The Forest Ark at Hazel Hill wood, Wiltshire, England.

  
   
 
 
 


This is the Forest Ark at Hazel Hill wood, a beautiful secluded 70 acre (28 ha) wood and sustainable education centre near Salisbury in England. It helps people to deepen their connection with nature and learn about living renewably. The Forest Ark is a unique building, a small Eco-lodge providing comfort while being completely zero-carbon. Hot water comes from solar panels and space heating from a state of the art high-efficiency wood-fired boiler using logs from the woods.

   
       
   
 
 

 

Cooking is on a wood-fired range and electricity is provided by photo-voltaic panels. The building is fully off-grid with a composting loo. Rainwater is harvested from the shingled roof. The 90 m2 (970 ft2) low-impact timber home was built almost entirely with wood from woodland that surrounds it. It's a 3 bedroom 2 bathroom house that you can hire. Since the building is in a non-residential protected woodland it needed special planning permission so overnight stays are limited to 70 nights per year.

Hazel Hill wood was owned and stewarded by Alan Heeks since 1987. He led the creation its education facilities and programmes there since 1993. In June 2015 Alan gifted ownership of the wood to a new registered charity, the Hazel Hill Trust, of which he is currently Chair.