Passionate for Sustainability and the Environment, meet our Inspiring Eco-Hosts, Hoe Grange Holidays

Sustainable travel is a term you have been hearing a lot these days. Simply put, sustainable travel is travelling without harming a destination so that it remains the same for everyone to enjoy. In the tourism industry, many travel and hospitality enthusiasts ensure that travel is done but with a lighter carbon footprint.

At My Eco Escape, we list only Eco-friendly holiday homes for you to choose from for your next vacation. Our Eco-hosts take various eco measures to provide guests with an extraordinary experience and ensure they protect their surroundings. Today, we want to introduce you to one of our Incredible Eco-hosts team from Derbyshire. They have been hosting guests for almost two decades and have taken many eco and accessibility measures to provide a comfortable experience to their guests.

My Eco Escape is proud to have collaborated with David, Felicity, and Caroline Brown (Our Eco-hosts) and had a lot to learn about them. So we asked a few questions about themselves, their eco-measures, their passion for sustainability, and much more. And here's what they want to tell us about themselves.

Introducing the owners, tell us about yourself and your passion for farming and hospitality.

We are David, Felicity, and Caroline Brown, and we run Hoe Grange both as an accessible and sustainable tourism business and as a family farm.

Hoe Grange is a traditional 250-acre grassland farm between Ashbourne, Bakewell and Matlock, in the south of the Peak District. David has lived on the farm all his life, and Felicity moved in shortly after they got married over 35 years ago. Their eldest daughter Caroline joined the business last year after over a decade living in London.

Our environment here in the Peak District is incredibly precious, with beautiful unspoilt views of the stunning landscapes and no noise or light pollution. "We are only custodians of this landscape for a short while, so we aim to leave this incredible place even better for generations to come."

As milk prices plummeted in the mid-2000s, we looked for a sustainable way to supplement the farm income and share our beautiful part of the world with others. We built our first two log cabins in 2006 as a farm diversification project and discovered a passion for sharing this stunning landscape with as many people as possible.

Since then, Hoe Grange Holidays has been a beacon of sustainability in the tourism industry, with top-level national awards to prove it. We have pioneered new approaches and new technologies to ensure your holiday doesn't cost the earth. The farm is run on eco principles, too, using conservation grazing techniques, leaving buffer strips in the fields, and taking plenty of measures to increase biodiversity.

We've held the Green Tourism Gold Award and the Peak District Environmental Quality Mark for over a decade and are committed to striving for the highest possible eco standards as we move into the future.

How did you decide to build Hoe Grange Holidays?

David's father actually had the idea to build a log cabin in one of the farm fields back in the 1970s but was told at the time that no one wanted to go on holiday to the Peak District. Attitudes to tourism in the Peak District have definitely changed over the decades, and David's dad's original idea provided a bit of inspiration when we were looking for a way to keep the family farm going in the face of challenges in the dairy industry.

We started with two self-catering log cabins. Building from scratch meant that we could design with both accessibility and sustainability in mind. From the start, guests could also bring their own horses on holiday to ride the amazing off-road trails in the area.

With little accommodation like this on offer in the area, the business took off. When we were ready to expand and build two more log cabins, it made sense to focus on accessibility and sustainability again. All are built using natural and recycled materials, brilliantly insulated, and use air source and ground source heating. Three of our four log cabins have fully accessible wetrooms, sympathetically designed to avoid a clinical feel, and we have plenty of other accessible features built in.

Finally, in the 2010s, we added two eco-glamping pods and a lovingly-restored vintage gypsy caravan - again, all designed with eco principles at the forefront!

Do you generate your own electricity? Please tell us about it.

We generate our own electricity on-site. In fact, nearly all the power we need comes from photovoltaic solar panels on shed rooves and on a standalone unit that tracks the movement of the sun, and a 10 kw wind turbine. When we do need to top up, we use a 100% renewable electricity tariff.

By the end of August 2024, we hope to be even more self-sufficient with the installation of an additional bank of solar panels and a battery storage system. This should mean we don't export back into the grid on sunny and windy days, instead keeping the power to use on site ourselves!

We've also put plenty of measures in place to minimise our energy usage - from top rated energy efficient appliances to automatic outdoor lighting - keeping our carbon footprint as low as possible.

