Rest deeply: a 5-night Winter Retreat
Katherine Wilkes
Susan Papas
Billie
Louise Neicho (lou lou)
Tessa Turner
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Winter is the season of hibernation and this retreat will explore the transformative power of resting deeply.
Our daily lives often demand that we are constantly active and productive, however at this time of year Nature reminds us that we need to slow down, withdraw our energy and recuperate.
It can be difficult to allow ourselves rest in this way, but when we do, we stand a much better chance of being more resilient with greater capacity to face challenges and care for ourselves and others.
What you’ll experience on this retreat
- The chance to slow down and reset your nervous system
- Restorative mindfulness and self-compassion practices
- Gentle movement practices and tuning into what our bodies need
- A simple and spacious programme
- Periods of silence including a whole day of silence to allow time for contemplation and resting deeply
- The chance to engage in seasonal nature connection and nature-sensing activities (as the weather allows) with walks in the beautiful Devon landscape
- Delicious, healthy, home-cooked vegetarian food that regularly receives rave reviews
- Nurturing full-board accommodation in a Grade 1-listed Georgian House - your home for your stay and set in a designated Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty
There are periods of silence on each of our retreats, including a full day of silence.
Read on for more details on this retreat and click the Leaders, Schedules and Venue & Directions tabs above for further information.
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
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
See our Sharpham House Covid-19 measures here
Our food & your dietary needs
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 Walled Garden and we support local food suppliers.
We can accommodate the following dietary needs: vegan, wheat-free, gluten-free, dairy-free as long as you have included these on your Booking Form. Please alert us to any food allergies you have. The booking form is sent as a link once you have booked and paid for a retreat.
Your physical and mental health
This retreat is suitable for you if you are new to mindfulness, or seeking to renew or reconnect with your practice.
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 clinically diagnosed psychiatric illness such as bipolar 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-serve basis.
The beauty of Sharpham House and its surroundings is readily apparent, but it’s the special alchemy that happens inside the house when that’s combined with mindfulness and human warmth and connectedness that makes a stay here so memorable and powerful to the soul.
If you're coming to stay with us on retreat, it is important to make a commitment to arrive in time for the first group meeting and to attend all the days.
This ensures you experience the retreat programme from start to finish and helps your group of participants to gel.
There will be periods of silence each day as well as a full day of silence offering the chance to deepen into mindfulness and the theme of the retreat
Typical schedule
With sessions including nature connection, creative enquiry, mindfulness practice and exploration (including work on self-compassion, gratitide and appreciation)
Day 1
Afternoon/evening |
---|
3.00pm - 5.00pm - arrival |
5.15pm – Welcome meeting, House tour, settling in |
6.30pm - Supper |
8.15pm - Guided meditation |
9.00pm - House moves into silence until 8.30am, supporting individual mindfulness and reflection |
Typical day
Mornings | Afternoons |
---|---|
7.00am - wake-up bell (silence until 9.50am) | 1.00pm – Lunch & tasks |
7.30am - Early Bird Movement (optional) | 2.00pm – Resting time |
8.00am - Guided Meditation | 4pm - Afternoon session |
8.30am - Breakfast / Tasks | 5.30pm - Guided meditation (Octagonal Room) |
10.00am - Home groups | 6.00pm – Dinner, tasks and personal time |
11.30am - Morning session | 8.00pm - Mindfulness exploration |
8.40pm - Deep relaxation | |
9.00pm - Personal time. House moves into silence. |
Final day
Afternoon/evening |
---|
7.10am - wake-up bell (silence until 9.50am) |
8.00am - Early Bird Moving Mindfulness |
8.30am - Breakfast & tasks |
9.50am - Guided meditation |
10.30am - Final meeting |
11.45am - Departure |
Sharpham is a place of peacefulness and magic. I am leaving this retreat feeling rested and energised, with a deeper understanding of mindfulness and forward momentum for continuing my practice"
This retreat is a marvellous opportunity to explore and expand our lives through mindfulness, movement, voice and sharing. The venue is a sheer joy to stay in, the food wonderful and the people are always perfect. I hope to return"
A beautiful, nourishing space which helped me to reconnect with my creativity and love for life surrounded by people who share my values"
If this is not already on your bucket list, stick it close to the top. Something to be treasured. Unmissable"
This Sharpham retreat has given me the nourishment I needed to go and show the world who I am. It has been a phenomenal retreat full of creativity, wisdom-sharing, reflection, nature and pure happiness"
Panoramic views to feed your soul and a comfortable room in a fantastic house, to lay your weary head at the end of each day. A journey of body, mind and spirit that is well worth taking"
Life-changing, heart-opening, deep natural wisdom. I'll be back for more"
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
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.
Our gardens are managed organically and we only use bio-degradable cleaning products.
5 nights
£545 – Standard, single occupancy, full-board
£595 - Premium, single occupancy, full-board
£695 – Heritage, single occupancy, full-board
(see also bursaries below)
There will be a maximum of 20 guests on this retreat.
All rooms are single occupancy, giving you your own space in which to relax.
If you have a medical condition that requires you to have an en-suite room, please contact the Programme Administrator on the number below as these rooms are limited and are bookable on a first-come first-serve basis.
Book easily and securely online or by phoning 01803 732542
Please click here to see our booking and cancellations policy
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.

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.

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

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.

Ollie Frame
Ollie Frame works as an integrative therapist, mindfulness teacher and retreat leader. He is a co-leader on the Mindful in Nature programme at Sharpham, for which he has produced a large range of meditations and resources. He teaches the eight-week course in various settings, including to the general public, to teachers and students in schools and colleges, and to various other client groups on behalf of Devon County Council. Also trained to teach the Mindfulness-Based Compassionate Living (MBCL) course, he is especially enthusiastic about self-compassion, Metta meditation and other heart-based approaches within the world of mindfulness. As an integrative therapist, Ollie has a particular interest in Psychosynthesis, depth psychology, inner journeying and the therapeutic use of meditation and the imagination.

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.

Nina Jankelson
Nina began practising mindfulness in the Tibetan Buddhist tradition, attending retreat in Northern India and Nepal and later drawing inspiration from the Insight Meditation tradition and the teachings of Zen monk Thich Nhat Hanh.
A former residential coordinator at Sharpham's Barn Retreat, Nina has been facilitating meditations, ceremony and retreats for the past five years. Her practice is grounded in a connection to the land and in contacting moments of ordinary beauty and grace in the every day.
She is interested in exploring how contemplative practices can open up our experience of the world and is passionate about creating opportunities for others to do the same.

Barry Thurgood
For over 10 years, Barry has been guiding meditation groups and coordinating retreats at Lam Rim Buddhist Centre in Bristol, The Sharpham Barn Retreat and also online. He has also worked as the Sharpham Woodland Camp Retreat Manager and is a qualified Integrating Mindfulness & Compassion (CPCAB accredited) teacher.
Barry is inspired by sharing his passion for deepening a sense of connection with ourselves, each other, nature and something bigger than ourselves, all in a spirit of kindness.
How to book easily and securely:
- online on this page
- by phoning 01803 732542
Ring us or email us on [email protected] if you've got any questions.
Please click here to see our booking and cancellations policy.
Do check our Calendar to see and book for our events - or join our mailing list by clicking here to be kept in touch about Sharpham Trust news, retreats & events.