Springwood Sanctuary is a unique haven of peace and tranquility. It is our privilege and honour to facilitate and care for this sanctuary.
We offer rescue horses, ponies and donkeys a forever home where they can live freely for the rest of their lives in their bonded herd, as it is our ethos not to use them in any way or to re-home them. They live in a peaceful mixed herd where they have freedom and understanding of their diverse needs. This has enabled incredible bonds and deeply trusting relationships to be developed with each other and with their human guardians. For most here, this is the first time this has happened in their lives.
The horses, ponies and donkeys we have rescued have sadly experienced extreme past trauma - many of them were due to be put to sleep because they were unable to be rehabilitated in conventional ways after they had been deemed to no longer 'serve their purpose' in the racing, polo, petting farm and riding school industries. Our many years of holistic equine experience, combining animal healing and communication, self selection of herbs, behaviour and relationship healing, bodywork and Mindfulness, have enabled a unique and incredibly effective way of complete rehabilitation for even the most troubled souls, so that the herd now live peacefully and thrive in both mind, body and spirit.
Our experience and passion for holistic land management, biodiversity and conservation of the natural world, also enables the native wildlife to live in harmony with us.
We are not open to the public, however we do recognise that everyone who visits benefits greatly from this healing sanctuary, the immersion in nature and Mindfulness with animals. We therefore enjoy sharing this with kind-hearted sponsors and volunteers who visit us on a one-to-one or two-to-one basis by prior arrangement. This enables the sanctuary to continue to be a peaceful haven at all times. When we are able to do so, we will be once again running Mindfulness retreats and community vegetable planting days. Sign up for our regular newsletter to be kept up to date with our events and news.
Our Mission
The sanctuary's mission is to inspire a shift in awareness and consciousness away from the “use” and “mis-use” of animals in any way. We support others with a model for change so that this can be replicated around the world.
Our Ethos
Springwood is a vegan sanctuary and our ethos is to recognise that we can all only really thrive when nature, humans and other beings live in balance with each other. Therefore our three guiding principles are to Mindfully combine animal welfare, nurture of the land and holistic wellbeing for humans.
History
In 2012, Jacqui and David founded their horse rescue sanctuary as a personally funded initiative to care for unwanted, previously abused and retired equines. In November 2016, they moved from Dormansland, Surrey to Handcross, West Sussex and in 2019 they moved to Petworth a little further into West Sussex. The herd have since moved to even more expansive land at their current home near to Llandysul on the Carmarthen / Ceredigion border of South West Wales in November 2020.
The Sanctuary
The undulating landscape at Springwood Sanctuary is expansive, with a mixture of native meadow grazing, woodland, a natural spring, bordering the River Teifi and offers many natural and man made areas for the herd to shelter from adverse weather. The herd are always free to roam this diverse landscape.
Jacqui Howe
Founder, Jacqui Howe has had a passion for nature and animals since an early age. She is an experienced holistic therapeutic practitioner and 'Mindfulness with Animals' coach. She brings all these varied modalities together, combining them with her lifetime experience with horses and dogs, to offer a compassionate and very effective way of enabling both people and animals to connect, trust and heal.