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Mindfulness for Beginners - 3 nights

Katherine Wilkes

4 months ago, on Google
Had a fantastic experience at Sharpham Retreat, I came home feeling relaxed, peaceful and calm. The community feeling was so lovely, I met a wonderful group of people that enriched my journey. The meditation activities were really good for a beginner like myself and I have taken home skills and techniques to use in my daily life. Really great memories, I would definitely recommend 👍

Susan Papas

10 months ago, on Google
The 6-day mindfulness retreat I attended at The Coach House on the Sharpham Estate in Devon, England, was an oasis of peacefulness, meditation, rural beauty, and - far more than I had expected - connection with a group of strangers (including two wonderful coordinators) who quickly became mindful companions. An unforgettable experience in gorgeous surroundings. 🧘‍♀️🌳🌼

Billie

10 months ago, on Google
Have just returned from the mindfulness for beginners retreat at Sharpham House and what a magical, transformative experience it was! The house and the grounds are truly breath-taking, the natural beauty of the place is a big aspect of what you take away with you; a deeper connection with nature. The facilitators Steven and Lynette were both holding, humorous and skilled mindfulness leaders. Wonderful to learn from and be around. I felt taken care of on this retreat in many ways which I realised was something I deeply needed. The food is delicious and nourishing and the walled garden of veggies was one of my favourite places to spend time. The retreat strikes a good balance between discipline/structured practice with extended periods of silence and time to yourself. In my downtime I enjoyed chatting with others on the retreat, spending time alone reading, swimming in the pool or colouring, just sitting in the gardens. I left the retreat rested, calm and inspired. For anyone feeling a little frazzled by life and in need of slowing down for a reset, this is a good retreat for you. I will be back!

Cristina Vulcan

2 weeks ago, on Google
Sharpham House is the most idyllic and tranquil places for a mindfulness retreat. It offered us the perfect conditions to facilitate a deeper connection with ourselves, with the beautiful nature and the rich wild life surrounding the area. Being under the skilful, generous and mindful guidance of our kind, open-hearted coordinators Nina and Will has created the perfect space to bring to light deep powerful insights. I am truly grateful for this life-changing experience.

Hattie Rutter

a month ago, on Google
Having recently attended a weekend retreat I highly recommend it. Beautiful location, delicious food and a proper rest and rejuvenation. My intention is to keep meditation a part of my life.

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If you want to start (or re-start) a mindfulness practice, then this retreat can help show you the way.

Meditation retreats at The Sharpham Trust

Experienced leaders will introduce you gently to the practice of meditation with guided sitting sessions, mindful walking and periods of silence.

You'll be cared for full-board in Sharpham House, with enough free time for rest and reflection.

And you’ll be able to connect with nature in the very special location of the Sharpham Estate.

Read on for more details on this retreat and click the Leaders, Schedules and Venue & Directions tabs above for further information.
 

An easy  way to (re)begin a mindfulness practice


This retreat is for you if you:

  • are new to mindfulness and meditation
  • Want to re-start a lapsed mindfulness practice
  • Are aged 18 and above

Staying in comfortable community


There will be a maximum of 20 participants on this retreat working mostly in smaller groups to ensure that we can follow social distancing guidelines.

There are periods of silence on each of our retreats.

Meditation retreats at The Sharpham Trust

What you’ll experience on this retreat


  • guided meditation and practices to support you in everyday life,  
  • periods of silence and quiet contemplation
  • lliving in community with like-minded people, sharing experiences and the opportunity to bring mindfulness to some everyday household tasks
  • explore our tranquil Capability Brown-designed parkland and our Grade 2*-listed gardens designed by Percy Cane
  • have a single-occupancy room and your own space in which to rejuvenate, with free time to deeply rest and reconnect with yourself, far from the busy-ness of daily life. Click here to explore our rooms.
  • enjoy delicious, healthy, home-cooked vegetarian food that regularly receives rave reviews
  • be cared for full-board in a Grade 1-listed Georgian House surrounded by history and art, with staff looking after you, in a designated Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty close to nature, amid breath-taking scenery on the banks of the River Dart
     

