News & stories
Four short letters a year, plus the occasional bigger story when there is one to tell.
We post nine to twelve dispatches a year. Below are the latest. The full archive lives in a bound copy at the parish hall — drop in on a Wednesday to read it.
The water came back to Carr Bank.
On a bright Saturday in April, the first of three new standpipes was turned on. A small story about copper, concrete and a quiet round of applause.
A hundred years of tenancies, in one ledger.
Sitting in the parish-hall archive with the 1924 ledger, we found the entry for the very first plot let under the new scheme — and the rent it carried.
The Common Plot feeds the foodbank.
A summary of the 2025 season at our shared plot: 612 kg of fresh produce, 34 weekly deliveries to the Beacon Project, and a quiet thank-you note we keep on the office wall.
A new rainwater tank, and where it came from.
The 2,500-litre IBC against the south wall of the central shed is named, in private, the Bromley tank. We explain why.
Forty metres of new hedge in two cold Saturdays.
The 2025 laying season added forty metres of new pleached blackthorn along the western boundary. Photographs and a thank-you list.
The fifth cohort of Schools & Sowing closes the year.
Six schools, 184 children, and a small ceremony at the parish hall to plant a single apple tree.
Autumn Show 2024: a quiet record-breaker.
189 entries, 22 categories, one disputed marrow. We talk through how the judges decide on uniformity and gloss.
What we learned from a year of free tool sign-outs.
432 sign-outs, two lost tools, and a Saturday morning sharpening workshop that we did not expect to be so popular.
The 2023 annual return, in plainer English.
An annotated walk through last year's filing to the Charity Commission. What changed, what did not, and what we plan to spend next.
A late-autumn tally from the Common Plot.
The first season we kept a weekly kilo count: 488 kg by the first frost, and one very large beetroot kept for the show.