Archive - December 2018

Striving for egg-sellence.

We are delighted to introduce our latest residents at the castle – 6 beautiful hens. The girls arrived at the weekend, and are settling into their coop and paddock at the far end of the walled garden. We have already had a couple of batches of eggs to sample for our breakfasts – there really is nothing like a free range egg straight from the chicken!

Our ladies are part of our continuing efforts to be more self-sufficient, and grow our ‘farm to fork’ policy. Our philosophy has always been ‘don’t bite the land that feeds you’ and we seek to minimise our environmental impact in every aspect of the business. From our biomass boilers fed with local wood chips that heat the castle, to our tree planting programme through the Woodland Trust. We source everything locally as far as possible for our menus, our excellent maintenance team repair before renewing.

Our head chef Iain has been working with Andrew our Gardener on ways that the castle can honour its strong botanical history (see Isobel Wylie Hutchison) and further introduce home grown produce through for catering. We already use herbs and botanicals grown in our restored Victorian hothouses, and have a planting schedule for the upcoming seasons to grow more of our own fruit and veg.

Our chickens don’t have to worry however – it’s only the eggs we’re after!