OUR NATURAL WORLD
Our Canopy of Stars
We spend much of our time outdoors working in the vineyard and noticing the constant small changes in the world around us. From the first buds on the hedges to the bloom of the bluebells, poppies, and wild orchids and the passage of foxes and badgers, nothing stays still for long. We value the world around us and do our best to work in harmony with nature.
We say we’re “ hefted” to our land, a rich Cumbrian term which coveys the idea of being both intimately and happily locked into our sense of place. Day times are active, night times are magical.
With our constant focus on vine and soil nutrition, a continuing emphasis on keeping nature in balance in the vineyard and an approach to winemaking partly informed by the biodynamic calendar, it should come as no surprise that we value our High Weald dark skies.
We draw inspiration from moonlit walks through the vineyard together. Revelling in the heavens above our unique High Weald terroir is a magical part of our lives.
Gerard has been a keen amateur astronomer since his teens. An interest which has now evolved into capturing images of Deep Sky Objects: galaxies, nebulae and star clusters visible from our vineyards.
That awe inspiring canopy of stars, moons, planets, suns, galaxies and nebulae is the inspiration behind our Astronomer’s Limited Edition wines, reaching for excellence and capturing the magic of our place.
Pictured: Globular Cluster M92, Andromeda, Whirlpool and Pinwheel Galaxies, taken from the vineyard © Gerard Fox 2025
Banner photo top reproduced with kind permission © Gavin James GJ Multimedia 2020
FLORA
A great part of our love of what we do is the pleasure we take in caring for our surroundings. Of course, most effort goes into growing delicious grapes but we also put time and money into looking after our field margins, hedgerows, ponds and copses, taking care with mowing and hedge-cutting, clearing some but not all brambles and only using weed control directly under the vines themselves. We are very aware that our planted area of vines is a permanent monoculture so we are keen to ensure that our field margins and ponds and coppices support a diverse range of plants and flowers for insects, small mammals and beauty. We like being part of a wider world.
Alleyways also allow us to encourage biodiversity; they are planted with a bee and pollen mix which will be reseeded in a few years as the mowing regime inevitably allows grasses to thrive. We were amazed to find the Bitterwort: Common Centaury (Centaurium erythraea ) growing in the alleyways last year as this pretty low-growing flower is more usually found on very dry soils.
FAUNA
Birds, bees, butterflies, bugs and animals are our constant companions. One of the glories of the past decade has been the increase in raptors, growing from rarely-sighted to always there.
Our vineyards are over flown by buzzards and red kites. We’ve learned to tell them apart by their calls, the “Kee Kee” of the kites, the “mew” of the buzzards, or by the distinctive shape of their tail feathers when they are in flight.
Over the years we've also had periodic visits from pairs of nesting Hobbys to keep us company, hunting field mice and voles whilst we worked. It’s a stop-and-stare-don't breathe thrill to see them using the trellis as lookout perches and amazing to be within three meters or so of this visitor from Africa. Kestrels and sparrow-hawks are often seen too.
INSPIRATION FROM OUR HIGH WEALD DARK SKIES
Celestial Images Taken from the Vineyard
The Inspiration Behind Our Astronomers Limited Edition Series
Dumbbell Nebula (M27) © Gerard Fox 2025
Iris Nebula (NGC 7023) © Gerard Fox 2025
Bodes Galaxy (M81) © Gerard Fox 2025
Hercules Great Globular Cluster (M13) © Gerard Fox 2025
Eagle Nebula (M16) © Gerard Fox 2025
Trifid Nebula (M20) © Gerard Fox 2025
