Birch Cottage has a new website of its own
Visit the Birch Cottage website to bookWelcome to Lackan Cottage Farm
We’re Steve and Claire Golemboski-Byrne, we live here off grid with our daughter, our dog, cats and horses. We make all our own energy using wind and solar, grow as much of our own food as we can (it varies widely) and have used permaculture design principles to help us create a great place to live.
Here on the website you’ll find stories about the projects we’ve undertaken – what works, what doesn’t. You can come stay in our guest cottage – Birch Cottage and we will show you round, or maybe you just want to find out how to do some of this stuff. Either way, welcome.
Enjoy a safe and relaxing stay in a rural setting
Here at Lackan Cottage Farm, our guests health and wellbeing has always been incredibly important to us, which is why we used materials and finishes free from harmful chemicals when we renovated Birch Cottage. From food safe paints to natural local timber inside, to the fresh smell of the birch wood next to the cottage, this has always been a place to come to retreat, relax and rejuvenate.
Subscribe to our YouTube channel
We're in the process of creating more video content so that you can take a look around, and find out about all the projects and systems here at Lackan. We're also going to be moving a lot of our course content online over the coming months as it looks like Covid-19...
May garden update
Normally this would be a hectic time of year with courses running and guests staying, but we have time to spend in the garden and are concentrating on the veg. It's great to hear how you are all getting on with growing in lockdown - keep us updated, we love to hear...
Accommodation closed until further notice
We've now closed Birch Cottage and the Off Grid Horse box until June at the earliest, and we'll take a decision on reopening based on government advice. Thanks for your understanding.
Looking forward to spring
A busy week in the garden, we've tidied up all the beds that have crops in - the chickens had been wandering and taken advantage of the lack of netting on one or two things, so we've covered those properly, and cleaned up decomposing leaves that are such an attraction...
True North
Back in 2019 we spent a few days filming with Jon Thompson and he made this excellent short film for the BBC True North series, about our life off grid. We're really pleased with the way its turned out, and were delighted to take part in a well attended Q&A...