Our Story
Our story
Foundations and Plans
Kathy and Angus worked together for many years on renewable energy projects, building up a foundation of trust and lasting friendship in the process. After the loss of Angus’ first wife Melanie to cancer, they forged a new relationship, one built on a shared love of the spirituality of the natural and ancient worlds and a desire to help others with finding a more centred way to live. This is their Dalherrick story.
We bought Dalherrick Farm just before Christmas in 2022, the day before the snow started and closed the track! We had looked for a place for over a year with the intention of setting up a bereavement retreat where people could come to take time out to help them deal with their loss, or to have some time to just ‘be’. Dalherrick, with its beautiful views and amazing energy, felt perfect.
Transformation and realisation
Our plan was to run a monthly bereavement retreat, subsidised by a holiday let. After three and a half years of steady work we turned the upstairs floor of the house into a cosy and restful self-contained apartment. With a lot of care and nurturing we transformed the grounds from a large expanse of gravel and mown lawn into a relaxing guest garden, a vegetable growing area and a wild flower meadow, and planted a small native woodland and species-rich hedges. We also set up our lovely summer house and decking by the wildlife pond, where panoramic views across the howe to the Hill of Fare seem to quieten the mind and bring a sense of peace and well-being.
As we came to finish the accommodation, we had an epiphany – why not open a well-being retreat alongside the holiday let and in the process share the wonderful energy of Dalherrick Farm more widely? Having both experienced the powerful grounding and healing qualities of the natural world and its importance to well-being, we know through our own long standing practice how helpful meditation can be in consolidating this essence.
Your hosts
Kathy
Retreat Manager
Kathy leads the site visits and walks, and helps guide the meditations.Kathy trained as a botanist and worked in conservation as a ranger leading nature walks before setting up her ecological consultancy. Before winding down the business after more than 30 years, she ran ethnobotany and history walks, coming full circle back to her educational roots. For the past five years she has been running private history tours (with a sprinkling of natural history and whisky!) through her new company, Wild History and Whisky Tours and getting to meet lots of interesting folk from around the world. Whatever the tour theme, she always squeezes in a stone circle and Pictish symbol stone or two, and many have come away with an awakened sense of the spiritual nature of these special places.
Angus
Retreat Manager
Angus spent most of his life working in rural Scotland following his passion for conservation and the environment. He moved from teaching science to environmental protection, which culminated in setting up his own environmental consultancy. At the same time, he spent many years running his own croft (small farm) where he designed, implemented and managed large scale tree planting with his late wife. In recent years, Angus has re-landscaped the grounds of Dalherrick Farm, undertaking habitat creation and enhancement to increase biodiversity, as well as managing the conversion of the guest accommodation.
The bereavement retreat
Alongside the well-being retreat we run a bereavement retreat, offered on a pay-as-you-can-afford basis and subsidised by the well-being retreat. It is offered by referral through bereavement and cancer charities.