Building works - Trust statement

26th May, 2021

From Julian Carnell, Director

The Sharpham Trust has embarked on the renovation of the coachyard behind Sharpham House with the aim of creating a new retreat centre - The Coach House - which will have 18 bedrooms, a lounge, dining and meditation space and kitchen. The works started at the beginning of April and are likely to run until Christmas.

Both The Trust and the main contractor are focused on trying to minimise any noise and disruption as retreats start again later in May. The aim is to have most of the groundworks complete, together with the erection of the new timber frame extension, before the House reopens.

We cannot guarantee that there will not be occasional times when noise is created. However we can say that there will be no noise before 8am or after 5pm on weekdays and that there are no works being carried out at weekends.

Activities during the day such as meditation should not be disturbed because they are located in rooms at the front of the House which are well shielded from the building works. Similarly, the lawns at the front of the House are also well shielded by the building. There may be some noise when sitting on the patio outside the dining room.

We do have the rest of the Estate that groups can utilise as well.

The bedrooms at the back of the House are closer to the coachyard and so we are installing secondary glazing as a precaution - although we repeat: there is no noise before 8am or after 5pm. Retreatants usually spend limited amounts of time in their rooms during the day so the potential disruption shouldn’t be too significant.

In terms of the woodland retreats we don’t think the Woodland Campsite will be affected by noise given the distance from the coachyard. Groups sometimes use the croquet lawn during the day which is closer and could be affected. We have therefore created a new flat, lawned area up at the campsite which can be used if needed.

There will be some restrictions on parking and some participants on Sharpham House retreats may have to park their cars down at the farmyard next to the winery and cheese dairy. We will organise this when people drop off their luggage at the front of the House. Woodland retreat participants park at the campsite or the reservoir car park.

Obviously we will be learning as we go along and we hope that our participants will be understanding and agree that increasing our capacity to help people is worth some minor inconvenience. We have informed everyone when booking about the building works because we want to be transparent. If you still have concerns then please do get in touch.

Thank you for your understanding,

Julian Carnell
Director, The Sharpham Trust