveries of other intentional communities and experienced individuals to develop an understanding of equality that can work on a practical level. There has to be a relationship between rights and responsibilities. Where there are different levels of commitment, risk and capital investment some people will have more at stake than others. In this case a straight forward one-person-one-vote could mean that the scales are not evenly balanced. Our decision making process must respect these differences.
Bits and Pieces (not
yet complete)
We also respect that men and women often have different ways of solving problems and we can benefit from both kinds of wisdom.
Families with children will be living at B House so no dogs.