Meditation retreats at The Sharpham Trust

Mindfulness in nature at Sharpham


When you experience Sharpham's inspiring and nourishing environment, we hope you'll connect spiritually with the natural world, so you’ll:

  • become aware of how we are all part of nature - not artificially separate from it
  • pay attention to and appreciate the natural world surrounding us
  • explore nature through your senses and your natural creativity
  • Tread more lightly on our finite planet, developing a respect and reverence for all living things

Click here to read our ethos and principles

Meditation retreats at The Sharpham Trust

What you need to know


If you decide to stay with us, we’ll send you a list of what you need to bring for this retreat in your Welcome Letter that we send out after you've booked.

You can also find out more about staying with us on our Frequently Asked Questions page, including

  • accessibility information
  • why we encourage you to come on your own and not with partners or friends
  • what the difference is between our retreats

Meditation retreats at The Sharpham Trust


Our food & your dietary needsMindfulness meditation retreats at The Sharpham Trust


The retreat is full-board with delicious home-cooked vegetarian food.

In line with sustainable practices across the Estate, our cooks produce seasonal, vegetarian food for our guests. We source food whenever possible from our kitchen garden and support local food suppliers. 

Food allergies & intolerances
Please tell us well in advance of your stay of any food allergies or intolerances you may have.

You can tell us this on the Booking Form via a link we send you in your confirmation email.


Your physical and mental health


Although meditation and mindfulness can be helpful in managing stress, depression and anxiety, our retreats might not be suitable if you are experiencing major depression or other psychiatric illness such as bipolar disorder, emotionally unstable personality disorder, psychosis or current self-harming. Click here for more information and for our booking process

We have an accessible en-suite bedroom The Clare Milne Room – click here for details on how to book this room

If you have a medical condition that requires you to have an en-suite room, please contact our Programme Administrator on the number below as these rooms are limited and are bookable on a first-come first-served basis.

 

Sharpham was a great experience on many levels. It was an excellent introduction to mindfulness meditation - then to have those sessions woven through three days of stimulating company, delicious, healthy food in a setting so heavenly, made it the perfect still-point in a hectic life.

Meditation retreats at The Sharpham Trust

Typical retreat schedule

Day 1: Arrive between 3-5pm for welcoming talk and settling in

Mornings Afternoons
7.00am - wake up  12.30pm - guided sitting meditation
7.30am – mindful movement  1.00pm - lunch
8.00am - guided sitting meditation 2.30pm – Personal time
8.30am – breakfast and tasks 5.00pm - guided sitting meditation
9.50am – meeting  6.00pm – supper and tasks
10.30am - walk of the grounds or personal time 8.00pm - Meditation / Teaching
  9.00pm – House moves into silence until 9.00am the next day
   
   

Final day: depart at 12 noon

The retreat will move into silence each evening from 9pm – 9am, and till 2pm on day 3.

 

 

Had a fantastic experience at Sharpham Retreat, I came home feeling relaxed, peaceful and calm. The community feeling was so lovely. I met a wonderful group of people that enriched my journey. The meditation activities were really good for a beginner like myself and I have taken home skills and techniques to use in my daily life. Really great memories, I would definitely recommend 👍

 

I wanted to write and thank everyone who is part of this wonderful place...it was my first ever retreat and I loved every single minute. I learnt so much and have never felt such peace...it is a very special place and I am looking forward to returning.

 

I found staying at Sharpham the most moving experience and am very grateful to all the people who help run such a wonderful place.

 

Your inspired guidance and support have enabled me to continue to be connected to my mindfulness practice, which is a tool I am grateful for every day.

