Live here

We are just one of a few hundred communities in the UK, please see this link for more information:

Collective Communities and Sustainable Farming

If you are interested in the possibility of living at Canon Frome Court, and think that this is the kind of life to which you aspire, please contact our Membership Secretary.
By Post:
Membership Secretary
Canon Frome Court
Ledbury
Herefordshire
HR8 2TD
by E-mail: membership@www.canonfromecourt.org.uk

You will be sent information about the community and asked if you’d like to attend the next visitor weekend (normally held twice a year).

At visitor weekends we invite a group of people to come and we aim to give people a view of what life in a community is like (not just the good bits).

If you’re still interested then you can ask to come for further individual or family visits. After two individual or family visits we have an informal discussion at a Housing Association meeting to check everyone is comfortable about you coming for further visits. After a minimum of three visits and coming to a decision making meeting you can ask to be considered for prospective membership. When the housing association accepts your application, this gives you the opportunity to buy into the community when a property is available (under the terms of our leases, properties can only be sold to members).

It is important that you understand how we reach decisions (or not) and so part of the membership process is that you must attend a decision-making meeting (we have 2 per month).  We also strongly encourage you to come to a House Meeting where we discuss wider issues around the community.

Our aim is to build up a pool of potential new members so that when somebody is ready to move out there are applicants who have progressed through the membership process.

We feel it is our responsibility to help people gain a realistic view of community life and to point out all the difficulties (the positive aspects are all too evident). This usually takes several months.

Because we are contacted by many people in the course of a year, we leave it up to the applicants to keep the process going. If you really want to get here, keep in touch and keep visiting.

You might like to consider the following points carefully.

Canon Frome Court is a working organic farm run by the Community.
It is owned and managed by the Windflower Housing Association, a co-ownership housing association.
We do not have a common philosophy or political stance, though there is a prevailing sympathy with green issues.
Administrative tasks and the co-ordination of all aspects of co-operative work (e.g. fields, garden, machinery, animals, maintenance) can be very onerous.
Working together and working independently on communal tasks are essentially what “community” means to us at Canon Frome.
Community life means being prepared to compromise in decision-making and to give up some personal autonomy for the greater good.
The farm is the main focus of community life.
We farm our land co-operatively and organically (as far as possible) to produce a considerable proportion of our food, including a good deal of our own meat.
Dogs are generally discouraged, mainly because of the livestock.
Looking after livestock, growing food, maintaining buildings and equipment and administrative tasks take considerable time, energy and commitment from all of us.
We finance activities by monthly contributions, according to size of home and family.