I must say that at the moment it all looks very different from those summery photos– more like a set for a re-enactment of the Battle of the Somme than anything else. That’s because there are lots of trenches everywhere. And the beautiful red earth of Herefordshire is clay – so with the amount of rain we’ve had . . . !

When we started work we discovered that the services hadn’t been laid very well so we are having to re-lay water, electricity and heating pipes, re-route storm drains and put in pipes for the LPG gas which will be used for cooking in the main kitchen and in the two communities. In the longer term we will be moving over to a biomass system for heating and hot water but that won’t be ready until the summer.

Our main priority at the moment is doing the work on the part of the building where Bhante is going to live. That’s the mews attached to the main house, which will be the men’s community. The mews has been pretty much gutted and now there is a great deal of insulation going in to make it cosy. Not just the roof but walls and floors too so it should also be as energy efficient as possible. The plan is that the facilities should be really accessible to make it easy for Bhante to negotiate his way around his new home.

At the moment the work is being done by a combination of outside contractors and members of the Triratna community. Plumbing and electrical work has to be done by contractors because we don’t have the skilled people among the volunteers, although they are certainly doing plenty of other things. If you have those skills and would like to donate some of your time to help with work please get in touch. The more we can use sangha members the further our money will go.

The people living at Coddington are currently camping out in the main house which has no heating but they will soon be making a temporary move to the building which will be the women’s community (which does have heat!) while the plumbing and electrical systems in the main house are replaced and building work starts to turn it into a proper home for the men’s community.

The work that needs doing on the women’s community building is less substantial but at the moment it feels very institutional so there is plenty to do to make it more homely.

There’s a great deal of work to be done before we are ready to run events at Coddington but we are already planning the programme and also thinking about making the land more beautiful. Tree planting is a priority and we’ll tell you more about that in our next post.

And here’s a music free version…..

It sits on the edge of the Malvern Hills, just outside the tiny village of Coddington in Herefordshire, West England. The nearest train station is Colwall which lies 3.2 miles away. The drive south from Madhyamaloka takes about 75 minutes. The Malvern Hills are designated an ‘Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty’ and the attractive spa town of Great Malvern is just a ten minute drive away.

The site consists of six substantial buildings set within 15.5 acres. Adjoining the site to the north is a farmyard and to the east a further 8.5 acres.

You’ll find it on Google Earth. The full address is Coddington Court School, Ledbury, Herefordshire HR8 1JL.

The original Coddington Court House and Coach House was built in 1796. After 1979 three new buildings provided the headquarters for a petroleum company and in 1999 two residential blocks were added making the whole site suitable for it’s previous life as a residential school for autistic young people. For the past three years the property has stood empty waiting for it’s next and final incarnation.

The site will also provide the footprint for a large shrine hall but that will have to wait for a few years.

Happily the buildings will not need years of work to get them serviceable but it will take a few weeks to get a clearer sense of exactly how long we need before bhante and the communities can move in. Naturally, before we can have any happenings at all on the site we need planning approval and a few basics sorted out.

Without making any commitments (!!) it is hoped that by next summer the site will be ready to start hosting events with accommodation for around 100 visitors at a time.

Perhaps the first job will be to hire a big van and install the Buddha rupas….

ps I’ve added a page called ‘coddington gallery’ but Dhammarati has uploaded better pics on his Facebook page.

We made our first purchase. Not land nor buildings but something even more significant and important.

We don’t yet know where the land will be or what the buildings will look like but we do know what the Buddha rupa looks like because it now sits waiting to be ceremonially installed. In fact we now have three Buddha rupas, all carved from volcanic rock and all journeyed from the Indonesian island of Java.

If you have seen the world’s biggest Buddhist monument, the magnificent Borobudur temple, you will know it’s beautiful gupta period Buddha images.

It was during the gupta period (4th – 6th century) that the quintessential Buddha image was created. This iconic form is found across the Buddhist world and is perhaps the most universally appreciated and loved Buddha form.

To have such Buddha figures at the heart of the Sangharakshita Land Project will hopefully inspire our practice and inspire artists around the Triratna Buddhist world.

It has been an intense last few months with Bhante being very clear that he wants the situation resolved, with our search budget approaching exhaustion and with the uncertain economic times continuing to support high land prices. Many lovely properties regularly appear with a price tag of six to ten million pounds but our budget is a fraction of that and part of our challenge has been to find a bargain. This means finding a property that is difficult to sell to potential property developers but suitable for our needs and a property that we can afford to run and that can grow over the years to come.

I would like to share with you our current shortlist but, as you’ll understand, as one enters delicate negotiations it is important to be cautious before revealing one’s hand. Suffice to say our current shortlist includes properties in Herefordshire, Denbighshire, and on the Scottish border.

It is possible that within the month we will have secured one of these options and as soon as that happens I will certainly let you know. Of course it is also possible that each of these options could prove unworkable for one reason or another and the search have to continue into the autumn. However it is probably safe to say that our thoughts are increasingly turning towards a programme of events, running costs and, in my case, printing out the great list of estate agent websites and burning it!

Madhyamaloka is on the market and in an ideal world will be sold just as we buy our new property. Given that that might not happen potential loans have been researched to serve as a ‘bridging loan’ to ensure that there is no financial shortfall.

Hopefully, more news to follow soon……

Slebech Park is a substantial mixed use country estate, combining commercial, residential, agricultural and sporting elements. The estate extends to some 220 acres and the main buildings occupy a stunning position on the shores of the upper reaches of the Daucleddau Estuary one of Europe’s largest natural harbours. The estate coach house was recently converted into a 5 star hotel and conference venue but this business is now in administration.