 

I have returned from the Mindfulness for Beginners retreat at Sharpham today & I wanted to email you to say a huge, huge thank you from the bottom of my heart. I had an incredible time and discovered emotions I didn't even know I had!

 

At a time in my life when I have felt unfettered for quite a while, this retreat has helped me feel much more grounded and balanced.

 

Beautiful surroundings, delicious food and a very well facilitated retreat. Thank-you.

This retreat takes place in the beautiful and historic Grade 1-listed Sharpham House set in a Capability Brown-designed landscape with stunning views over the steeply-wooded River Dart.

Click here for our How to Find Us page on this website.

Click here to view, print or download directions and a map to Sharpham House

Click here view and download walking/cycling directions to Sharpham House

Aerial shot of Sharpham House

If you have a medical condition that requires you to have an en-suite room, please contact our Programme Administrator on the number below as these rooms are limited and are bookable on a first-come first-served basis.


Just to let you know, we have poor mobile phone coverage – which we see as a virtue. While there is wi-fi in Sharpham House, we encourage you to disconnect from ‘the network’ so you can fully retreat when you’re here.


We are 3 miles from Totnes – famous for its Transition Town movement

We are in a designated Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty


Sustainability

We take sustainability seriously.

All of the hot water and heating in the House is produced by a state-of-the-art biomass woodchip boiler and we have 2 large photo-voltaic solar panel arrays on barn rooftops.

Eco-gardens at Sharpham

Our gardens are managed organically and we only use bio-degradable cleaning products.

£375 Standard room, single occupancy, full-board

£425 Premium room, single occupancy, full-board

£495 Heritage room, single occupancy, full-board

(see also room types below)

Bursaries

Limited 50% bursaries offering reduced-price retreats are available for those experiencing financial hardship. Please contact the Programme Administrator at least 4 weeks in advance if you wish to apply.

Our bursary fund relies on donations. If you’d like to help another to go on retreat here through our bursary scheme, you can give online quickly and easily by clicking here


Room types

Standard rooms
Our Standard rooms are smaller and cost less, but they’re still cosy and comfy. If you prefer a simpler or less expensive retreat experience, these rooms are for you.

Standard room at Sharpham House

Premium rooms
These are attractive rooms with good views of the stunning countryside that surrounds us. They are comfortable, giving you a restful environment in which to restore.

Premium room in Sharpham House

Heritage rooms
These are our most spacious & historic rooms, helping you deeply rest and rejuvenate in a nourishing and inspiring atmosphere surrounded by artworks and with river views.

Heritage room in Sharpham House

Bathrooms

Because Sharpham House is a Grade 1-listed mansion (with limits to the changes we are allowed to make to the building), few bedrooms come with an en-suite bathroom and toilet. There are shared bathrooms on every floor.

A shared bathroom at Sharpham

If you have a medical condition that requires you to have an en-suite room, please contact our Programme Administrator on the number below as these rooms are limited and are bookable on a first-come first-served basis.


Our accessible rooms

We have an accessible en-suite bedroom The Clare Milne Room – click here for details on how to book this room


All rooms have tea & coffee-making facilities and towels are provided. Click here to see more about our rooms

Jess Stein

Jess Stein

Jess offers retreats that combine mindfulness, nature connection and creativity. She has been facilitating mindfulness spaces since 2012, initially as part of the Plum Village tradition and for the last six years at Sharpham Barn, House and Woodland. 

Reverence for nature informs all that Jess does. Initially trained as a yoga teacher all that she teaches takes its inspiration from the organic shapes of the human body and the forms and patterns of the natural world. She offers practices that awaken each person's unique capacity for awareness, creativity and connection. The spaces she holds are welcoming, intuitive and gently transformative.

