Our Eco Friendly Holiday Cottages

We support Green Tourism

When we first opened five years ago Katherine and Andrew Graham, the owners of Wallops Wood Cottages, were keen to ensure that we were as green and as ecologically conscious as could be.

We are proud to be part of Britain’s Green Tourism Business Scheme. It provides recognition of our commitment to green issues and sustainability. Having won a Silver Award for Green Tourism a month after we opened, we continued to work hard on sustainability at our cottages and went on to win a Gold Award in March 2020!

Green Tourism Gold Award

The quality of our accommodation and service is always a priority and will never be compromised. Each action we take
may be a small step, but we feel that by addressing a number of small environmental matters, the wider benefits can be considerable.

Perched on a ridge of the South Downs National Park we are fortunate to be surrounded by spectacular countryside, so we actively encourage our guests to explore and enjoy it as much as we do.

There are many beautiful walks to enjoy in the South Downs

We have provided some recommended walking and cycle routes in the information packs in the cottages as well as several books and useful links on our website.

The walks can be downloaded from the website as laminated sheets that can be taken with you on your walks. These walks are also accessible on your mobile or can be downloaded from our website (we recommend that you access them as a downloadable file to save on paper!)

Sustainable Accommodation & Practices

• We installed solar panels on the roof of the north facing cottages to power all the cottages, the indoor swimming pool complex, the games / event room and our laundry facilities
• Our borehole supplies our water. It is fed by the local aquifer and the water drawn from it is then UV treated to ensure our water is crystal clear and tastes delicious
• Rainwater is harvested form the roof, into a soakaway which feeds back to the aquifer
• Electric car charger
• Distilled vinegar and Ecover products are used to clean our cottages
• Beeswax is used to polish our wooden surfaces
• All our buildings are lit by low energy lights
• In the summer months the solar panels powers our woodchip boiler which in turn heats the cottages, indoor pool and games room
• Woodchips are sourced from our own woodland, which is sustainably managed and is only a mile down the road
• Excess building materials are stored on the farm estate to be repurposed for future building projects
• We recycle kitchen brushes and scourers. They are re-used by our maintenance teams
• Cleaning cloths are made from discarded textiles which are cut into squares and used by our housekeeping team
• Any material and towels that cannot be recycled are given to charities with recycled textile schemes
• We repurposed material from the build of the games room to create shelving for our gift shop (soon to open)
• Our cottages have recycling bins. We have one bin for normal waste and one for green waste
• Large recycling bins in the car park are for paper/card, glass, aluminium and steel. These are collected every week
• Spent Nespresso capsules are collected and sent back to Nespresso. They use the coffee grind as soil conditioner and the aluminium from each capsule is repurposed to make bicycles.

Wallops Wood Cottages Aerial View with Solar Panels on Roof

We love our wildlife!

As a  farm estate we really are in tune with the countryside - the seasons that come and go, the insects that populate our meadows, the wildlife that passes through. We see ourselves as guardians of a whole host of eco-systems that are are born, live and die here.  Our guests love seeing all these animals and insects that abound around the cottages and the estate.

• We have owl boxes placed around the cottages in the oak trees on the North side and we have an owl box above Silver Birch Cottage
• Kites are often seen swirling high up in the thermals, making 'figures of eight' and cruising the skies
• Every year a wild meadow is sown with native flowers and grasses. Peter, our team member, mows a path through the meadow. It's a fantastic way for our guests to enjoy butterflies and all kinds of insects which feast on the nectar
• A huge number of pheasants roam the estate, the hens chasing the males in a merry dance! Did you know that a group of pheasants is called 'a bouquet' of pheasants?!
• And we see South Downs Hares right here at Wallops Wood Cottages. A treat as they are so elusive, but so very special. Brought by the Romans around 2000 years ago, this species is now considered naturalised. A great time to see them here is during Spring and Summer. A drove of hare is a spectacular sight!
• The surrounding fields, woodland and lanes of the cottages and farm estate are 'atweet' with green finches, grey partridges, lapwings, goldfinches, skylarks and more. Our hedges are also full of sparrows, common blackbirds, chiff-chaffs, blue tits and bullfinches
• None of the hedges are trimmed between March and October so that nests are undisturbed