Old Country House
Ella Grace Quincy,
Old Country House B&B, Mathon.
Joining the Herefordshire Nature Trust Green Tourism Scheme was an important statement for me and my business (and for many others). I feel this initiative was the very best of its kind and deserves to flourish in the future.
It helped with focussing, extending, consolidating and monitoring my green business practice, and also, to my joy, allowing equal importance to learning about and protecting the wonderful wildlife and habitats of our county, both for ‘green’ hosts, and for their visitors. Whether or not we choose or are enabled to belong to a nationwide green business scheme, we also need to celebrate our own special region and locality. This includes especially our ‘wildlife’, which is clearly as important to our integration with local environment as serving local cheeses or using recycling points!
The process of qualifying for the Award was intimate, ethical, flexible, and non-bureaucratic, with very high standards: the very qualities which are the big attraction for our guests (they love reading the folders placed in the bedrooms!). Interestingly other small hotels, self-catering cottages, and even restaurants were keen to be included in the scheme. I am not alone in wishing to see it re-adopted and developed.