Alongside retreats, Jess is a palliative care nurse and holds a degree in English Literature. Eternally curious, she has completed training in Dru Yoga, Scaravelli Inspired Yoga, Creative Writing and meditation, Embodied Anatomy, Nature Connection and Cultural Repair, Qi Gong, Adaptive Yoga, Yoga for Women’s Health and much more


Jo Gosling

Jo Gosling

Jo has over 30 years’ experience in the NHS, initially as a Macmillan nurse in cancer care then, as a Clinical Psychologist. She has a longstanding mindfulness practice and has undergone extensive training with teachers from Bangor and Exeter Universities.

She has regular mentoring and attends silent meditation retreats to deepen her practice. As a freelance mindfulness teacher she has delivered numerous MBCT groups for people with recurrent depression at the Mood Disorders Centre, University of Exeter and been supervisor to trainee mindfulness teachers.

A personal health crisis, combined with training to teach Mindful Self-Compassion (with Chris Germer and Kristin Neff) led to a change of direction in life and she has completed an MA in Fine Art. A natural follow-on was to combine the two areas of mindfulness and creativity, in the form of retreats and workshops.

Jo is an Ecstatic Dance Facilitator and is embarking on further training in ‘Visual Medicine’ for therapeutic practice.


Nadia Abdel-Karim

Nadia Abdel-Karim

Nadia Abdel-Karim has practised mindfulness and meditation since 2015, influenced primarily by Insight Meditation and Mahayana Buddhist traditions.

As a freelance mental health worker, she spent several years facilitating support groups and offering one-to-one crisis support across London for the mental health charity Mind.

After training as a Mindfulness Practitioner in 2019, she began co-facilitating 8-week Mindfulness-based Stress Reduction courses specifically for people experiencing depression and anxiety.

Nadia relocated to Devon to live at The Barn Retreat Centre, where she spent almost two years co-leading meditation retreats. Alongside leading retreats for Sharpham, she works as a Focusing Practitioner and facilitates spaces for people to connect with their grief.

Her journey continues to be guided by her love for exploring and understanding spiritual traditions and practices.


Emma Thom

Emma Thom

Emma has worked in mental health for over 20 years. She has a Post Graduate Diploma in Mindfulness Based Cognitive Therapy (University of Exeter). She works at the AccEPT clinic in Exeter teaching mindfulness courses to adults with depression and health and social care staff. She also teaches mindfulness to adoptive parents, teenagers, and families with learning difficulties. Emma’s life has benefitted in many ways from mindfulness. She first discovered mindfulness during an extensive period of ill-health and has no doubt that mindfulness gave her what she needed to recover.  Emma loves sharing what she has learned with others and is particularly interested in the ways that mindfulness supports wellbeing and flourishing along with increasing capacity to manage stress and ill-health.  Emma especially enjoys practicing mindfulness in movement, through yoga and walking.


Ramiro Ortega

Ramiro Ortega

Ramiro is a mindfulness teacher and a retreat leader, and also a philosophical counsellor in training. He started practising in Spain in 2005 in the Soto Zen tradition, moving later to the UK to finish his studies in philosophy, where he came into contact with other different schools of meditation practice. 

Finally Ramiro made his home in the UK and after spending two years living in Gaia House, a Buddhist meditation retreat centre in the Insight Meditation tradition in Devon, he trained to teach mindfulness with the University of Bangor and with the University of Exeter. He is also participating in the teacher training programme with the Bodhi College.


Ollie Frame

Ollie Frame

Ollie Frame works as an integrative therapist, trained mindfulness teacher (MBSR) and retreat leader. He is a co-leader on the Mindful in Nature programme at Sharpham, for which he has written and recorded a large range of meditations and resources. He is passionate about how mindfulness can help us connect more deeply with the natural world, for the sake of our own wellbeing as well as that of the planet.


In addition to leading mindfulness courses in various settings, he is also trained to teach compassion-based approaches (Mindfulness-Based Compassionate Living), and is especially enthusiastic about self-compassion, Metta meditation and other heart-based approaches to meditation practice. As an integrative therapist, Ollie has a particular interest in Psychosynthesis, inner journeying and the therapeutic use of meditation and the imagination. He loves the woodlands, rivers and coasts of Devon, and takes every opportunity he can to be by or in the River Dart.