One of our prime considerations is whether we can get a facility up and running to host events of up to 35 people. This site is extremely well suited for this. The coach house refurbishment and fit out and offers immediate accommodation for 30 – 40 people in twin rooms. Fifteen bedrooms are en-suite. There are a range of conference and meeting rooms with break out areas for refreshments. All decoration, fixtures and fittings are to a high standard and are all included in the sale.

For larger events the waterside terraces are ideal as an open space or are able accommodate special pavilions able to host up to 500 guests. A 3000sq ft marquee is attached to the coach house which as a shrine room could sit over 150 people. It has windows overlooking the estuary. A dedicated fully fitted professional kitchen serves the marquee and conference centre.

There is also a 50 seat restaurant, a 17 bed manor house, 5 other cottages and a range of farm buildings all set within 200 acres of woodland, pasture and arable. Oh and it’s just within our budget.

On the down side, the journey times are substantial, international airports are a long way off, there is no local sangha at present, and it is situated in a National Park. There are a few other smaller issues too which all had to be weighed against the positives.

Given that the new selling season is upon us and we now have two appointed agents supporting our search it was concluded that we should give ourselves these next few months to see if we can better this particular opportunity.

A number of estate agents are keeping an eye out for us resulting in the occasional site visit but our brief is specific and although compromise is never far from our lips we keep finding sites that are just not good enough.

The trustees have now decided to extend the range of our search. The further one moves towards the North, North East, South West and West of the country the more affordable the properties become. Everyone is clear that a more central property is by far the best outcome but there is also a determination to complete the search by the end of summer 2012 and if that means a great property but a less ideal location then so be it.

Dhammarati and Ratnadharini went visiting properties on the Scottish borders. Padmasuri joined the search focusing on the North East and visited a number of properties with Karunika, Dhammarati and Ratnadharini. I extended the search to the West of Wales, the rest of the North of England and the South West whilst keeping a keen eye on our preferred more central locations.

The location was good, the range of buildings very workable and the land offered real potential. Given that all the buildings needed renovation and development we had the challenging task of budgeting the completed ‘phase one’ build and estimating the time scale. Sadly it eventually became clear that we simply did not have enough money in the pot to afford it.

Great care is being taken to avoid the classic build project curse of underestimating the real cost of a project. There are a number of projects in the Movement that are in need of greater funding and so the Land Project is determined to work within its own reserves to complete the first phase. Ruling out fundraising limits the number of sites we can consider and unfortunately the limited financial resources has meant a protracted search. But, as I hope the blog has shown, we do occasionally come close and there is still a sense that we could well find something within our budget that will work.

Rhyd-y-cilgwyn had been on our short list for some time but the one serious drawback (for our needs) was the traffic noise from the A525 which skirts the property. We have now reached the point where we feel the search has gone on long enough and something has to give so we wondered whether the road noise was a compromise worth making. The buildings offered plenty of scope and included an attractive main house, several cottages and a substantial set of farm buildings. The land included over seventy acres of deciduous woodland and fields suitable for camping all set within the beautiful Vale of Clwyd. The location made it accessible to the whole country and a bus stopped at the main entrance.

A quiet country location has always been a key element in our search but we also have to find somewhere affordable, accessible, big enough to accommodate our long term needs, with the chance of acceptable planning permissions, etc. Given that this site met so many of our needs, and had been so well looked after by the owners, the trustees and steering group had a very difficult time trying to reach agreement on whether to proceed. In fact we had a very tough all-day meeting trying to reach an agreement and the meeting, due to finish at three, and then five, finally ended at seven but still without a resolution.

We then involved an acoustic consultancy to explore the possibility of making an acceptable noise reduction using noise barriers. Unfortunately the conclusion was that even with considerable expenditure over £100,000 the reduction would only be effective close to the barrier and that was assuming that a 500 metre barrier of 2.5 metres would be appropriate and acceptable to the local planning authority.

We remain divided over whether the noise issue was serious enough to pull out of buying what is, in many ways, the ideal property but the consensus decision was to carry on the search and have faith that something like Rhyd-y-cilgwyn will turn up soon in a quieter environment.

We have visited two properties recently that are worth mentioning.

The first was situated in it’s own secluded valley of 152 acres. The land consisted of woodland, grass paddocks and small lakes set in lovely Yorkshire countryside. The main house was a sprawling eccentric converted farmhouse with ten bedrooms. Beyond that a 2-bed cottage, stables and other farm buildings which brought the overall build area to about 20,000 sq ft. I must say I was very taken with the place and it remains on our current ‘shortlist’ as our search continues. It certainly ticked a number of our boxes but unfortunately there were still a few issues that got in the way – it is set in what is classified as an ‘area of outstanding natural beauty’ which would make any plans to redevelop and grow very difficult, all the buildings are focused in one area rather than spread a little more around the land, the overall ‘footprint’ area is only just big enough, there was no local public transport service (York being 18 miles away) and the cost would limit how much development we could afford to carry out.

The second was a residential and agricultural country estate set in the rolling hills of North Northamptonshire, with two substantial principal houses set in mature grounds and parkland, secondary residential accommodation, commercial offices and farm. The whole estate is on the market for eight million pounds but it is available in separate lots and so we viewed the elements that might fit our requirements. The location is very good being only one hour from Birmingham and therefore reasonably UK central and the countryside very quiet if a little pastoral. There are problems too of course not least financial and so discussions are on going. The photograph shows our visiting group considering the pros and cons of the site having munched our butties under the shade of a beech tree.