Nothing seems to slow down because the sun is out. We have a flurry of property activity at the moment, with two of our largest houses coming back to us, albeit not for long, so all systems go for the Maintenance and Gardening teams.
PROPERTY
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Conderton Chase was vacated this week. It is a fabulous home (probably my favourite but don’t tell anyone!) with lovely large light rooms and gorgeous views from the bedrooms. We are already busy doing a few jobs there to get it spick and span for the next tenant, so Mark’s team will have their paint brushes out ready for the new tenants to move in in a few weeks’ time.
Conderton Chase (left)
Silver Rill, one of the largest homes in Overbury and owned by Overbury Investments and an old Mill is looking for a new family to enjoy it. Overbury Enterprises are in charge of letting this and with three acres of gardens our happy team here have been getting to work giving the hedges a haircut and a general tidy so that we can hand it over in super order to the next lucky person getting to live there. Rosy and I have had a great time this week showing prospective tenants around. It really makes you realise how lucky we all are when we start telling everyone about all the things we have here at Overbury.
Mavis (Assistant Estate Manager) making sure Gardener Tom hasn't missed a bit! (right)
WATER
Water is also quite high up on my Agenda at the moment, as you know we have a private supply at Overbury and we work hard to make sure that it runs smoothly, literally! Half of our team have been working in the woods for the last few weeks upgrading our “catch pits” which actually has been a good job out of the scorching sun! We then mark them with posts and plot them on to our mapping system so we can locate them again easily when nature has taken its course and the areas become over grown once more! Please do be mindful of your water usage during these hot times and try and recycle where you can.
Handy Andy digging a catch pit (left)
CLA
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Last Thursday we also hosted the CLA Gloucestershire AGM. Over 80 people were shown around Overbury Stallions, with thanks to Simon Sweeting, the farm and shoot. It was a lovely evening and we will blog about this separately later on.
CLA AGM attendees at Overbury Stallions (left)
PROJECTS
Our projects at Norlands and Manor Farm are ticking along, with a visit from Western Power on Thursday morning to see how we can move the rather unattractive “H” pole from what will be the view from the dining room. I am awaiting the prices… and suspect I will need to be sitting down when they arrive! Hopefully we should be on site before the end of the summer and will update you further then - including the fate of Norland’s window seat!
As you have probably noticed we have started Harvest on the Farm, albeit with a quick break while we wait for the Wheat to ripen. Jake, our Farm Manager has been on Radio 4 Farming Today this week, with a few more media events planned to share the harvest story. Do remember to follow his Youtube clips to find out more about what is going on.
Harvest 2016 underway (above)
To round up a very varied week I am now off out with Martyn, our Forester, to go through the annual tree inspection report and prioritise the works that need to be done and whether this is done by our in house team or whether we need to get specialist tree climbers in. As you can imagine it’s a never ending task!
Finally a request from us all. We have had several occasions now where lovely songbirds and two hedgehogs have been killed in Overbury due to people driving too quickly, latterly a lovely Thrush who was feeding on the road. If you live around the top end of the village and Pigeon Lane please do help us by driving steadily It might encourage others to do the same too!
We hope you find these updates useful, do let us know if there is anything specific you would like us to blog about.