Volunteer
House, grounds, tearoom, and soon the farm shop and the lakes. The Park Volunteers are the plan's first strand.
Get in touch →The future · Moggerhanger Reborn
The house has been rescued and restored. The next job is to make the whole estate earn its keep, so that the park stays open, the house stays purposeful, and the landscape around it is worked once more. Three years, three stages, quick wins first.
Why
Since 1995 the house has been brought back from a derelict hospital to a home the Thorntons would recognise, largely through grants and the generosity of its friends. That was the rescue. The next chapter is about making Moggerhanger sustain itself, so that it never again depends on luck.
The Thorntons would have recognised the method: enterprise as the engine, and the proceeds pointed at purpose. Farming, hospitality, teaching, publishing and a tearoom full of neighbours, all in service of a house that convenes people who intend to do good.
A changing county
The Oxford to Cambridge line now runs as far as Milton Keynes, with Bedford to follow. Both universities, and their people, come within easy reach of the house.
Planned for the old brickworks near Bedford, about twenty minutes away. Millions of visitors a year who will be looking for somewhere quieter, older and greener to spend an afternoon.
Moggerhanger, Blunham, Willington and Sandy already walk here every day. The plan starts with them: longer hours, better paths, a shop, and the lakes back.
The three-year plan
Each stage opens something new to the public before the next begins. Choose a year to see what changes.
The first year is about the things people will notice on their next visit: a shop, the lakes, better paths, longer hours, and a house that can host guests privately while the park stays open to everyone.
Hospitality expands, the studios open, the academy launches, farming comes online and the restoration of the house itself begins.
Park House restored to the last room, memberships mature, the academy reaches across the world, and the estate sustains itself, with its purpose protected for the generations after us.
Nine strands, one estate
No single activity carries a place like this. Nine strands, each modest on its own, together make an estate that pays its way and gives most of itself back to the people who use it.
Leadership retreats, executive weekends and eco-lodges in the park. The house's core purpose, and the thing that funds the rest.
A secure venue for leadership events and faith-based network gatherings; a lecture series open to members and neighbours.
Formation programmes here and online, an imprint, and digital content that carries the house's conversations around the world.
A creative campus in the stable yard: music, podcast and video production, with residencies for artists and writers.
Estate-grown vegetables and fruit, artisan goods, a café, a garden centre and a country store in the restored barns.
Craft ale and cider from estate ingredients, including the orchard's Bedfordshire apples. Tastings, events and wholesale.
British heritage-breed animals, seasonal events through the year and adventure play beyond the woodland playground.
Food, livestock and market gardens in a closed-loop system across the wider landscape, in partnership with neighbouring farms.
Lakeside huts, coarse and fly fishing, wild swimming, and an annual membership that keeps the park a local thing first.
Held in trust
A founding charter will ensure that the land and buildings can never be sold for private residential use or stripped for profit. Moggerhanger remains a Christian estate in perpetuity, open to its neighbours, with the ownership of the land held separately from the running of the estate so that neither can compromise the other.
Separates ownership from operations, permanently.
Binds the use of the estate to its purpose, in perpetuity.
Public access to the park written in, not left to goodwill.
Be part of it
Every gathering hosted, every cake sold and every Saturday morning given in the walled garden moves the plan along. This is how most people take part.
House, grounds, tearoom, and soon the farm shop and the lakes. The Park Volunteers are the plan's first strand.
Get in touch →Hear first as each stage opens: the shop, the lakes, the lodges. Estate walks with the team as the work progresses.
Join the list →Bring your board, your network or your cohort. Every gathering in the house funds the next piece of the estate.
Enquire →Neighbouring farms, schools, churches, local makers and networks that need a home: tell us what you could bring.
Start a conversation →