4 minutes
A quiet Christmas in the Weald
An AGA kitchen, fifteen acres, one outing worth leaving the house for and a great deal of not very much. How a quiet Christmas at The Oast works, and how to plan one.
Custodian & writer
Alastair (Ali) Hine
Custodian, writer and occasionally the problem.
Alastair — known as Ali — looks after Martins Farm Estate in Frant, East Sussex, with his wife Sharon, their son Eddie and Winston, whose contribution is largely supervisory.
Away from the farm, Ali has spent more than twenty-five years in the City of London and the wider world of financial markets. He began as a futures trader in 1999, before moving through chief information, marketing, innovation and operating roles, alongside global trading leadership. It is a career spent making complicated businesses work, which has proved surprisingly little preparation for a small tractor.
At Martins Farm, that same curiosity finds its way into local history, wildlife, plans for the land and an elderly Morgan that prefers the garage. He writes much of the Journal, following interesting details through archives, along footpaths and occasionally into expensive mistakes.
His approach to countryside stewardship is thoughtful, enthusiastic and subject to revision after consulting Sharon.
Bylined pieces by Alastair (Ali) Hine
8 minutes
Eridge explained: the deer park, the station and the rocks
Eridge, Eridge Green, Eridge Park, Eridge station, Eridge Rocks and Harrison’s Rocks nearby: one name, several places, and why it helps to tell them apart.
6 minutes
October half term in the High Weald: seven days without needing seven plans
Half term has arrived, and with it the temptation to fill nine days with nine attractions. Seven ideas from Martins Farm, with one firm instruction: do not do all seven.
5 minutes
Green hops, old apples and new art
An October weekend near Martins Farm does not need much planning. A railway full of green-hop beer, an old village hall full of new work, and the useful instruction to leave a little time unallocated.
7 minutes
What to do near Tunbridge Wells when it rains
Rain moving sideways across the window on a Saturday morning near Tunbridge Wells: museums, historic houses, heritage trains and knowing when to come home.
9 minutes
Six High Weald villages worth a detour
Frant, Wadhurst, Mayfield, Lamberhurst, Goudhurst and Hartfield: six High Weald villages worth turning off the main road for, each for a different reason.
6 minutes
Why Does One Side of Wadhurst High Street Look So Much Older Than the Other?
A High Weald high street, centuries of history and the day a jet aircraft changed its appearance for good.
6 minutes
The quiet end of a wedding weekend
A wedding invitation usually contains a very precise ceremony time and a rather less precise description of where everybody is supposed to sleep.
5 minutes
Three Heritage Open Days worth booking from Martins Farm
For ten days in September, estate offices, old churches and local archives open doors that are normally shut. These are the three we would choose from Martins Farm.
6 minutes
The Birds Were Fine. The Gravel Was Not.
An attempt at responsible field management involving one not-quite-tractor, a flail mower, a missing iPhone, a loose hydraulic arm and a very recently laid drive.
9 minutes
What Is the High Weald? Why This Landscape Still Looks Medieval
Pigs made some of the roads, farmers cleared the fields one at a time, and sandstone did the rest. How the High Weald acquired a landscape that still carries its medieval pattern.
8 minutes
A Weekend in the High Weald Without a Car
From London by train, with country walks, Tunbridge Wells and a rather well-placed pub.
3 minutes
The Morgan and the High Weald Drive That Nearly Happened
After nearly two days on a trickle charger, the Martins Farm Morgan finally starts—just as the East Sussex rain arrives and the High Weald drive slips away.
5 minutes
Is Frant in Kent or East Sussex? A High Weald Weekend on Both Sides
Martins Farm is firmly in East Sussex, and a short drive from Kent. For a weekend away, that ambiguity turns out to be rather useful.
7 minutes
Days out from Martins Farm: summer
Not a list of places. Three days, in the order we would drive them, with the lunch stop already worked out and the last hour left for the meadow.
6 minutes
The Queen, Poohsticks and the Hundred Acre Wood
A few miles from Martins Farm, Ashdown Forest became the Hundred Acre Wood — and in July, Queen Camilla arrived to play Poohsticks on the bridge where it began.
