Volunteers are using traditional hand tools and human energy to make the shingles and battens for our new roof. 

The Sweet Chestnut logs we're using are from woodland just east of Ipswich. Last coppiced approximately 70 years ago, the new owners are commited to re-establishing the coppice rotation half an acre at a time.

Already the re-coppiced trees are taller than most of our volunteers and are locking in 2-3 times the carbon of a mature tree. AND the coppice logs/shingles are locking even more carbon into our greenwood roof!

Please help us safely complete the roof by making a donation that will help us pay for extra scaffolding.

CLICK HERE TO MAKE A DONATION VIA CROWDFUNDER

Orchard Barn is run by a not-for-profit social enterprise called OBee Community Interest Company 

Watch our 22-23 Impact Statement on YouTube

These are our Objectives

1.     Provide environmentally sustainable indoor and outdoor facilities and structure for community activities

2.    Increase participation in heritage activities

3.    Provide opportunities for learning traditional skills through practical participation

4.    Employ, and encourage the use of, natural resources and organic techniques through education, communication of best practices and practical demonstration of uses

5.    Conserve and enhance the historic features of the local landscape, including traditional orchards

6.    Develop community-supported vegetable plots, orchards, and woodland

7.    Encourage existing wildlife, and aim to increase biodiversity, by improving the habitat of sites within the local community

8.    Provide increased access to, and opportunities for exercise in, green space that is close to the community

9.    Increase, through a holistic educational programme, community awareness and understanding of the effect the individual has on the environment – and the vital interconnectedness between the health of the environment and the health of the individual