Picture this: a 13th Century House in the middle of nowhere, Halloween weekend, no wifi, no TV, no signal. Dream or nightmare? For us it was the dreamiest of dreams.

[I feel compelled to say this before every piece of writing now, that I haven’t used Ai.]

But before we get into it I invite you to cast your mind back… it was the winter of 2024, as we often do, we (me and members) were chatting about starting a commune, somewhere we can all huddle together away from the world, even just for a moment.

Out of the whatsapp group came a “please can we all just go to a big castle in the countryside, with open fires and get witchy?” from Dominique and Morin, followed by a “omg please Jess can we?” - so I got to work looking for the perfect house.

And I found it.

A 13th century house emerged from the internet like a beacon. It was v old. REAL old, like Roman Empire Old - middle ages old, or to be more specific High Middle Ages (who knew that was a thing?).

Surrounded by beautiful grounds, 700 year old trees and a weird little house on stilts, I knew it was for us.

Fast forward to May 2025, I opened the bookings and sold out three rooms in three minutes. I thought, wow, this is what it’s like to be Emily Eavis.

In the weeks leading up to the weekend Mum and I scooped up leaves from outside a village hall to dress the banquet table, I dried lavender from my garden and collected old jam jars to put candles around the house. Also my partner Ashkan, who helpfully used to work in Michelin Star restaurants agreed to cook. Turns out I bloody love prepping for this kind of thing!

Cue all Hallows eve, Samhain, Fright Night…

*the wind whistles and the rain hammers on the window pane* then from the silence comes "HIIIII WELCOME TO YOUR WILD RETREAT" - the local wildlife petrified and neighbours regretting their life choices, it was the beginning of a wonderfully Wild weekend.

Name a better start to proceedings than a table full of cheese, crisps and soup made by our onsite chef?

It was so lovely to spend time together catching up on everything that’s been going on with us and how excited we were to be hanging out. The dream had come true, we were here!

We also cracked open the sparklers to officially mark the occasion.

Then Saturday morning after a cooked breakfast and some fresh air in the sunshine, I hosted a pottery and candle painting workshop. We slab-built candle sticks, which are currently waiting to be fired and glazed (all part of the Retreat service!)

**Saturday afternoon LUNCH. We had so much food.**

After a creative morning and a delicious lunch some people had a lie down whilst I hosted a mini meditation and journaling by the fire session.

And then we got ready for our boujie banquet and Ashkan pulled out all the stops.

I also hosted a mini awards ceremony and soon after felt like a mega nerd. But it was important to me that I recognised everyone’s tenacity and resilience. They’ve been faced with hard life stuff, pivots in their business and still are thriving.

On Sunday we had a light breakfast, some of us wandered around the grounds and then we finished the weekend on a high with a roast dinner.

There’s a lot to be said for the fact that the whole weekend felt organic, nothing was difficult and we got on like we’d been living in a commune our whole lives. We almost claimed squatters rights.

So, it was a great success and I loved every second of it!

I’ve already decided we’re going to do one long creative retreat for business owners every year, in the same season only in a different location next time, because why not? Let’s mix it up.

The Wild urge to start a commune

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