Join us for our next Volunteer Week at Fforest Barn Retreat!
April 7th to 12th 2026

This is a fantastic opportunity to roll up your sleeves and contribute to the farm’s sustainable future while enjoying the beauty of nature. Our mission is to honour nature and create a rich and uplifting environment to support people’s transformation at retreats. Check out the what’s on this year. This week is called ‘Bud’ week (part 2) in honour of our new alpaca, Bud.

We want strong people, ‘buddies’, preferably with some basic building skills. By then the totem poles should be up and the salt box, wood fired sauna will be working for your after work enjoyment, along with the hot tub. Buddy, the new alpaca, will have arrived  and the long, wet winter will be over! This volunteer week aims to finish what we started last November. (Mega thanks to all of you who helped. The end goal would not be conceivable had it not been for all your effort. Now we push for the summit!) The goals are to finish the Ecopool (Andy the expert is here all week), a self-sustaining ecological pool for wild swimming, including the path to it and the yoga deck. There’s also some trees to plant around the lake and yoga deck and some planting in the Food Fforest. We also want to make a floating pallet path across the bund between lake and wetlands to what will become a stone circle and also get our compost system fully functional and also a washing station in the beautiful, new agrished that you helped build; skin up and set up another polytunnel; also complete the Kali shrine. There’s digging and landscaping so we’ll have a digger on site. Just need an experienced digger for a bit of landscaping. Adam, our expert grower, is passionate about all things fungal and fermentable and will share his knowledge with you. We are now growing mushrooms on logs. Patrick may also give a talk and is on hand to share his knowledge. Hoping to see some of you here soon.

In exchange for your time and effort, we will offer delicious food, great company and luxurious board (along with the chance to unwind and relax in the hot tub or sauna after a hard day’s work). We do need a bit of help with the food as well. Last time people offered to ‘guest chef’ a meal or two. This is the perfect opportunity to connect with like-minded individuals who share a love for nature, while making a lasting impact on the farm.

How?

Fill in the online form Volunteering at Fforest Barn so we know a bit about you, your skills, food preferences, likely dates and so on. We will then contact you back. If you’ve come before we know your skills but it’s useful to know your dates.

It will ‘sell out’ so do reserve your place early and we encourage you to come as a couple, or bring a friend just because we have quite a few double/twin bed rooms, or be willing to share. Those coming for more days will get priorities on room bookings.

We are 10 minutes from Abergavenny station, with trains up to Manchester, or down to London (under 2.5 hours from Paddington) via Newport. It’s a 2.5 hour drive from London. Taxis are available from Abergavenny station and our taxi driver will know if there’s others coming on the same train to split the far.