‘This is sacred land’: an off-grid Wales community battles to keep their home

The community: Billy, Nick Ward, Will Cooke, Ann, Sally, Paul French, Rosie Gillam and Esme Darling. Photograph: Dimitris Legakis/The Guardian

Lunch around the huge sycamore and oak table in the farmhouse kitchen of the off-grid Brithdir Mawr community in the Preseli mountains of west Wales is a warm, gentle affair.

Members of the housing co-operative share soup made from leeks and potatoes grown in the gardens, served with crumbly goat’s cheese from its own herd, all washed down with mugs of mountain spring water.