The fourth of the Lenten Friday Afternoon Nature meditations - led by different community members. Dates for the rest of the Friday Meditations are: 19th and 26th March 2nd April. Short videos will be available each Friday during Lent.  These will feature different sights and sounds of nature around the friary as an invitation to appreciate the beauty and the fragility of nature and our place in it.  The Community will be gathering at 4pm to pray, you may watch the video at that time or at any time until the next Friday when the next video will be uploaded.  No Charge for these meditations though if you wish to donate we would be grateful.

The fifth of the Lenten Friday Afternoon Nature meditations - led by different community members. Dates for the rest of the Friday Meditations are: 26th March and 2nd April. Short videos will be available each Friday during Lent.  These will feature different sights and sounds of nature around the friary as an invitation to appreciate the beauty and the fragility of nature and our place in it.  The Community will be gathering at 4pm to pray, you may watch the video at that time or at any time until the next Friday when the next video will be uploaded.  No Charge for these meditations though if you wish to donate we would be grateful.

The sixth of the Lenten Friday Afternoon Nature meditations - led by different community members. Dates of the last of the Friday Meditations is 2nd April. Short videos will be available each Friday during Lent.  These will feature different sights and sounds of nature around the friary as an invitation to appreciate the beauty and the fragility of nature and our place in it.  The Community will be gathering at 4pm to pray, you may watch the video at that time or at any time until the next Friday when the next video will be uploaded.  No Charge for these meditations though if you wish to donate we would be grateful.

If lockdown persists, we will post links to our Holy Week liturgies.  If it is possible to welcome guests, we look forward to doing so following the necessary guidelines, if any are required.

The seventh and last of the Lenten Friday Afternoon Nature meditations - led by different community members. Short videos will be available each Friday during Lent.  These will feature different sights and sounds of nature around the friary as an invitation to appreciate the beauty and the fragility of nature and our place in it.  The Community will be gathering at 4pm to pray, you may watch the video at that time or at any time until the next Friday when the next video will be uploaded.  No Charge for these meditations though if you wish to donate we would be grateful.

Led by Richard Thornbury and friends runs from Friday 16th to Sunday 18th April.  Arrivals from 4pm.  The course starts at 6pm on the Friday and finishes at 12 noon on the Sunday. Guests depart after lunch. Come for the weekend to prepare yourselves and your congregation for an observance of Climate Sunday. You are welcome to come for Saturday 17th only if you prefer. Holding a Climate Sunday as a church is a great way to galvanise further action on Eco Church and contribute to progress on international action!  Organised by a coalition of Christian charities and denominations, including A Rocha UK, the Climate Sunday initiatives’ goal is to facilitate 1000s of churches to take long-term action themselves on climate change in the critical years ahead.  By participating in the initiative, churches will also be able to raise a loud and united Christian voice for bolder action by governments in the run up to the COP26 UN climate negotiations to be hosted by the UK in Glasgow in November 2021.  This relates to the Global and Community Engagement sections of the Eco Church programme.  The coalition is encouraging churches across the country to hold a climate-focused service, to explore our response to climate change as Christians, and then to take action! For more information see the Climate Sunday Website: https://www.climatesunday.org/   Suggested donation £140 for the weekend or £25 for the Saturday daytime only.

Free to attend the Church Service.  The friary community will observe Climate Sunday with a special liturgy for our regular Sunday Eucharist at 8:30 a.m.

This weekend is facilitated by Richard Thornbury and Jonathan Herbert, and runs from Friday 7th until Sunday 9th May.  Arrivals from 4pm.  The course starts at 6pm on the Friday and finishes at 12 noon on the Sunday. Guests depart after lunch. Ponds support 2/3rds of all freshwater species, but the UK has lost more than 50% of its ponds in the 20th century and 80% of those that remain are in a poor state.  Get stuck in to address this, bring your wellies and come and help us digging a network of new ponds at Hilfield.  Participants are welcome to stay for the whole weekend or just join us for the main push of digging taking place on the Saturday.  Bring a spade if you have one.

Churches Count on Nature runs from Saturday 5th until Sunday 13th June 2021.  Saturday 5th June is our day.  It is all about local people discovering and recording the wonderful plants and wildlife in their local church yard. This is an ecumenical partnership project between A Rocha UK, the Church of England Environment Programme and Caring for Gods Acre.

This weekend is led by Lynn and Tony Fry and runs from Friday 25th until Sunday 27th June.  Arrivals from 4pm.  The course starts at 6pm on the Friday and finishes at 12 noon on the Sunday. Guests depart after lunch. Producing much of our own food is an important part of our life in The Friary.  Caring for our soil is the first stage of the journey from seed to table.  This weekend will be a mix of practical and thoughtful activities, opening ourselves to the way of growing, cooking and sharing food can feed our souls. Suitable for all abilities. If you cannot attend the weekend in person, you can join us by Zoom for the talk with Alastair McIntosh on Sunday 27th at 11.00. Donations for the Zoom talk only £10. Soil, Soul and Community in COP26 Climate change cannot be addressed by technical, political and economic policies alone. It is deeply about us. About our relationships with the earth, with the spirit that gives life, and with one another in community. Soil, soul and society as Satish Kumar of Schumacher College came to describe it after discussing with Alastair the title of his best known book. The postponed COP26 climate change conference of the United Nations is due to take place in Glasgow later this year. How can we ground the global issues to be discussed there in local ways of building soil and soul based community? Alastair will share, drawing on experience from the Outer Hebrides of Scotland to New Guinea. Alastair McIntosh’s books include Soil and Soul (Aurum 2021) on land and community, Poacher’s Pilgrimage about a spiritual journey into an ecology of the imagination (Birlinn 2021), and Riders on the Storm: The Climate Crisis and the Survival of Being (Birlinn 2020), described by Sir Jonathon Porritt as “imbued with the deepest...

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