BUTLEY ABBEY WILDS
The 150-acre Butley Abbey Wilds surrounds a 700-year-old priory. It has played host to royalty and noblemen for almost a millennium. Today it is available for parties, takeovers and stays.
OUR STORY
We are the lucky stewards of Butley Abbey and Priory founded in 1171, of which only the beautiful gatehouse remains intact.
Many have loved and lived in the Priory gatehouse since the abbey’s dissolution in 1538 including composer Frances Shelley, who started hosting weddings and gatherings in this sacred space in the 1990s.
Today we continue these traditions offering weddings, parties and hosting people from all over the world for stays and experiences in our wild Suffolk retreat.
We care deeply about preserving the priory for future generations and hope that the land will be a sanctuary for nature and people alike. We plan to stop farming the surrounding land and let nature take hold, creating a 150-acre reserve called Butley Abbey Wilds.
RESTORING THE WILDS
Over the coming years we will stop farming the land around Butley Priory to create Butley Abbey Wilds. We intend to improve the biodiversity of these 150 acres by working with ecologists through the government’s Biodiversity Net Gain scheme.
We hope that over the next thirty years we will be able to increase the quality and quantity of the wildlife here. Inspired by the rewilding movement, we intend to use a mix of newer and traditional conservation techniques to deliver significant ecological benefit.
We will be monitoring our progress annually. Do get in touch if you would like to find out more about this work.
SUSTAINABILITY
We are working towards becoming carbon neutral and are committed to operating as sustainably as possible. Over the coming years we plan to:
Review all our supplier relationships
Minimise waste and encourage recycling among staff and guests
Reduce our energy use and ensure we’re with a sustainable provider, in the short term
In the long term, meet all our own energy needs using solar and ground and air source heat pumps
