We’re a married couple in our late 30s with three young children who are looking to live a slightly more simple life.
For the past four years we’ve been slowing our lives down and figuring out how we would like to live for next phase of it as a family. There’s a lot more background over on our blog Becoming Self Sufficient but keeping it pertinent to this site our main focus currently is to find ourselves a permanent home and put down some roots, literally.
For a home we’re looking for a rural smallholding – if we can afford one, which isn’t looking too hopeful at the moment – but these don’t normally come up with a nice big wood too. So we’ve decided to split the search and find the wood first, then get a home nearby afterwards.
The answers to some general questions are listed below. If you’re interested in helping us find our perfect woodland then you may also want to take a look at our more specific requirements.
Why do we want buy a woodland?
- Wood is a carbon neutral fuel source
- Wood can be used to build stuff both as seasoned timber and – of particular interest to us – green wood
- Woodlands are magical places teeming with wildlife that are a delight to spend time in
- Depending how close it ends up to our home we may use it as a forest garden or to keep some or our livestock there
- Longer-term we plan to use it as a location to run courses on things like bushcrafting and green woodworking
- Land cannot be printed, unlike money. We feel that it makes it the perfect long-term investment (think pension) in these unsettled times. We can get all of the utility and enjoyment listed above and feel confident that our later life income needs might be met.
Are we looking to live in the wood?
No. We’d have a house on separate land. Although being able to buy as a separate purchase a house nearby would be fantastic.
Why not use one of the websites dedicated to selling woodlands?
We still might. However we really don’t want to sign a covenant limiting what we can do with the land. Also due to the higher profile of them we’ve been disappointed in the past where woods have come on and been taken off again before we could act, in one case within hours of going on.
Will we be nightmare neighbours?
We value peace, quiet and privacy as much as the next person and we will be respectful neighbours. Woodlands do need managing however so we’d definitely be using chainsaws where appropriate and we’ll need to access the land with vehicles to extract timber on occasion. We’re also certain to want to camp there overnight as a family now and again. However we’re not looking for an off-road playground, somewhere to live or a place to cause nuisance.
Could we interested in buying your wood?
If it meets some or all of our requirements then yes, almost certainly we would be – please get in touch.