Croeso y Farmstead & Wild at Cefnmachllys
Stay in our traditional shepherd's huts, gather together in our threshing barn events space, explore our temperate rainforest valley, wander our wildflower meadows, experience nature where otter swims, goshawk calls and goldfinch feed.
About Us
Back in 2013 we set about bringing the 17th century farmstead back into habitation in a detailed conservation project using specialist local craftsmen. Developing the smallholding along Organic principles the farm is a haven for wildlife betwixt a stream and the River Dulas with 4 acres of temperate rainforest woodland and 26 acres of unimproved meadow land. We look forward to sharing our special slice of Wales!
Our family care deeply for this world and the land we inhabit. We are humbled to be custodians of 30 areas of this precious habitat. Our aim is to revitalise the land after years of heavy sheep grazing re-establishing wild flower meadows and allowing regeneration of the damp woodland, a home for pied flycatchers, redstarts, tits, warblers and goldcrest.
The farm balances wild spaces with careful and sensitive management with traditional coppicing, hedge laying and grazing with a small flock of Ryeland sheep. The farmhouse restoration is a model of sustainable building conservation.
Our professional careers in historic building conservation and animal welfare feed into our work at Cefnmachllys.
Our work so far has included fencing woodland for natural regeneration where bluebells now carpet areas and broad leaved helleborine orchids flower in July. Two fields have reverted to a boggy network of soft rush with a thick thatch of grasses sustaining a large population of mice, voles and shrews which in turn support the resident population of tawny owls and barn owls. Two new woodland belts were planted in 2022 and an array of boxes have been installed for tits, flycatchers, tree sparrows, barn and tawny owls, dippers and tree creepers as well as dormice.
