Meet the team
Nick Oakley-Smith "Founder"
Nick bought the site back in 2004. He divides his time between his work as a leadership and executive coach and building projects like the conversion of the barn and building the shepherds hut. Nick loves having guests and people around to enjoy and benefit from the site and when he is not immersed in the corporate world, is often to be seen around the site repairing gates and fences, chopping wood and thinking up new ideas for beautiful structures.
Dawn Oakley-Smith "Founder - Heartshore Horses"
Dawn Oakley-Smith founded Heartshore in 2003 and in a bid to move away from the traditional styles of horsemanship known widely in the UK, Dawn's sensitive, therapeutic approach is the total opposite of traditional horsemanship methods as she works from a healing perspective, considering the life journey each horse has been on before they arrive at Heartshore and equally so with horses she works with outside of her own herd.
Luke Oakley-Smith "Founder - Crackstone Barns ZeroDig"
Luke has run Crackstone Barns Zerodig, a commercial market garden on-site, for the last 4 years. Started from heavily grazed pasture the site has slowly grown in size and upscaled infrastructure over the four years.
For the 4 years before the growing project Luke spent his time restoring and building the Milk Parlour in between other building and farm work. He co-runs the day to day working of the site, enjoying being involved in small scale building projects like the off grid Shepherd’s hut alongside the main focus of the veg growing.
Luke had an overall vision for the whole site to try and regenerate it both ecologically and financially after finishing university. He particularly enjoys sitting in the veg patches watching the wildlife and assessing the micro climate that has been created.
