SEED SOVEREIGNTY AND THE WELSH GRAIN REBELS

In April, we'll be joined by the Gaia Foundation who will bring members of their Seed Sovereignty team - hot on the heels of opening an incredible exhibition about food and farming in Bristol as part of their We Feed the UK project. Heading up the talk will be the Wales Seed Sovereignty coordinator Katie Hastings. Katie has been working with her rebel grain network Llafur Ni over several years, to rediscover and grow rare oat seeds across a patchwork of Welsh farms.  This project connects modern farmers to ancient grains, in collaborations that include herbalists, chefs, musicians and more, all committed to preserving and nurturing biological and cultural (bio-cultural) diversity which is one of the core aims of the Gaia Foundation. We are over the moon to be welcoming these stories and conversations to Rural Voices.

A FARMER AND AN ARTIST: DRAWING ON THE LAND

The speaker for May is farmer and artist Kate Genever, an artist and farmer based in South Lincolnshire but with family roots in Frome and Longleat. As a farmer, alongside her family, she runs a traditional mixed farm of suckler cows, sheep and combinable crops.

For Rural Voices, Kate invites you to join her in a conversation about how drawing can be central to both art and farming. Kate uses drawing to try to make sense of the world. She sees it as more than a technique – rather a way of revealing our deep connections with the world of materials, nature and each other. With rural and coastal communities, Kate has used drawing and creativity as a way of envisioning responses to immediate problems, supporting people, communities and organisations to imagine and shape the future

EXTRAORDINARY FOOD - FROM ‘FARM TO TABLE’
Chef and owner of Michelin-starred restaurant Osip (Bruton), Merlin Labron Johnson will be joining us this summer. He will be in conversation with food artist Cherry Truluck about locally sourced food and the 'farm-to-table' ethos.

A YEAR FOLLOWING THE WILDLIFE ON LONGLEAT ESTATE

After arriving at Longleat at the end of 2023 Tom spent 2024 getting to know the wildlife found all over the estate. From following a family of beavers as they create a biodiversity oasis around their incredible system of dams and pools, to surveying the estate for bats and getting familar with the birds and other animals that call the farmland, woods and parkland home it was a fasinating year. Tom will take you on a tour of all things, large and small, showing you some of the incredible wildlife that call the estate home but also some of the wildlife we are missing.

THE CHALKE VALLEY ROMAN VILLA: A COMMUNITY ARCHAEOLOGY PROJECT

October's speakers are Dr Denise Wilding and Dr David Roberts, co-founders of Teffont Archeology which began in 2008 as a research project collaborating with the local community in Teffont and has grown into a major archaeological research effort. In recent years their scope has expanded to cover Roman sites across South-West Wiltshire, including widespread geophysical surveys, recording legacy metal-detected finds collections, and the excavation of Iron Age and Roman settlements at Coombe Bissett, and a Roman villa in the Chalke Valley.  

Denise and David will be talking to us about the Chalke Valley Roman Villa, their most recent project in which their excavation - conducted with the support of community volunteers - uncovered the remains of an amazing main villa, a bath house and a large barn. They will be able to tell us about the history of the site, the amazing luxury that the villa and bath house afforded its Roman residents, with painted plaster on the walls and a mosaic on the villa floor and they will also talk about the process of working on a community dig!