Brailes Mechanical & Craft Society – November 2025
The Power of Purple with Epwell’s Ridge and Furrow Lavender
In November, Peter & Carolyn Koch de Gooreynd came to talk about their family business growing and distilling lavender
The meeting opened with two minutes silence for David Willatts. David was an anaesthetist in Banbury and in the past he has given us a very interesting talk on the history of anaesthetics. He travelled widely with his wife Alison, and we had several very good presentations about their travels.
Peter and Carolyn live on the edge of Epwell, where the long distance d’Arcy Dalton Way climbs out of the village towards Shennington. About 15 years ago they started to convert the field next to them into a lavender farm. Currently the rows of lavender plants occupy an area of about 200 yards by 50 yards. With occasional help from their son they do all the work themselves. They had no previous experience of large scale lavender growing and therefore there was a lot of trial error. Peter summarised their business as: Plants to planting, Drying to distilling, and Products to sell.
Every part of the plant is used. They produce body oil; lavender hydrosol, a milder product than the oil; soap; lavender bags and firelighters, made from the dried stalks. They sell on-line, and in one year they attended 200 local markets. They are pleased to have been accepted at Clarkson’s Farm where they have a pop-up shop.
Their plants need to keep there colour, and the plant type has to be a good producer of oil. Their chosen colour is purple. They have around 5 types, including Maillette from Provence. They visited a grower there and came back with 400 plants. Their motto is: Dream it, Build it, Grow it.
Lavender does not like to be in water, nor does it like temperatures below about 7 degrees centigrade. They have created their own ridges. Initially they had to strip 2 kilometres of turf. Drainage trenches are also needed. A strong ground membrane is laid and a 4 inch diameter hole is pierced for each plant. Although the membrane suppresses weeds, they still have problems with them. The plants have a life of around 7 years, so it is necessary to keep introducing replacements.
Distillation is done in a 40 litre copper vessel and this means the plants are processed in relatively small batches. The harvesting period is 3-4 weeks. Lavender is used for its calming and anti-inflammatory properties, offering benefits to sleep, anxiety, skin health, and pain relief. It can also be used for aromatherapy.
After the meeting their products were for sale. Peter and Carolyn were thanked for an informative and entertaining talk.
Our next meeting is on Monday 1st December when we have our Christmas Party which includes a buffet supper and Christmas raffle. We meet in the Village Hall at 7 30 pm.
Eric Darvell