The Meadow Barns
The barns and sheds of this unique centre sit at the heart of a small hamlet, called Penpell. The name dates back to 1196 and is Cornish for ‘Distant Height’ … a quick glance at the slider photos will instantly show what an apt title this is, given those coastal views that take your breath away.
For many visitors over the past 5 years, the first element of interest has been the Grand Design-type project, which saw the owner-occupier, Caroline Stephenson, renew her barns following ambitious Eco Build principles, between 2017 and 2019. Her story provides many examples of how ordinary families with limited budgets can still go ‘Full STEAMS Ahead’ for a Greener Future.
Equally fascinating, though less obvious, is the connection with mining, going way back 4000 years!
Penpell was first a centre for tin streaming, then iron excavation and later housed workers for one of the most productive copper mines in the world. This heritage of Local Industries has underpinned Caroline’s recent education work in Science or STEM and adds a further dimension to her constant search for solutions to the challenges faced today by people and the planet.
Times Change … and Meadow Barns is changing too
2026 has blown in, with massive gales, but also some very exciting new opportunities.
On January 21st Caroline was up at Westminster, meeting a minister at the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero. This has come to fruition after years of patient partner-working with the bio-fuels provider, Mitchell and Webber. It sums up what Meadow Barns offers = a style of learning closely linked with today’s innovative industries for renewables, storage and metals.
A 2nd Industrial Revolution needs a New route to Lifelong Learning
As you see, in the headline, today we are entering a 2nd industrial revolution, especially within our own UNESCO World Heritage Site areas for metal mining. We are seeking tin and copper again, but also tungsten, lithium, indium and many other possibilities of metals needed in response to our growing demands for digital technology. But how and where is the learning at grass-roots level going to be delivered? In today’s secular society the equivalent to the Chapel (where most learning used to take place) is … a Coffee Shop, or a Pub Dining room! And funnily enough, that is how we deliver education at Meadow Barns – always with a good cuppa – and that is why now we have plans to involve partner providers in testing a type of Learning Loyalty Card. Initially, during the summer of 2026, it will be in a small number of areas of Cornwall and West Devon. The decision on a name is not complete yet, but it has a working title – Learn 2 Tread Lightly, printed on both sides of a strip, with ‘Free of Fossil Fuels‘ on the front, and ‘In Harmony with Nature’ on the back.
Testing, Testing, Testing
We will start on Easter Tuesday April 7th in St Austell testing the card idea at the end of either a learning walk, talk or workshop. Further details will be posted here soon, plus relevant links to our Try Booking Events page. The following week from the 13th, the test of a similar recipe will move to our nearest community of Luxulyan. There we have already applied for funding to test on a more ambitious scale during summer 2026, training young people to be ambassadors for a greener future and using the loyalty card as a record of achievement for their CVs! PLEASE NOW mark on your calendar a reminder to keep checking and sign up at TryBooking Events, St. Austell and/or Luxulyan.
Film submitted with grant application
Creating a Good as Gold experience for visitors hopefully means they will come to the village by train, the green way, and be met and served with drinks and snacks from a mobile coffee van, with both the village shop and pub fully involved to help train the young team of staff. Also available will be the learning pack of Good as Gold Stories, designed to open people’s eyes to numerous features in the landscape as they walk along the Saints Way to the World Unique Science/ STEM within the valley. The packs will be made available via a loan system, that requires an initial cash deposit of £20. When ready to be returned, clean and tidy, the pack should be exchanged for a simple picture-based answer page and a Loyalty Card. £10 may be reclaimed at this point, but the hope is that as many people as possible will choose to donate it back, in support of future developments.
When does the Learning Loyalty Card run out?
As of mid March 2026, our rough draft learning card is looking as below. If you want to commit to completing it in one year that will mean fitting in an event each month e.g. going ‘Full STEAMS Ahead!’ But given all the opportunities from excellent providers, mostly accessible without using a car, but potentially needing travel across the whole patch from near Tavistock to Truro and all the way to West Penwith, nobody minds if completion takes a bit longer. Hopefully completing every box with a stamp and date will produce a warm glow of achievement, whether as a hare or tortoise!
Recorded Memories and Stories
An invaluable part of the Good as Gold pack will be pre-recorded and edited stories, to play from an old/ re-purposed mobile phone. We have been gathering deep knowledge from local ‘elders’ and sharing at key stopping points during a walk for a good few years and have found we usually end up not with one solo voice but rather a kind of ‘Learning Conversation’, when a few people toss questions and ideas around in a light-hearted vein. We have sets of these ready recorded, with accompanying booklets, for all of the sections on the Free of Fossil Fuels Learning Card and most of the second part, for living in Harmony with Nature.
Where will it happen?
Simply, we need any business that can provide a warm welcome with a cuppa and some miners’ morsels (saffron cake, heavy cake, pasties etc) and is keen to nurture lifelong learning locally, to join and work in partnership with us at Meadow Barns. We will put you in touch with relevant other providers, like museums, libraries, industrial heritage or future mining enterprise centres in your area, and help to strengthen connections with schools, colleges and universities too.
To climb on board, going with us on this exciting journey, please send an email to Caroline Stephenson cjs@themeadowbarns.co.uk
Affordability
At this moment, we have not had time to re-write every part of this website with 2026 charges. But there definitely will continue to be elements offered ‘Entirely Free’. However the final, much larger venture, aiming to deliver lifelong learning with many partners, requires many hours of conversations to confirm a financial model. It must deliver economic benefits, from the smallest local end (increasing visitor numbers to cafes and pubs, and to the train companies) to the far greater benefit of a skilled and enthusiastic workforce for future green technology. But for now, please just see one example of a collaboration last October half term, where yes we did enjoy coffees from a local cafe, yes we did stamp the Learning Loyalty Cards of our participants and yes we did have a great partnership to help deliver local Geology Learning with the Town Council & Bodmin Town Museum and their wonderfully supportive staff.
Half Term Holiday Example – October 2025, £10 for a morning of fun
A glance further back in time – February Half Term Family Learning, 2024
2 years ago we were able to collaborate to deliver a slightly different model of inter-generational study of climate issues, in a broader more international context, linking with another religion and culture. As with Bodmin in 2025, we only could do so by linking up with the enthusiasm and energy of many groups of all different ages and backgrounds. So, we were able to produce a really heart-warming Ceremony 4 Climate Hope at the centre of the Truro community, thanks to numerous volunteers and talented staff, including Jason Thomas and his amazing youth dance company, funding from the councillor, Rob Nolan, and support of Truro BID team & Salt Projects at the Pydar PopUp building.
If you are inspired by what you have seen here, please take this link to our YouTube channel for further films. As you see, we have a number of playlists, dating all the way back to the Covid Tapestry of Heroes in 2020 to 21.
