We bought the field from friends in 2004 at which point it was being used as an Alpaca farm.  The first few horses took up grazing along with goats and chickens. Having worked with Monty Roberts and Kelly Marks Dawn set up the field as a Natural Horsemanship yard and we built the main oak clad tack-shed.  In our first winter a howling gale blew the roof off the makeshift shed which formed part of the barn and left a gaping space which many years later Nick and Luke finally put a roof on and then windows and doors from oak supplied by the local sawmill.  This became a hay store until Luke finished University in 2016 and he, Nick and Harry built the milk parlour to be an airbnb - a 6 month project which took 3 years!  Meanwhile, the horse business went from strength to strength and many local children and adults learn to ride and found out about Natural Horsemanship.  Dawn also began to work with autistic children and their families and qualified as one of the first Equine therapists.  In 2012 India changed to homeschooling and the field became a centre for education and homeschooling which continues into the present.  3 years ago Luke and Nick set up the No-Dig vegetable project to regenerate the land and sell vegetables locally.  Luke took the leadership and Nick moved on to building the Shepherds Hut with Clem.  In 2018 Marianne (who had worked with the horses since being a teenager) and Luke got married at the same field that they had first met many years before.  Philippe and Richard joined the team a year ago and worked on the Vegetable business and the Shepherds Hut as well as time with the horses.  Today Crackstone Barns incorporates all these strands and has even begun to break-even financially.  We have not set-out to impose a direction on the field but let it find its own direction as new ideas emerge and take form there.