Visiting Hepple,

sustainably

While we are encouraging people to visit the estate through our programme of guided walks and experiences, we are very mindful of the impact our tourism can have.

Planning Your Visit

Much of the Hepple site, especially to the south is open access land, free to all to walk and explore. However, other areas of the site are still privately managed and only accessible through our experiences, open to small groups and led by our resident guide.

Parking is available only for those booked on our events, and instructions on how to find us is provide on booking.

For all of our events we would strongly encourage bringing: 

  • Sturdy boots or comfortable wellies

  • Binoculars*

  • Backpack with water bottle

  • A warm/waterproof coat or jacket

  • Waterproof trousers if it's forecast for rain

If you can leave them in the car so much the better! The weather in the Upper Coquet valley can be very changeable so please come prepared for anything. While we will aim to head out whatever the weather, if the forecast ahead of the event does look especially awful or hazardous, we will contact you to offer a full refund or a booking on an alternative date.

Our experiences are generally not dog friendly but we may be able to host well behaved pooches on our private/bespoke days, with prior arrangement. 

Toilets are available for guests on our experiences.

*Regarding binoculars, we are thrilled to announce that we have partnered with Viking Optics, allowing us to supply a range of binoculars for our visitors to borrow for the day. The binoculars will be available on a first-come-first-served basis or will be shared out amongst the group, so please bring your own if you have them. If you really like the binoculars you borrow, you will be able to buy a new pair afterwards.

Accessibility and Inclusion

Ultimately, we want to Hepple to be a place where anyone can visit and have a wonderful experience in Nature. Due to the nature of the landscape, much of Hepple is rough to walk over and includes many hills and dips. As such, walking around can be tricky and those booking on an event will be made aware of the difficulties of the event.

To increase the ability for people to get around the site we are hosting Land Rover safaris. While they still require some flexibility to climb into our high Land Rover Defender, they allow guests to get right across the estate without having to trek on foot. We are also exploring the possibility of getting a new buggy, situated lower to the ground, which will allow even more access for guests.

Our visitor bothy and the Hepple Spirits gin distillery is wheelchair friendly and with advance notice we can help make a visit here as smooth as possible.

Assistance dogs are welcome on our events, but be aware there is free-roaming livestock on the site.

If there are any specific access needs, questions or enquiries about a bespoke day, please get in touch with richard@hepplewilds.com

Sustainability and Regenerative Tourism

We aim not just to sustain this landscape, but to actively regenerate it—leaving it richer in biodiversity, soil health and cultural value for future generations.

Elsewhere on the website you can read about our work to restore habitats and nature, as well as our regenerative grazing practises, our movement to organic and grass-fed farming and biodiversity monitoring.

Working to restore degraded peat bogs on site we are also ensuring we retain a huge source of carbon within the landscape and allow them to grow and take in more carbon from the landscape. Infrastructure projects on the site are intentionally low-impact and to power our visitor areas we have installed a bank of solar panels to harness renewable energy.

All of our experiences on site are designed to be low-impact. We keep group sizes small, reducing footfall and the impact on the landscape. Using a resident guide we are able to control which areas are visited when, meaning we can avoid areas with nesting waders or pregnant livestock, and reduce any stress on biodiversity from our human visitors. We have made huge strides recently along Tosson Hill to improve the footpath there to reduce erosion of peat, as well as enhancing the walking experience there.

In 2026 we are installing a deer larder. This food-safe facility will allow us to produce high-quality venison from deer already being controlled as part of the programme, alongside the grass-fed organic beef we already produce. These will be made available to estate visitors, whether as part of our experience lunches or for sale in our visitor bothy.

As a rural business we are also very supportive of other local enterprises and look to work with others whenever we can, if we can’t find what we need on site. Alongside on-site food stuff, we are happy to work with local businesses such as Tully’s in Rothbury and Carnaby’s near Bamburgh, delivering high-quality lunches and dinners for visitors.

As producers of environmentally-friendly food, we are very conscious of impacts from the food industry when we need to buy things in. Aside from being high-quality, the optimal purchase is organic and local, reducing miles travelled from source to here and encouraging best practise in production, aligned with what Hepple practises itself. Also very important is the amount of plastic packaging used and the environmental policies of the company, though the latter may be harder to discern.

When purchasing food and drink for our guests we always ask some key questions:

  •   Is the product organic or does it support biodiversity measures in the UK?

  • Does it come from Northumberland? If not, is it British? If not, the item should be essential to the experiences and be of renowned quality or uniqueness

  • What is the products packaging like? If plastic, can we contact the provider to provide us with an alternative

  • What is the environmental impact of the items production?

Responsible Visitor Guidelines

When visiting the site for one of our experiences, you will be led by our resident guide and should follow their lead on how to act while on site.

If you are visiting on one of our footpaths, or open access areas, we ask that you follow some simple guidelines to help protect the environment, and the enjoyment of everyone visiting:

  •       Take all litter home. Even what you think will just ‘break down’.

  •       Keep dogs on leads, most especially between March and July and in the lowland areas

  •     Be aware of nesting birds. March – July is the peak nesting season and birds are very sensitive to disturbance. Please give them space and back off if a bird is alarming near you.

  •     No drone flying without express and written permission from the estate.

  •   Respect livestock and wildlife. Do not approach any livestock while on site and please circle round any animals on paths.

  •       Do not disturb adders while on site. They will not bother you if you don’t bother them.

  •       No fires on the estate.

  •       Be aware of ticks and check yourself when you get home.

  • Please be aware of nesting birds when looking to climb on the estate and avoid doing so between April and July inclusive. If in doubt, speak to your local climbing group or please contact us.

Frequently Asked Questions

  • Yes you can walk on areas of the estate but we do not have a visitor centre or information point to visit. There is no parking on site but there are footpaths and open access areas for all to visit.

  • We are very welcoming to all ages on our events, just give us a heads up if you are bringing many young ones. All children must be accompanied by an adult who will be responsible for them while on site.

  • Toilets are available for our booked visitors.

  • While we love dogs, dogs off a lead are one of the greatest threats to our wildlife at Hepple. Dogs are not generally able to come on our guest experiences, without prior confirmation or unless they are assistance dogs on leads. Visitors to our open access areas or footpaths should keep all dogs on leads and under control, especially around livestock and nesting birds.