7 minutes
The Summer the Tent Won
When the British weather finally delivered a proper summer, our Victorian farmhouse responded by turning itself into a beautifully appointed storage heater. So we moved into the garden.
2 minutes
Old Cars Are Wonderful — Until You Want to Drive One
The sun comes out, everyone is ready, and the 1980 Morgan 4/4 has other ideas.
6 minutes
Disgusted of Tunbridge Wells
Nobody has ever produced the first letter. The town has been living with the signature ever since — and, on the whole, wearing it rather well.
6 minutes
Days out from Martins Farm: autumn
The Weald spends three weeks being the best-looking part of England and then goes to bed. Here is how to spend them, in three shapes: colour, romance and a grand house with an indoor answer held in reserve.
6 minutes
Days out from Martins Farm: Halloween
The countryside supplies dark lanes, old trees, Victorian buildings and unexplained noises free of charge. All the end of October asks is that you be home in time for the village.
4 minutes
The AGA and the barbecue: a summer disagreement
A cast-iron stove that is never switched off, a barbecue that is never quite hot enough, and a household that has decided the answer to two AGAs is a third.
5 minutes
What is an oast house?
A short history of the building that dried the hops — the kiln, the cowl and the draught — and what happens when one of them stops working and starts housing people instead.
4 minutes
Walks with a dog, from the gate
Fifteen acres, one country lane and a county map. What we can honestly tell you about walking a dog here — and what we deliberately will not.
5 minutes
A weekend in Frant
Two days, one tank of fuel and no schedule worth keeping. How we would spend a weekend from this gate, in the order we would spend it.
4 minutes
Tables that do not mind a wet dog
The pubs and tables we actually recommend around Frant — and an honest warning about dog policies, which are nobody’s to promise but the landlord’s.
5 minutes
One good thing a day
The castles, gardens and ruins we point guests towards, and the case for doing one of them properly instead of three of them badly.
5 minutes
Bottles from the same hills
Why sparkling wine works in the South East, the three estates we point guests towards, and the small planting we have not yet put in the ground.
5 minutes
Opera and open-air jazz: two dates worth planning around
Most of what we recommend can be decided at breakfast. These two cannot — one wants an evening built around it, the other only happens on Thursdays. Here is what the organisers have published, and how a stay here fits either.
6 minutes
The ridge and the spring
Frant was old before Tunbridge Wells had a name. One grew along a sandstone ridge; the other around an iron-rich spring. Three miles and a county line apart, their histories have always overlapped.
3 minutes
An Eclipse over Martins Farm
For a few extraordinary minutes this August evening, the familiar fields of Martins Farm fell into an unfamiliar light.
6 minutes
A Morgan at Martins Farm
A short history of the four-wheeled Morgan, what the two fours actually stand for, and why a 1980 four-seater looks entirely at home in front of an old barn.
5 minutes
Things we have learned since moving to a farm
The first in an occasional series. Deer do not read fencing specifications, grass does not care what you had planned for the weekend, and the cowl is smarter than all of us.
7 minutes
Why we're planting vines in Sussex
A south-facing slope, a commissioned climatology and site-suitability assessment, and a category the Champagne houses have started taking seriously. What we know, and what we are not going to pretend to know.
6 minutes
Why oast houses have hats
A short defence of the cowl: the white wooden hat that made hop drying possible, gave Kent and Sussex their skyline, and still turns above our own kiln.
3 minutes
The colour of the estate
Why every gate, sign and letterhead at Martins Farm was matched to the bonnet of a 1980 Morgan 4/4.
5 minutes
The noisy neighbours
Mornings here are rarely silent. What we see and hear from the yard, the hedges and the field edges — written down as it happens, and nothing more.
4 minutes
A year in the meadow
One cut, late, and then left alone. What happens to fifteen acres when you stop tidying them.
7 minutes
Martins, before it was a farm
Three census returns and one Ordnance Survey sheet, and the shape of the place begins to show: the Brabons, the Elphicks and the Paiges, at work on this ridge above Frant.