How do you support local communities?

We're passionate about Peak District people too, not just the landscapes. Alongside providing decent jobs for local people, we focus on where we can add value to the community with our own passions and expertise.

David is a trustee for an educational charity that funds special trips, events or educational resources for local children. Caroline is a volunteer with Girlguiding, working with local girls and young women with the aim to help all girls know they can do anything. As a business, we make sure they have significant flexibility to carry out these roles.

Last year, we supported artist Sally Matthews with a community art project about the story of connected life through rock, earth, and community, which culminated in an exhibition. We provided Sally with a heavily discounted place to stay while she worked with local school children in the area, produced a sculpture based on the Hoe Grange Cave Hyenas for the exhibition, and provided space to work and some raw materials.

As a business, we also support grassroots women's sports, sponsoring the brand-new local women's rugby team!

On a scale of 1 -10, what number would you give yourself for self-sustainability? Tell us about your sustainability practices.

Sustainability is something we're really passionate about and we're always pushing the boundaries! We'd give ourselves a 9 out of 10 though, as there's always room for improvement.

Here's a flavour of some of the things we do beyond renewable energy to minimise our impact on the environment:

• We use eco-friendly detergents and cleaning products that are paraben, SLS/SLES, and chlorine-free.
• All our waste is sorted and prepared for recycling or sustainable disposal less than 5 miles away - we send zero waste to landfill.
• Waste water is treated on site and returned to the ground.
• We do our own laundry on-site and line-dry your towels and sheets whenever possible.
• We source all the products in our welcome pack and on-site shop locally to reduce food miles.
• Our glamping pods have inline water heaters that only heat the water required.
• The tap water on site comes from our own borehole, 160 metres below your feet!
• We plant insect-friendly flowers and plants and use conservation farming techniques to increase biodiversity.

How do you encourage guests to travel in an eco-friendly manner?

It can be challenging for people in our rural area to easily get around just by using public transport, so we offer a 10% discount for people arriving without a car - whether that's by bus, on foot, by bike, or even on horseback!

We encourage guests to car share where possible through the pre-arrival information and by providing services that can reduce the space needed in a car for supplies for their holiday (for example, supporting the delivery of local groceries and providing supplies in our on-site shop).

Guests can also charge their electric vehicle on-site for free using our renewable energy! Once guests are on-site, we provide plenty of ideas for car-free activities and days out to minimise the impact of traffic and pollution on the area. We have even got an electric off-road wheelchair so our guests with disabilities can explore the Peak District countryside without the need for a car!

What eco-friendly activities can guests indulge in when staying at Hoe Grange Holidays?

We have a whole webpage dedicated to car-free activities for our guests, ranging from rock climbing to pub walks to the best cycle routes and picnic spots. We also offer a pizza oven experience, log-fired hot tub and traditional Swedish barrel sauna on site, so there's plenty to do without ever leaving the farm!

Together with Visit Peak District, we developed a Hoe Grange Time Travellers Trail, which explores the local area on foot and delves into some of the history of the High Peak railway, the Medieval Grange at Royston and Minninglow Neolithic burial ground.

In the cabins and pods, guests can find bird-watching and flower/plant identification guides to help them enjoy the flora and fauna of the local area.

We also partner with several local eco-friendly tour providers to provide bespoke experiences, including Peak District Guided Rides, who often accompany our guests with horses on their adventures.

How would you define Peak District to your guests?

It's difficult to put the Peak District into words. It's a magical place with stunning landscapes, colourful seasons, fascinating traditions, charming towns and villages, brilliant biodiversity, and some of the friendliest people you'll ever meet! The protection of the national park means that you can see unspoilt landscapes shaped by traditional farming practices and the wild forces of nature - and with the lack of noise and light pollution, it's one of the best places to enjoy the twinkling magic of the stars at night, too.

Why is self-sustainability so important to you?

We are incredibly lucky to live and work in such a stunning part of the world and to be able to share it with you. We want to be sustainable in the truest sense of the word, supporting our area, our community and our world to be a better place for the generations to follow.

Do you have any messages for our responsible travellers?

Every little step towards sustainability has a positive impact, and many small steps can take you a surprisingly long way! Responsible travel is a key way you can both support local businesses and communities and minimise your environmental impact.