outside space
Outside, you've got 14 acres all to yourself.
Parc-y-teg (Fair Fields) is an organic homestead, where no chemicals or pesticides have been used for the past 10 years, and is made up of 5 fields surrounding the house.
The farm is approached down a long (over 1.3 mile long), metalled track (this is a very bumpy lane, not tarmaced and with loads of potholes! Take care if you're in a low-slung car!) which stops at Parc-y-Teg Farm, so no other vehicular traffic approaches close to your secluded and private holiday home.
Children and pets are totally safe from road traffic. Bear in mind that Parc-y-Teg is a farm environment; there is quite a lot of water on the property as well as an old barn and children should be supervised at all times.
The small top left field is kept as long lawn. Below this is the old barn - this is the breeze-block kind, and stores wire netting and fence posts, as well as wood for your fires. Again, remember that you are on a farm and this is not a sanitised environment, so, you're more than welcome to explore everywhere, but keep an eye on the kids.
The top right field is left as pasture and holds the old wells that used to provide the farm with water before the new borehole was dug. This field has a public footpath going through it - well shielded from the house and garden - and used very, very rarely. Feel free to use the footpath, and the others in the lane, but please remember that these are old 'postman's paths' and do go close to other houses. Don't climb over peoples' gates, open and close them (climb over our gates as much as you like!!). Also, the footpaths tend to get very overgrown, especially in Summer, and have lots of 'stingers' on them!
Your holiday home is surrounded by grass with masses of room to spread out and relax. There are apple trees to the east of the house and, in December 2006, we have also planted pear, plum, and other fruit saplings in order to extend our small orchard, so that it now consists of three mature apple trees and fifteen saplings..
Home field adjoins the lawned gardens and stretches across the full width of the farm. This field is kept part-mown from late spring until early autumn so that it acts as a buffer between the lawned areas and the bottom meadows. It's also an ideal space for a game of football or just to run about with your children. One corner of Home field houses the reed bed - an ecological solution to sewage! There is no mains sewage at Parc-y-Teg, so all sewage flows into a septic tank and thence into the reed bed where it's cleaned and purified naturally (don't worry - you won't see any sewage at all!).
Below home field, and about 100 yards from the house - is the first of your large wildlife ponds, another 100 yards or so further away is a second pond in the bottom field.
The ponds are being created as wildlife habitats and are continually modified. Our plan is to encourage as much, and as diverse, native wildlife as possible and the area surrounding the ponds is being planted with native trees, shrubs, grasses and other plants for this specific purpose on an ongoing basis. The ponds are a longer term project - for more information see our 'Extra Amenities' pages.
There are loads of pond creatures already in residence and you (and your children) can go 'pond-dipping'. Our insurers have told us that we must point out that the ponds are not enclosed and that the water goes to a depth of about 6 feet. The bottoms of the ponds bear a lot of clay and we strongly suggest that you go no further than paddling. I have waded throughout the ponds and, in places, sink in clay up to my knees.
The lower left field is also primarily for wildlife, we hope you'll feel free to use it whilst respecting the animals and birds whose home it is. This meadow also houses our new Yurt which is available from Easter until October. From late spring until early autumn, there is a mown path around all the fields, so that you can take a leisurely walk before breakfast! The distance right around the perimeter of the property is about 2 kilometres!
As well as swallows and house martins - which nest in the house, stable and barn - and owls which are regular visitors, Parc-y-Teg abounds with wildlife. Buzzards, goldfinches, bullfinches, magpies, robins, wrens, redwings, Canada geese, herons, green woodpeckers (spotted woodpeckers live next door) and loads of other birds - we've identified 37 species so far and are thrilled that leaving our apples to fall has meant that numbers of Fieldfares arrive in the Autumn. In 2006, we've also spotted our first goldcrests, and a kingfisher on the top pond. Foxes, pheasants and rabbits roam in the fields; rabbits live in the lane, in the conifers to the west of the house, on the edges of the garden to the east and in the bottom fields - over the past year or so, we have notices a marked decrease in our rabbit population. The meadows encourage smaller wildlife and insects and we have an excellent frog population as well as newts, and loads of butterflies in the Summer. We leave the edges of the fields overgrown and the nettles standing, so that as much wildlife as possible is encouraged to stay and to nest.
