'This place is a vital force for good': An off-grid community's desperate fight to save their home

In the scenic foothills of the Preseli mountains, in Pembrokeshire, sits Brithdir Mawr – an intentional community of hardcore off-gridders. It’s one of the oldest housing co-operatives in Britain but the residents have now been told they must leave. 

The new owner of the land plans to turn the site into a healing retreat centre, and says the residents had “many years to raise the funds to purchase the land themselves”.

The Brithdir Mawr community was established more than 30 years ago and, since 2004, the farm has been run as a housing co-operative. Each member has an equal say in decision-making, and the community pays a low rent in exchange for maintenance of the buildings and the land. 

Rosie Gillam has been coming to Brithdir Mawr since she was a child and is now a part-time resident: “The fact that someone could buy what is essentially a small hamlet – where people live, work, grow their own food, keep animals – and just replace it with something else, seems ridiculous,” she says. 

The residents were originally given a 15 year lease in 2004 from their departing co-founder, the author Julian Orbach, who initially bought the land with his then-wife Emma Orbach. 

Orbach told the community that he would sell the land at the end of the lease. In 2015, he gave the residents first right of refusal to buy the land. The community had to raise £1 million to buy the land or leave the site at the end of the lease in 2019. 

When the original lease ended, Orbach extended it by one year to 2020 to give residents more time to find the money. He also lowered the asking price for purchasing the land. He followed this with a promise that the community could live there until the end of 2025 – but no official paperwork was ever signed. 

The residents raised the funds to buy the land in 2023, but by this point Orbach had found a new buyer. 

Rachel May, a teacher, doula and shadow work coach had offered to buy the land; selling her home to fund the purchase. Julian Orbach issued the residents a notice to quit prior to the completion of the sale, which was finalised in September 2024.

The Brithdir Mawr residents were told that they had to leave by 31 December 2024. 

Residents with children have since moved. Six remain – alongside a group of long-term volunteers and frequent visitors. 

May says she has had “numerous meetings over nearly three years” with the Brithdir Mawr residents: “I sought immediately to engage with the community to understand if any of them wished to join with my vision for this place. Unfortunately, none of this led to agreement on collaborating.”

The new plan for the land would mean the end of the housing co-operative. 

Gillam says the fact that Brithdir Mawr is run as a “non-hierarchical” housing co-op makes it “an important template”.

“In Pembrokeshire, we have a massive housing crisis,” she says. “Brithdir is a solution. The idea of sharing spaces and resources. We need more of this. Brithdir teaches people sustainable living and teaches people how to live together. No one has more power than anyone else – everyone has an equal say. People are constantly flowing in and out of Brithdir. 

“A housing co-operative that’s existed for five or even ten years hasn’t seen the trials and tribulations that Brithdir Mawr has.” 

Will Cooke is a Brithdir resident and former physics teacher. He says Brithdir is embedded in the local community. 

“Brithdir Mawr is part of a hotspot of alternative eco-conscious living,” he explains. “It’s extraordinarily special and valuable. There are three intentional communities living side by side here, and they are very well known – Brithdir Mawr, Tir Ysbrydol and Fachongle, an initiative started by John Seymour [which inspired the TV show The Good Life]. 

“This is unique in the UK. To pull Brithdir out of that will harm the wider community.

“The idea that Brithdir Mawr, which is absolutely a force for good in the world, should move aside because someone else wants to do something here, which will undoubtedly also be a force for good, seems bizarre to me. We have to work together.” 

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Typically there have been around 15 full-term residents at Brithdir who also have jobs in the local economy. The community estimates more than 1,000 people have participated in volunteer schemes, which offer a chance to learn skills for off-grid living. 

The residents echo wider calls for the Welsh government to legislate a Community Right to Buy scheme, which would enable a community to collectively buy buildings that are important to their area.

“Enshrining Community Right to Buy and Tenants Right to Buy schemes in law would protect those with less money and power. This seems a healthy, empowering way forward,” a decade-long resident of Brithdir Mawr, who wishes not to be named, says.

“Brithdir Mawr is an amazing complex off-grid, sustainable living system that has evolved here on this land over decades. It has world wide networks and influence. This is a vital force for good for both the local and wider community.”

Co-founder Emma Orbach moved into a neighbouring section of the land in the 1990s, which she named Tir Ysbrydol (Welsh for ‘Spirit Lands’), where she still lives to this day in Celtic-style round houses without any electricity at all. 

Rachel May has been visiting Emma on her land for nearly a decade and says she is “100% in support of her” and that her work will “complement” Tir Ysbrydol. 

Emma says that there is “no good resisting change”, and backs May’s vision. She says she sees this as “the land coming back together”.  

On 17 January, May’s lawyer gave the residents seven days to move out – or said that proceedings for possession would be issued. She has not yet taken any formal action. 

In January, May says she asked for “a solid proposal” from one Brithdir Mawr member but heard “nothing back”. She says she remains “willing to have a conversation” and “is not closing off any possibility of dialogue”.

The residents remain hopeful that a resolution can be reached, as Cooke says: “This is a complex situation. There are no heroes and villains in this story. We all want the best for this place. We hope to resolve this seemingly intractable situation for the good of all. We look forward to dialogue with Rachel. It would show wider society a powerful example of true integration.” 

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