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Venezualan dinner guests brought to Winton by Eurowelcome Latin Travel (photo by Tony Marsh)

Chalmers & Co returns to the Haddington Show as the main sponsors on Saturday 2nd of July along with The Energy Saving Trust and Winton House, the castle and hospitality venue, as co-sponsors. All three organisations support a green approach to business and life style.

Chalmers & Co provides integrated, rural property services from its Haddington office – Architecture, Estate Agency, and Estate Management & Consultancy – which all contribute to the firm’s vision of “Shaping the countryside”. With its roots firmly planted in agricultural East Lothian, the firm has many long standing local landowners, landlords and farmers as clients.

Chalmers & Co, whose Haddington High Street offices are heated by a state-of-the-art wood pellet heating system, also advises clients on renewable energy options and on both how to save money through energy efficiency and how to generate it from wind and wood, the sun and the earth, and generous government incentives.  Combining the in-house teams with specialist external consultants enables clients to benefit from genuinely impartial, professional advice that highlights the opportunities whilst exposing the myths about renewable energy. 

Show co-sponsor Winton House is an exclusive use castle with a green approach to business.  It has just achieved a gold Green Tourism Business Scheme award (GTBS) for its sustainable hospitality services and corporate responsibility policy. Winton has hosted many memorable private parties over the centuries and continues that tradition today with private celebrations, weddings, dinners and corporate events (and not just for Jacobites!). The spectacular venue is a hidden gem in the heart of the county where all things green and local come naturally. 

Sarah Fuller, a surveyor at Chalmers & Co, comments: “The introduction of the government’s Feed-in-Tariff has transformed the economic case for small scale wind energy – even a single turbine can now prove very worthwhile.   There is often more than one energy option for farms and domestic property. For unbiased studies of real-life projects, a good starting point is the website www.greenenergynet.com. Chalmers & Co has a local link with the company behind the website which offers professional, renewables consultancy services for some of our clients.“

David Brackenridge, Chalmers & Co’s chartered architect, says: “With fuel costs likely to stay high, home owners and landlords need to consider alternative energy solutions. We can offer cost effective, practical and sympathetic energy saving options for our clients. Chalmers & Co recently redeveloped a client’s 3 bedroom cottage; we stripped, insulated, double glazed and equipped it with a multi-fuel heating system including solar panels, doubling the capital value and which we re-let within two weeks of completion. ”

Home Renewables Advisor Pilar Rodriguez from co-sponsors the local Energy Saving Scotland advice centre will also be on hand to provide free, impartial advice on technology and funding for insulation and small-scale renewables.  The Energy Saving Trust helps people save energy and reduce carbon emissions.

Show visitors are invited to call into Chalmers & Co’s marquee for some locally produced light refreshments and to meet staff from all three organisations.

Further information: www.chalmers-surveyors.com (01620 824000) www.wintonhouse.co.uk (01875 340222) and www.energysavingtrust.org.uk/scotland (0800 512 012). The photograph is courtesy of  Tony Marsh Photography.

Winton House wins gold Green Tourism Business award

Winton House has just achieved a gold Green Tourism Business Scheme award (GTBS) for its sustainable approach to hospitality and corporate responsibility. Winton, an exclusive use venue in East Lothian, is committed to running Scottish weddings, tailor-made events, team-building activities, gala dinners, conferences and meetings whilst minimizing its impact on the environment. The GBTS is the UK’s most highly regarded sustainable tourism certification scheme, validated by VisitBritain. 

Winton House has joined other well known tourist and hospitality venues with gold awards such as Dynamic Earth, Prestonfield, The Bonham, Holyrood Park and the Scottish Seabird Centre. Winton House, half an hour from Edinburgh in East Lothian, has been a successful, ‘exclusive use’, corporate and private hospitality venue for the last 10 years.

“It’s fair to say that what we call ‘corporate responsibility’ today has been at the heart of Winton Estate’s management for hundreds of years, simply because it is good for the long term development of the Estate and the House. We’re obviously delighted with this Gold award,” says Sir Francis Ogilvy owner of Winton House.

The key components of Winton’s approach to sustainability are as follows:

• Wherever possible, Winton uses local suppliers and employs people living locally to support surrounding communities and minimize travel to work.
• Winton House is heated using its own waste wood and monitors energy consumption. The House and 5 cottages are heated by a wood chip fired boiler fuelled with wood from the Estate. This is estimated to save some 100 tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions each year.
• Winton House’s gardens are managed for the long term by developing about 1,000 of its own plants each year from cuttings and seeds; encouraging wildlife by not over-cultivating; recycling its water, pots and compost; and restricting the use of pesticides. Consequently, the garden attracts butterflies, ducks, herons, geese, buzzards, woodpeckers, fieldfares, house martins and swallows, and even partridge, hares, roe deer and badgers.
• Winton Estate’s 850 acres of forestry and further 1,450 acres of farmland contribute to about 2,500 tonnes of carbon being absorbed from the atmosphere (the same as the carbon emissions from 250 average households).
• The farmland and forestry are managed in a sustainable way which encourages wildlife and biodiversity through wildlife corridors, uncropped areas and careful use of chemical sprays and fertilizers.
• The Winton events team recycles products consumed in the House and in the large, self-catering country houses (eg aluminium, glass, paper, computers).
• Winton’s events team has a long tradition of running charitable and community events each year, as well as our corporate and private events.

