Meaningful and measurable

Rupert Bates discovers the true definition of natural capital at the Belmont estate

- Rupert Bates

YOU LEAVE a conversation with Henry Rossiter wiser than when you started. The same applies to business leaders and schoolchildren after a visit to the Belmont estate near Bristol. Belmont is 400 acres of enlightened thinking. Somewhere that can offer both a butchery lesson and a yoga class while counting insects is appealing to a broad church, and the pillars of the Belmont cathedral are engraved nature, climate and community.

It is owned by the Rossiter family, who started piecing together parcels of estate land in 2012. After studying food production and supply management at Cirencester and then an early foray into hospitality, the pandemic prompted a return home where Rossiter's parents are committed to farming organically, mixing livestock with rewilding. However, it is a reconnection with nature that is both meaningful and measurable – not just a cliché from the eco-warrior's battle plan.