Our Herbalism School Setting

Nestled in a small rural village in the East Yorkshire countryside, just an hour's drive towards the coast from historic York, we invite you to join us in Grandmother Willow - our beautiful off-grid yurt that fills with sunlight in the longer days and wafts with herbal incense as the wood burner smoulders in the darker months.

With books on the shelves and generous mugs, our smooth wooden herbcrafting table and cosy chairs and sofas, our yurt is an intimate setting that shifts your mind and mood, transporting you to the Wise Woman's Hut, where it's just you and your fellow students on your journey learning herbalism.

Surrounded by nature on our organic family smallholding, you will develop your knowledge and skills to the patter of the rain on the canvas, the seasonal songs of the birds and the gentle sounds of our beloved chickens and neighbouring sheep and cows.

We are a unique herbalism school in our stretch of Northern England, attracting students from the four corners of Yorkshire, as well as across the UK, including London and the southern counties. Wherever you travel from to join us, you will find a community of like-minded souls here.

If you are coming from a distance, we are easily accessible by car or a short taxi ride from Driffield if you are travelling via public transport. You will find plenty of independent accommodation in the neighbouring villages, as well as seaside caravan and camping options towards Bridlington, roughly 20 minutes away. There are ancient monoliths and serene private beaches nearby, offering peace, nature and history to explore. As your journey progresses, you may choose to arrange accommodation with other members of your cohort for more time spent in good company.

Our meals are bursting with flavour, colour and nourishment, created by our brilliant local caterer, Lucy May. Lunch, an afternoon treat and herbal tea are included in our intensive herbalism course fees, with the additional option to arrange with Lucy for dinner to collect and take away, ready to warm and eat when you get home from a full day of learning.

In our apothecary garden, you will see the herbs transform across the seasons from seedling to full bloom to seed and back again, and we like to spend the summer gatherings, especially, learning alongside the plants in the garden as much as possible. We have recently rebuilt our herb garden from the ground up, so it provides not only a better home for our medicinal plants, but also perspective on how a herb garden evolves over time - as well as herb babies for students and a bountiful harvest to work with on our course.

Our herbalism students span a breadth of ages and stages of life, from their 20s to their 70s. Everyone comes with their own experiences and particular interests, from practitioners of other holistic therapies to television and film crew, from regenerative farmers to pub owners, from corporate life exit planners to decades-long career retirees, from expectant mothers to mothers of all ages and loving grandmothers, from total newcomers to students working on their clinical herbal medicine practitioner qualifications. Everyone has a story to share, everyone has their own unique flavours to contribute to their cohort and everyone comes with the same aim in mind - to connect more deeply with the rest of nature, to understand how medicinal plants and their own bodies work together and to empower themselves to unplug from the myriad of broken systems, overwhelming and vitality-depleting messaging and ways of living that deprive us of our resilience and autonomy.

Our students know there is another way of living and a whole host of knowledge and skills they can pass on to the next generation and share with their communities - and they come to us because they are ready to start their journeys of learning herbalism.