The Greenhouse at Barnes Close Retreat Centre

Who we are

The Greenhouse at Barnes Close is a 36-bed ecumenical retreat centre with five-acre grounds in what was once a Cadbury family home. We are an ecumenical charity shaped and nourished by Christian roots, welcoming people of all faiths and none who share our commitment to peace, justice, and reconciliation.

We are for peace, shalom, salaam — seeking the flourishing of people, communities, and the natural world through just systems and healthy relationships. We believe that reconciliation with self, faith, others, and creation is essential for walking the ways of peace in our time.

With a rich heritage in reconciliation and peace work, The Greenhouse offers a sacred space to retreat to, programmes to explore, and a community to journey with.

Our culture and values

Our four core values reflect the heritage of this place and shape our objectives. Our staff, volunteers, and community members embody and uphold these values in their work and relationships:

1. Sharing a Sacred Place – Caring for and making available the house and grounds to all who seek transformation through prayer, rest, learning, and social action.

1. Reconciliation and Peace – Offering practices of reconciliation and peace-making that are rooted in justice as expressions of the heart of Christian faith.

1. Wisdom from the Margins – Learning from voices from the margins, recognising their wisdom for truth-telling, transformation, and justice.

1. Community at Work and Prayer – Growing a diverse community of people and organisations committed to learning, working, giving, playing, and praying together.

Equality, diversity and inclusion policy

The Greenhouse at Barnes Close is committed to valuing diversity, difference, and inclusivity. It values the inherent worth of every person and encourages shared respect and mutual understanding. It is committed to the presence and participation of all persons with respect to age, bodies, abilities, ethnicities, gender identity and expression, sexual orientations, status, nationality, race, religion, socioeconomic condition, and culture. 

Staff and Volunteers

• In employment, we actively seek to recruit with the right mix of talent, skills and potential, promoting equality for all, and welcome applications from a wide range of candidates, representing all sections of the community we seek to serve.

• We select all candidates for interview based on their skills, qualifications, experience and commitment to the values and purposes of the organisation.

• As part of its recruitment procedure, The Greenhouse at Barnes Close will ensure that no job applicant or employee receives less favourable treatment on the grounds of race, religion or belief, pregnancy and maternity, age, sex, gender reassignment, marital status (including civil partnership), sexual orientation, disability, or is disadvantaged by conditions or requirements which cannot be shown to be justifiable.

• As an organisation we use the Disclosure Barring Service (DBS) to assess applicants’ suitability for positions of trust. The Greenhouse at Barnes Close complies fully with safe guarding codes of practice and treats all applicants for positions fairly. It undertakes not to discriminate unfairly against any person based on a criminal conviction or other information revealed.  

• Unless the nature of the position allows questioning about an individual’s criminal record, we only ask about “unspent” convictions as defined in the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974. 

• The Greenhouse at Barnes Close aims to ensure that people with disabilities have equal opportunity to enter employment. In doing so, it will fully consider reasonable adjustments to working practices, equipment and premises to ensure that a disabled person is not put at a substantial disadvantage due to their disability. In addition, if staff members become disabled in the course of their employment, every effort will be made, through reasonable adjustment, retraining or redeployment, to enable them to remain in the employ of The Greenhouse at Barnes Close.