Hidden Wiltshire has always been a labour of love. When Glyn Coy started it all those years ago he did so to share the wonders that he encountered hidden away on his walks in the county, more often as seen from the air using his drone. We produced a couple of books for which we charged but they just broke even. Glyn sells a few prints of his work but he charges so little I doubt he makes anything. We have also sold a little HW branded merchandise. Finally I’ve used Hidden Wiltshire to promote my own photography and I have sold a few prints off the back of that. Our only other income has been from the walks we led for Wiltshire Museum where we shared the proceeds, and for the occasional talk that Glyn has given.
That’s the positive side of the balance sheet. On the negative side we have spent money on the recording equipment and editing software to produce 45 (so far) podcasts and the occasional video, and of course the upkeep of the website. Our income doesn’t come close to covering those costs so Glyn for the most part has subsidised the rest. Therefore our balance sheet has a distinct list, something which my years studying economics taught me is not healthy.
We have never accepted sponsorship, although it has been suggested on occasions. Never say never but that would change the dynamics of what we do. However, we have on many occasions promoted the work of friends who have been kind enough to reciprocate. The podcast and YouTube community is close knit and we’re delighted to help each other out.
On occasions we see an idea or a small business we like and we’re happy to mention them simply because we believe in what they are doing. But it still needs to be something that is hidden away in Wiltshire. This short blog is one such occasion and I would point out that a) they didn't know we were going to write this, so b) we’ve not been paid to do so.
Followers will know we like a nice pub, and for me it has to sell decent beer. One of my favourite Wiltshire breweries is Stone Daisy, a tiny brewery situated in Berwick St Leonard on the Fonthill Estate. A while ago they started a distillery. They took a lease from the Estate on some old farm buildings in Fonthill Bishop down the road from the brewery, where they spent a small fortune restoring the beautiful old stone barn (I can only assume it is a very long lease) to house the distillery itself.
Another old stone building was converted to a visitor centre. Two stones in the visitor centre bear medieval hexafoil, or daisy wheel, witch marks which we frequently find in some of Wiltshire’s oldest churches. These marks gave the distillery its name – Witchmark Distillery, and of course the daisy wheel mark gave its name to the brewery. Also to be found in the building housing the visitor centre is the overlapping Vs mark known as a marian mark, invocations to the Virgin Mary to protect the site.
Recently four of us went on a distillery tour (yes we paid) to have a look for ourselves. I’d always associated witch marks with ancient churches so it was interesting to find them in an old barn. A first for me I think.
The long term aim of the distillery is to make fine English whisky. But this takes years so in the meantime they are also making gin and vodka which is a much shorter process. Sales from the three gins and one vodka they produce will contribute to the cost of running the business for the next three years until the first cask of whisky can be bottled and sold. In the visitor centre you will find a café which is open to all. Handily it is on the route of the walk we’ve led a couple of times around the Fonthill Estate for Wiltshire Museum– you’ll find a link to the blog describing that walk below.
So what do I like about this business? I bought bottles of two of their three gins, both of which are quite different to each other whilst sharing the same distinctive taste of their malted barley. And that is what I like about Witchmark. They use regenerative farming methods with minimum artificial inputs to produce their own barley on the Fonthill Estate – last year’s crop was grown in a field next to the distillery along which runs a bridleway (albeit one that stops at the A303)! The barley is sent the short distance to Warminster Maltings to be malted, where the distillery pays a premium for it to be kept separate from everyone else’s barley. There’s no point making a fuss about their barley being locally grown with minimal spraying if it then gets mixed up with everyone else’s barley. (Fun fact – last year I went to the little Long Man Brewery in Litlington, East Sussex and in talking to head brewer I discovered they too send their barley to Warminster Maltings.) The only other ingredient is the water that is pumped from bore holes on the Fonthill Estate.
The word you hear a lot around here is “Sustainability”.
But what I really loved about the place was the photographic opportunities. The burnished copper of the stills, and polished chrome pipework were spotless. If you didn’t already know a couple of the guys were ex-military you’d probably guess! In my previous life I spent years travelling the world touring everything from factories, foundries, and quarries to warehouses and aircraft hangars. You could always tell when the production manager was ex-military (and mostly navy) – everything was ship shape. Every pipe and conduit colour coded for ease of identification. Floors so clean you could eat your dinner off them. Witchmark Distillery is much like this.
If you want to do a distillery tour they are doing early bird tickets for £15 each. It takes about 90 minutes in total. There’s a 10 minute video which they admit was made for investors but it provides a useful background. Then there’s a tour of the distillery, drying store and warehouse where you’ll see the casks awaiting the whisky. Then there’s a tasting session in the visitor centre where you can try the "first make" liquor (they can’t call it whisky yet). It’s 67% ABV so you’ll need some water, but you get a hint of what the whisky might taste like in three years and one day as it was when we visited. Then you can taste the gins and vodka (the vodka had sold out when we went). It’s the first distillery tour I’ve done so I found it fascinating, but seasoned veterans might find the lack of whisky a challenge! Here’s a link to their website if you want to book a tour or learn a lot more about what they do to make this a sustainable business supporting the community and the environment.
Love the photographs, many options to translate into textiles or art.