Lucy Chan

Lucy Chan

Lucy is a teacher of mindfulness, compassion, and Buddhist meditation who leads retreats and courses worldwide. She also offers the 8-Week Mindful Self-Compassion (MSC) programme having trained directly under the internationally renowned pioneers of this field; Kristin Neff and Chris Germer. As a practising doctor in the NHS for over a decade, she understands the importance of integrating mindfulness practices as a way to keep balance in everyday life. Her passions include helping people engage with self-compassion practices as a way to build inner resilience, and supporting the caregivers of society.


Steve Banks

Steve Banks

Steve trained as a mindfulness teacher with Mindfulness UK. He started practising meditation in 1990 within the Buddhist tradition, and has attended retreats, mostly at Gaia house, with many different teachers. Steve is a qualified Psychosynthesis counsellor and has engaged in many forms of menswork over three decades, including co-leading transformative Rites Of Passages retreats for men. He leads workshops on Ken Wilber’s ‘Integral’ model and has presented seminars on sacred music, ‘The Power Of Music’, at many events, including the Integral European Conference, the foremost global gathering of Integral thinkers and practitioners. Steve has attended the one-week Mindful Self-Compassion retreat with Chris Germer and Kristin Neff. He is passionate about passing on the gift of mindfulness and meditation.


Ethan Pollock

Ethan Pollock

Ethan has been supporting retreats and mindfulness groups for over a decade. He spent five years training at Plum Village with the internationally recognised Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh and currently offers retreats and classes on mindfulness and buddhism at meditation centers and local groups around the UK. His teaching helps people touch more calm and ease in their everyday lives by bringing awareness and appreciation to simple daily activities, retreatants especially love his guided meditations!


Lynette Robinson

Lynette Robinson

Lynette Robinson is a qualified Breathworks mindfulness teacher and accredited life coach. She teaches mindfulness to a diverse range of groups, such as seniors living in residential complexes, men in prison and women’s groups.  During 2020 lockdowns this diversity expanded to teaching online mindful-working courses for home-workers. Her freely given Zoom group ‘Stop The Week & Rest to Calm' supported the mental and emotional well-being of attendees from four different countries.  Author of the book 'Reclaimed', and' Mindfulness Mediations for Modern Day Women' CD, Lynette lives life with passion, following the energies of creativity and contribution. In 2016 she volunteered as Retreat Coordinator for three summers, at The Barn.


Rupert Marques

Rupert Marques

Rupert has practiced in the insight meditation tradition for nearly 25 years in Europe, America and Asia. His primary teachers have been Christina Feldman and Joseph Goldstein. The work of Toni Packer and John Tarrant have also been influential in his practice and teaching. He teaches at various retreat centres in Europe and beyond. For the past 4 years Rupert has lived and worked at Ecodharma, a contemplative retreat community in the Spanish Pyrenees dedicated to exploring the role of the Dharma in the movements for social justice and ecological sustainability. At Ecodharma he directed the Nature based Practice strand of their work that marries contemplative practice with a range of approaches within the field of experiential ecopsychology in a wilderness setting.


Will Evans

Will Evans

Will has been meditating in various Buddhist and Non-Dual traditions for a decade, guided by a spirit of exploration and experimentation and a sense of wonder and possibility. He mostly finds his home in the Insight Meditation tradition. In 2019 he trained as a mindfulness teacher with the Mindfulness Training Institute under Martin Aylward and Mark Coleman, and in 2020 he joined the team at the Barn Retreat, where he spent over a year facilitating both online and in-person retreats. He has a passion for helping people find approaches and relationships to meditation that work for them, with the view that meditation practice is not a fixed path but a vast landscape to explore.


Retreats & Events

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  • online on this page
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Ring us or email us on [email protected] if you've got any questions.

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