Meet Anna: A Focus on Guardswell Farm

On the Carse of Gowrie, where the Sidlaw hills succumb to the lowlands, sits a farm that can see for miles – to Auchterhouse and Dundee, to North Fife, and on clear days, St Andrews. The air is crisp, laden with seasonal scents – fresh cut hay, sweet haylage, woodsmoke – and the meadows are a sea of different vetches, plantain, yarrow, sheep’s sorrel, knapweed, mouse-ear and galium. This is Guardswell, the small mixed working farm headed by Anna Lamotte and her family, encompassing accommodation and workshops, events and weddings. “Guardswell loves to open her gates to anyone who needs to step back from a life that is too busy, too full on, too fast,” says Anna. She describes it as a place to retreat when you need to take stock and rest, to explore on foot or immerse yourself in nature in any number of bucolic spots – “the Big Wood when the bluebells are out and the ferns unfurling. The boat on the hill, when the wind picks up and you need a little refuge. The veg field when the rhubarb is enormous and the beds are overflowing. The glasshouse on an early summer’s morning with a cup of tea”. Here, she shares the Guardswell story.