Permaculture Design
Course

Weekends in May - September 2025

Discover permaculture and how it can enhance many aspects of your life, not just your garden.

Learn to work with nature, acquiring tools for change in a changing world. Move from concern to action by learning to create resilient homes, gardens and communities.

We are pleased to host permaculture experts Jed and Tomas for this internationally-certified Permaculture Design Course, on our beautiful, diverse and bountiful land here at Alfoxton. Jed and Tomas have over 40 years' combined experience teaching, restoring land and restoring communities.

This course comprises 4 long weekends of taught lessons, practical activities, and personal / group design projects. The learning will cover walled gardens, orchards, social spaces, building renovation, nature stewardship, intentional communities and more. In-between the 4 residential weekends you will be able to work on a permaculture design for your own situation and receive feedback on this work. Additional, optional group visits to local permaculture sites will offer new perspectives that you can bring back into your own planning.

For any queries, please contact Tomas at tomas.remiarz@yahoo.co.uk

Facilitation Team

Both Tomas and Jed have a passion for ecology, and how ecology and humanity can better coexist. They have been working and travelling together since 2005 in dozens of different paid and volunteer positions. Since 2011, they have put down roots at a housing co-op with 17 humans, three houses and seven acres of land.

Jed

Jed Picksley is an experienced teacher and practitioner of permaculture, specialising in designing for people in co-operative working and living places, community arts, food and forestry projects and invisible structures like policies, procedures and facilitation.

Tomas

Tomas Remiarz has been applying and teaching Permaculture since 1996. Over the years, he has been active in many different fields, with an emphasis on the restoration of land, buildings and communities. He specialises in creating functional, edible landscapes and is author of Forest Gardening in Practice (2017).

2025 Agenda

Four long weekends (four full teaching days each time):

Friday 16 - Monday 19 May
Friday 27 - Monday 30 June
Friday 29 August - Monday 1 September
Friday 26 - Monday 29 September

You may miss up to 3 days and still receive the course completion certificate.

You can come to the first weekend as a taster and decide after that if you want to complete the course.

You can arrive for a 9am start on the Friday or take time to settle in on the Thursday from 4pm

Timings, travel, accommodation & food

Timings

Each weekend will begin at 9am on the first scheduled day. Students are invited to arrive from 4pm the day before to settle in. Each weekend will then conclude at 4pm on the last scheduled day. Again, students are welcome to spend that night at Alfoxton and depart by 11am the following morning. Please make sure to inform us of your intended arrival and departure times well in advance.

Travel

The nearest railway stations are Bridgwater and Taunton. We are about 1h 15min from Bristol by car.

The 15 bus leaves Bridgwater at 16:50 during college term dates and stops at the Plough Inn in Holford. We are a 15min walk from there.

Please get in touch for further advice with public transport, or for help arranging lifts / carpools.

Make sure to put "Coach House 2, Alfoxton Park" into Google Maps. Other variations will take you to Alfoxton House nearby which is not us. Otherwise use grid reference 51.165187, -3.220080.

The What3Words for our car park are ///soup.candy.huddling

Accomodation

Students are expected to camp - bring a tent or live-in vehicle. Toilets, showers and a sauna are available. We have limited accommodation indoors for those with specific needs. Please let us know when you book if this is the case for you.

Food

Delicious vegan meals will be provided during the residential weekends.

Accessibility & diets

We are committed to Alfoxton being a fully accessible venue and are working hard to achieve this. However, while the renovation work continues, visitors with specific mobility or accommodation needs may experience barriers to accessing all areas of the building and land.

If you have any questions or concerns, just get in touch, and please inform us of any significant dietary or accessibility requirements before submitting your booking request.

Costs

Alfoxton Park is a charity and works on the principle of Dana or a 'gift economy'. Read more about Dana here.

A £250 deposit will secure your place. You will be invited to make a donation to Alfoxton when you attend.

Technology, alcohol and drugs

All of our events are alcohol and drug free. During the meditation retreats we ask you to turn off your mobile phones and other devices and not contact people outside of the retreat. For all other events and workshops we ask you to be mindful of the use of devices and stay present, in order to make the most of your time here.

Any questions?

For more queries about this course, please email Tomas at tomas.remiarz@yahoo.co.uk

Otherwise, check out FAQ page or send us an email at alfoxtonevents@gmail.com

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