“We know that we can always do more, so we try not to be complacent,” adds Sir Francis.

You can see more at www.wintonhouse.co.uk and in the Corporate Responsibility section of their website.

Background for Editors

Winton House, an exclusive use venue, is perfect for memorable conferences, dinners and activities. Winner of World Travel Awards for three years for its exceptional customer care, Winton’s blue chip corporate guests have included Barclays, The Royal Bank of Scotland, Standard Life, Tesco Personal Finance, BBC Worldwide, Cisco Systems, Mercedes Benz, Microsoft, Toyota, PGA of America, as well as leading companies from France, Spain and Sweden.

Winton House’s layout with inter-connecting halls, drawing room, King Charles room, Cabinet Room and dining room, means that it caters well for intimate corporate dinners and business lunches for up to 84 people, as well as for bigger dinners of up to 200.  It also provide team-building activities including the Winton Highland Games and clay pigeon shooting with the 22 times Scottish champion.

For more information, please contact Christopher Lamotte on 07957 870071 or at Winton House on 01875 340222 christopher@wintonhouse.co.uk

Daffodils out in force at Winton House

On Sunday 10^th of April, Winton House throws its doors open for its annual Spring Open Day with funds being raised for Maggie’s Centres, which provides support for cancer care, as well as Scotland’s Garden Scheme.

On the day, the daffodils will be out in force and there will be lots of entertainment for families:

• A treasure hunt through the grounds, a bouncy castle and face painting.
• An opportunity to meet a team of Siberian Huskies who provide husky racing at Winton during the winter when the weather is colder.
• Historical tours of Scottish Renaissance Winton House with its intricate plaster ceilings and links to Henry VIII, Mary Queen of Scots and Bonnie Prince Charlie.
• Walks through the terraced gardens, walled garden and extensive network of Winton Walks.
• Homemade cakes, sandwiches and soups at ever popular Café Winton.

Entry to the garden and estate is £4 per adult and children are free. Guided House tours are £5 per person and £3 for concessions.

Winton House aims to manage its gardens sustainably

(Based on an interview with Toby Subbioto, Head Gardener)

At Winton House, we aim to manage and develop our gardens and grounds sustainably; we grow a lot of our own plants, encourage wildlife, recycle what we can – water, pots and compost – and minimize the use of pesticides.

Planting

Winton’s plant stock is developed by division and potting on. Some 1,000 plants are cultivated annually from cuttings and seeds. We try to use peat-free compost as much as possible.

Nearly all our bedding plants are grown from seeds or cuttings as are many other plants like bulbs. These include lilies, crocuses, irises, tulips, sweet peas, marguerites, geraniums, salvias and fuchsias. Some shrubs are also propagated from cuttings.

The garden and planting is done so that it is as wildlife-friendly as possible. Some areas are left wild and not over-cultivated or kept too tidy. Consequently, the garden attracts butterflies, ducks, herons, geese, buzzards, woodpeckers, fieldfares, house martins and swallows, and even partridge, hares, roe deer and badgers.

We have areas of natural and old coppiced woodland areas, open meadow and grassland, as well as a range of aquatic and marginal habitats which are home to dragonflies, toads, frogs, coots, moorhens, herons and cormorants. Read more…

Appetite Direct has been serving delicious meals to guests at Winton House, near Edinburgh, since the corporate entertainment and wedding seasons started in earnest in the spring.

Winton’s corporate guests enjoy delicious country house dishes prepared by their chefs who include Appetite Direct.

Renowned for providing a very personal service, Appetite Direct specialises in catering for exclusive parties, launches, weddings, dinners, conferences and business lunches. Their food has been commended in Scotland the Best, the List Eating and Drinking Guide and UKTV Food Heroes.

With its six inter-connecting reception rooms, Winton House’s flexible layout and extensive gardens means that it can cater well for corporate or private dinners and lunches for 10 to 120 people, for receptions of up to 250 people, and for up to 400 in a marquee.

Nigel Kennedy of Appetite Direct says:

“We love working in Winton House. It has an amazing ambience – both grand and relaxed and the events team always put on fantastic parties. All our food is made from the best fresh local produce and we’ve just launched our winter menu.”

Guests can round off an evening and work off a dinner with one of Winton’s popular Ceilidhs or a tutored whisky tasting.

For more information please visit www.wintonhouse.co.uk or call the events team on 01875 340222.