Charles Dowding is coming to Hampton Manor on Sunday 26th July.

Here’s what you need to know — and why, if you’ve been waiting for the right moment to learn no dig properly, this is probably it.

Charles Dowding doesn’t do many workshops outside of Somerset. His home growing space — Homeacres, a couple of acres of beautifully managed no-dig beds — is where most people who want to learn from him have to go. Which means, for a significant portion of the country, learning from the man who effectively started the no-dig movement in Britain has always involved a long drive south, an overnight stay, and a diary negotiation.

We’ve changed that. On Sunday 26th July, Charles is coming to Hampton Manor in the Midlands — to our Victorian walled kitchen garden on the Warwickshire-West Midlands border — for a full day no dig workshop. Illustrated talks, hands-on demonstrations, and an afternoon building a no-dig bed together. 10am to 4pm.

If you’ve been meaning to learn no dig from someone who has been doing it for four decades, this is one of very few chances to do so without going to Somerset.

Who is Charles Dowding, and why does it matter who teaches you this?

No dig gardening has become one of the most talked-about approaches in British horticulture over the last decade. Monty Don has discussed it on Gardeners’ World. The National Trust now teaches it. The Soil Association champions it. But most of what has entered mainstream conversation traces back, directly or indirectly, to Charles Dowding, who has been farming without tillage since the 1980s — long before it had a name or a following.

Charles has written twelve books on the subject. He runs one of the most-watched gardening YouTube channels in the UK, with over half a million subscribers. He was growing without digging when it was considered eccentric, and his patient, evidence-led approach — comparing dug beds with undug beds side by side over years — is the reason the method now has the data behind it that it does.

What this means for a workshop is simple: you’re not learning a trend. You’re learning from the source.

What is no dig gardening, and is a workshop worth it?

The principle of no dig gardening is straightforward: instead of digging or turning the soil, you add compost and organic matter on top and let the soil ecosystem do the work beneath. Earthworms, fungal networks, and microbial life — undisturbed — aerate and structure the soil more effectively than any fork. Weeds are suppressed by the compost layer rather than being stimulated by the turning of soil (which brings buried weed seeds to the surface and triggers germination).

The results, consistently, are better. More productive beds. Less labour. Healthier plants. Soil that improves year on year rather than degrading.

It’s easy enough to understand in principle. Getting it right in practice — the right depth of compost, how to handle perennial weeds, what to do with compacted or clay-heavy soil, how to start a bed from scratch on grass or concrete — is where most people get stuck. These are the questions that are almost impossible to answer properly through a book or a YouTube video, because they depend on what you’re looking at in front of you.

A no dig gardening course with Charles Dowding gives you the chance to ask those questions directly, in a kitchen garden setting, with someone who has seen every version of the problem.

Why Hampton Manor — and what makes this day different from a standard gardening workshop

Hampton Manor is not a hotel that happens to have a garden. It’s an estate built around food — from the soil outward. Our Victorian walled kitchen garden feeds our restaurants. Our head chef and our growers work together in a way that treats growing decisions and cooking decisions as the same conversation. When Charles spent time here, what he noted — in the way that someone with forty years of kitchen garden experience notices things — was that the growing is real. Not decorative. Productive, purposeful, and taken seriously.

That matters for a no dig workshop, because the learning doesn’t stop at the garden gate.

Your day includes lunch from Hampton Manor, eaten overlooking the walled garden — food grown in the same soil you’ll spend the morning working with. This is the full loop that no dig promises made tangible: you’ll understand, by the end of the day, the direct connection between what happens below the surface and what ends up on the plate. That’s not something you get at most gardening courses. It’s something you can only really feel when the kitchen and the growing space are in genuine conversation with each other.

Grace & Savour, our Michelin-starred restaurant, overlooks the walled garden. Kynd, at the other end of the garden — one of Condé Nast’s acclaimed Best Openings — sits in the old furnace house that once heated our greenhouses. Grace & Savour cooks entirely with British-grown ingredients. Kynd works with regenerative, organic, and biodynamic farmers and growers. The soil is not a backdrop here. It’s the point.

The practical details

Date: Sunday 26th July 2025 Time: 10am — 4pm Location: Hampton Manor, Shadowbrook Lane, Hampton in Arden, Solihull — on the Warwickshire/West Midlands border Price: £215 per person, includes lunch What’s included: Illustrated talks with Charles Dowding, hands-on demonstrations, an afternoon building a no-dig bed, and lunch from Hampton Manor overlooking the Victorian walled garden

Hampton Manor is accessible from Birmingham, Coventry, Leamington Spa, Stratford-upon-Avon, Leicester, Nottingham, and across the East and West Midlands. We’re a straightforward drive from the M42 — no Somerset required.

If you’d like to make a full weekend of it

The workshop takes place on a Sunday, which makes Saturday night a natural opportunity to arrive slowly, eat well, and wake up ready.

On Saturday evening, Grace & Savour is open. Dining there the night before means you’ll arrive at the workshop having already tasted what the kitchen garden produces at its most considered. It’s a different kind of preparation.

On Sunday evening after the workshop, Kynd is open with a set menu — £45 for two courses, £55 for three. Rustic, grounded, and exactly what a day with your hands in the earth calls for.

Our Sunday Sleepover offer brings our room rates to almost half our usual price on Sunday nights. Every stay includes a wine tasting complimentary, telling the stories of vineyards who champion the soil. The full itinerary — workshop, bath, wine, supper at Kynd, a night’s sleep in a garden room or the Manor house itself — is available to book now.

Who is this workshop for

This no dig gardening day is for anyone who grows, or wants to grow, and has been doing it in a way that involves more effort than the results justify. It’s for people who have read about no dig and want to understand it properly rather than approximately. It’s for kitchen gardeners, allotment holders, those with larger plots and the ambition to manage them differently.

It’s also for people who simply want to spend a Sunday in a beautiful growing space with one of the most knowledgeable people in British horticulture, eating good food.

You don’t need to be an expert. You just need to be curious.

One of very few no dig workshops in the UK

Charles Dowding workshop opportunities outside of his home base at Homeacres in Somerset are rare. This is his only No Dig gardening course available in the Midlands — and one of the few anywhere in the UK that combines a full day with Charles with the kind of kitchen garden and food setting that Hampton Manor offers.

Places are limited. The workshop is on Sunday 26th July.

Book your place here →

Hampton Manor is on the Warwickshire/West Midlands border, easily reached from Birmingham, Coventry, Leamington Spa, Stratford-upon-Avon, Leicester, Derby, and Nottingham.