Walk on the Wild Side (Hepple Wilds)

Price from: £75

Location: Hepple Estate, Northumberland, NE65 7LN

2026 Availability: Tuesday 19th May, Friday 24th July, Weds 12th August, Tuesday 15th Sept

What to expect?

Join Hepple Wilds for a nature-focused tour of their wilding project. The hills around the Hepple Estate have been gently managed for wildlife and farming for decades but since 2020 we have changed gear and are now fully focused on building ecosystem health and encouraging biodiversity. Since 2024, they have been starting to open their world up for small groups to come and see what they've been up to - and they'd love for you to join them.

At a glance

• Arrive for a 10:30 start, finishing around 3pm with lunch included
• An introduction to Rewilding and our landscape-scale project
• Guided walk around the estate looking for all sorts of wildlife and nature, plus our natural grazers
• Some uneven ground and variable weather conditions may apply!

Event Overview

Starting at 10:30am, the day will include an introduction to the estate, our ethos and our wildling management methods, before a 3hr-4hr (approximately 5km) professionally guided walk of the estate with numerous breaks as wildlife, history and panoramic views emerge. A simple lunch is included and, weather allowing, will be taken outside. Our walks are intended to be interactive and immersive with our expert guide Richard showing you the best of what Hepple has to offer including some of our wild herbivores such as the Exmoor ponies, Highland cattle and Mangalica pigs. That being said, wildlife is just that - wild! We cannot guarantee wildlife sightings but will do our best to give you a taste of our wilderness. This event will change seasonally and we will aim to find the best nature around, whether that is spring birds, summer wildflowers or autumn fungi. Two trips will never be the same.

Your Guide

This event will be led by our in-house Ecologist & Guide, Richard Thompson. Richard grew up roaming the hills around Hepple before heading to Scotland where he gained a master's degree in Conservation and worked as nature-guide in the Scottish Highlands. After returning to his Northumberland roots Richard worked as a professional ecologist before joining the team here at Hepple. Richard is outdoor first-aid trained and is a Hill & Moorland Leader, a qualification that focuses on group management and upland navigation. When not leading our events, Richard can be found conducting various monitoring jobs across the estate including bird & plant surveys, and his favourite, fungi forays.

Additional Information

We would strongly encourage bringing:

• Sturdy trainers, boots or comfortable wellies
• Binoculars
• Backpack with water bottle
• A warm/waterproof coat or jacket

If you can leave them in the car so much the better! The weather in the Upper Coquet valley can be very changeable so please come prepared for anything. While we will aim to head out whatever the weather, if the forecast ahead of the event does look especially awful or hazardous, we will contact you to offer a full refund or a booking on an alternative date.

About Hepple Estate 

Located within the eastern edge of Northumberland National Park, the Hepple estate and distillery are where England’s cleanest waters, most ancient juniper, and wildest winds meet. Hepple’s rugged beauty reaches up along its hills through vast moors of heather and grasslands, down alongside old stone walls to babbling brooks and towering pine forests, ending at an old, small stone farmhouse that we’ve turned into our distillery.

Wild ponies, Highland cows, and famed black-haired pigs roam the estate, churning up hardened soil so that wild seeds can take hold. Introduced as part of their Wilding Programme – a natural regeneration aiming to bring back and conserve the wild plants that were once so distinctive to this place – Hepple are committed to preserving the unique character of their home, both within the landscape and their liquids, through environmental and sustainability goals