Birchwood Hall is a housing co-op with two houses, set in eight acres of garden. Each house operates separately on a day-to-day basis with a shared budget for maintenance, etc.

The Main House is large and Victorian with lots of space. Individuals have their own rooms or share with a partner. Communal rooms include: kitchen, sitting room, TV room, etc. It is a difficult house to heat and be energy efficient but we're trying. Currently we are nine adults and one child, who has lived here all his life and goes to a local school. Some of us have grown-up offspring who lived here and now visit. We'd very much like more people with children. Our joint politics are leftish, greenish, and feminist, with enough variation for some rowdy teatime arguments. We hope we're fun people to live with! We eat together in the evenings, and take turns cooking, trying to accommodate likes and dislikes. We're a mixture of vegetarians and meat eaters but eat mostly vegetarian with an occasional meat extravaganza! We take turns shopping for food. Estimating the amounts of silver-, red-, and blue-top milk we need each day is one of life's more difficult tasks! We do clean and maintain the house sometimes but we don't operate a three-line whip saying we must all clean toilets today. Meetings are once a week.

We don't have many defined expectations of each other but trust that everyone will add to the community and pull their own weight in some way.

The Coach House is divided into three living areas with a degree of communality. Currently there are five adults and one teenager in the house.