EDITOR'S VISIT
22
Dr Roz Goodenough is a retired GP and grew up on the farm. Roz and her husband Richard received numerous offers to develop the historic buildings on the site into housing. This included a grade II listed Dovecote and a threshing barn that had survived a World War II incendiary bomb. Roz and Richard did not want these beautiful buildings to become housing but instead wanted to use them in a business that was connected to the agricultural heritage of the site. When researching the site Richard discovered that in 1303 there had been vines on the estate that adjoins the property. “We have records from the Canterbury Cathedral Archives detailing the high maintenance costs of the ‘press house’ etc… the next vineyard to
r Ed ito
Vineyard Magazine was invited to the Chardonnay harvest at Chartham Vineyard, Kent located on a 40 hectare farm that has been in the same family for many years. A decade ago 10,000 vines were planted across two hectares.
er m
Family harvest
Rebecca Far
be established in Chartham was by us, 710 years later in 2013,” said Richard. Recognising that the site needed to be useful if it was to be preserved Roz and Richard decided that a vineyard would fit beautifully with the long tradition of fruit farming that had previously been part of this landscape. The threshing barn is now used to house both tours and tastings alongside other events such as Shakespearian theatre productions, concerts and annual Arts Society exhibitions. Of course the harvest supper for the volunteer pickers is also hosted in this barn once the grapes are successfully sitting
