What a workshop here is

A few days spent on one thing, with a small group and someone experienced holding the room. No phones going off, no commute, nothing to get back to until it is finished.

People come to this kind of work for all sorts of reasons — something that has been sitting there for years, a patch that will not shift on its own, or simply the sense that it is time to look at it properly. You do not need a diagnosis or a crisis to be in the room. You need to want to do the work.

Enough people for the work to have somewhere to go, few enough that nobody sits at the back for three days. You stay here for the duration. Evenings are part of it — the conversation after dinner is often where the day actually lands, and going home each night undoes half of that.

Every workshop is led by an experienced practitioner. Some will be run by us; others by facilitators who bring their own programme here and use the house for it.

There are two acres, a terrace, and paths that go somewhere. After a hard morning most people need to walk rather than talk, and there is space here to do that without ending up in a car park. Meals are proper and unhurried; the building has been feeding people for a long time and is good at it.

The site has rooms from its years as a country hotel, plus accommodation in the grounds. Which of them is available depends on the workshop and the group size, and it will be spelled out plainly before you book anything. Somewhere to retreat to at the end of the day is part of what makes this kind of work survivable.

The first programme is being put together now. There is nothing to book yet, and we are not going to list dates we cannot honour. We are building our own programme and inviting established practitioners to bring theirs; when there are real dates, this page will carry them.

If you would like to hear when that happens, send us a line or write through the enquiry page. We will keep it, use it once, and not turn it into a mailing list you did not ask for.

A workshop here is group work led by qualified practitioners. It is not individual therapy, medical treatment or a crisis service, and it is not a substitute for any of them. If you are in difficulty right now, please contact your GP or an urgent care service rather than waiting for a workshop date.

If you are unsure whether a particular workshop suits your situation, say so when you write. The practitioner leading it would far rather have that conversation beforehand.