Dave Erasmus: This is Shaping Places, the podcast where we meet the people helping to shape the world around us and ask them to reflect on the places that have shaped them. I'm Dave Erasmus: speaker, coach and thinker, and I enjoy turning big questions into impactful projects for others. I'm joined by my co-host, Matt Mason, Head of Innovation and Skills at the Crown Estate, and together we work with the conduit on impact and sustainability. Our guest today is Sammy Leslie, custodian of Castle Leslie Estate in county Monaghan. Nestled between Dublin and Belfast, set across a thousand acres of woodland and lakes, the estate has been in the Leslie family since the 1600s. For the past 30 years, Sammy has been restoring and reimagining this heritage place into a thriving, future-facing enterprise. Today we'll explore the estate's journey from 17th century roots to a modern preservation vision, how Sammy's blend of hospitality, heritage, homes, and horses guides decision making. And what purpose a large estate should serve for people, nature and place in the years ahead. Sammy Leslie, welcome to Shaping Places. How are you? Sammy Leslie: Very good. Thank you. Lovely to be here. Dave Erasmus: I'm delighted we finally pulled it together. I've been awaiting this conversation for a while. Matt Mason, how are you doing? Matt Mason: I'm good. Thanks Dave. How are you? Dave Erasmus: I'm very well, yes. I'm appreciating very much Ôcarpe diemÕ at the moment with, uh, fragile family life - makes you really appreciate every single day. So being a new dad is a new experience altogether. Sammy Leslie: Much braver than me. It always terrified me. Dave Erasmus: Well, it is terrifying, but it's also beautiful at the same time. We're a long way from New York where we first met Sammy Sammy Leslie: Absolutely in a, a random apartment during climate week. Dave Erasmus: And I was quite pleased to go, actually, I'd never been to, like, a New York artist studio before and then I realised, goodness, you are a lot closer to home than the other people that I was meeting in New York and we met back here in London. We had some lovely- Sammy Leslie: Soca. Dave Erasmus: -soca. Sammy Leslie: And rosŽ on the roof of the club here. Dave Erasmus: Exactly. And that was a sunnier day than it is today, unfortunately. I'm sorry about that. But I've been so excited about having you back here to have this conversation with us in Shaping Places because your journey is so unique with Castle Leslie, and if I'm right, when we first met in New York, you had literally just signed to reassemble the puzzle pieces, the final part of bringing it back together. Is that correct? And, and tell us how that works before we delve back into the past. Sammy Leslie: Oh, absolutely. I'm the fifth of six kids. It's an unusual family with eight belief systems and probably eight nationalities, and I really wasn't the one expected to take on the estate and weÕre on the border and, and during the Troubles, that was not an easy place to try and run a business or do anything. Dad did his best. He started with a nightclub in the sixties called Annabelle's on the Bog, and then the Troubles kicked off. So he survived by selling artwork and selling land within the family. And then when I came home at 21, it was about to be sold and I just asked could I have a crack at it? So, I started a tea room, so I got a grant for £5,000 from my county enterprise board. I sold my dad's car when he was out of the country. Don't ask about the log book. The car is no longer on the road. Um, and then just started with there and bit by bit, sort of bought my family out one by one and the last big chunk at the end of last year, along with the big farm yard, because that then allows us to do some really interesting projects. It puts the landmass back in enough of a block to do things, Dave Erasmus: And that's what really excited me was that you've got this heritage that hopefully we'll delve into. But you are also back at the start line, shall we say and I know you've got some really interesting thoughts about where to take things. But before we go into the future, let's go way back into the past. How far back can you take us in your family and the land, and where does that get us to? Sammy Leslie: All families go back a long, long way. We're just lucky as ours was documented. Hungarian mercenaries that came over to bring a young girl called Margaret to marry King Malcolm of Scotland in the 1000Õs. And he became her protector. He also married the king's sister and they were given land in Scotland near Inch, which is now called, called Leslie, and they built a house there in 1070, which has been restored. Then in the 1600s, there was a rather gobby bishop called Bishop John Leslie, and they kept translating him to all sorts of places. And I find it fascinating that bishops raised private armies and went to battle. And he used to have a saying that he would say, ÔDear God, please stand aside and let the might of man alone decideÕ and go into war, chop people's heads off and come back onto the pulpit on Sunday morning and- Dave Erasmus: Wow. Sammy Leslie: become a, you know, a practicing bishop again. So he raised a private army against Cromwell in Raphoe and Donegal in the 1600s and the king said, I'll make you Archbishop Canterbury. And he went, I just would love to retire. There's a lake on the edge of my diocese. And he bought it in 1664 with his reward of £2000 and settled down with his young wife. Dave Erasmus: Mm. Sammy Leslie: Um, and that's how we ended up in the most beautiful little corner of Ireland on the border called Glasloch, which means green lake and it, it's just magical. Dave Erasmus: Paint the picture for us. Take us deep into Castle Leslie Estate. What are we looking at? What are we seeing? Sammy Leslie: Well, if you look at it from the outside now, you very much see hospitality and there was very definite sort of plan to repurpose buildings or update the purpose of which they were fo. End of the day, the castle was built to entertain. We just do it in a slightly different way. So from the tea rooms we got 6 rooms in the castle, then we got up to 14, then we got ridiculously lucky because Paul McCartney married Heather Mills and his mother Mary is from Monaghan, our home county. Mother Mary, let it be. And that put us on the, the global map. And it was just about five years after the peace process. In my heart, I believe that it was his way of paying back to the county that he came from, because his wedding wasn't just about us. 800 million people saw it on television around the world, and it really helped identify Northern Ireland and the border counties as being safe to travel and a place to visit. So, you know, we'd kind of gone from a, a no-go zone almost, right the way through to, you know, being voted best loved place to stay in Ireland. Five years in row in the public vote. So big shift! Dave Erasmus: And in the estate itself, trees, lakes, a thousand acres, I believe. Sammy Leslie: Yeah. Dave Erasmus: Many cottages. Sammy Leslie: Seven gate lodges. Dave Erasmus: Yeah. Sammy Leslie: Uh, all different styles they say they could never make their mind up. The gamekeeper is- fabulous old model farm, which we've just got back with ancient Dutch barns. The Lodge, as it's called, was initially built as a dower house, but there was never a dowager. It was then the, the agent's house, and I bought that back in 2006 and then this is where now we've spent the last two and a half, three years looking at really good examples around the country and, and abroad going, ÔWhat is the purpose of a big estate in the future? Dave Erasmus: Mm-hmm. Sammy Leslie: You know, it's certainly not for poncing around going, ÔOh, this is all mine.Õ Those days, thankfully, are long over so what can we do in terms of projects on the edge around the Centre for Excellence for Autism but also, alongside that, social and care farming and rural respite? Can we build homes that are genuinely healing? In that whole community, everything is healing rather than, you know, I take my child for an hour to somewhere where they get some therapy or intervention. You know, why can't it just be totally immersive? Dave Erasmus: Mm. Sammy Leslie: Um, we're looking at an area around diaspora and famine and famine memorial. And to do that whole piece of research looking at restoring the wool garden and going, ÔWell, a wool garden was not just flowers and fruit.Õ It was your perfumes, your scents, it was your entire apothecary, it was your poisons, it was your colors, it was your supermarket. And look at what we did and grew then, and how many plants we've actually lost and how much knowledge about plants we've actually lost. And then the Big Green Box working in a project with our tourist board as an immersive experience for visitors to help them understand in a fun way more about planet and plants and our relationship, but also love to do the educational piece because quite often our policy makers don't have somewhere to learn more about how our planet works. Dave Erasmus: You've reeled off so many fascinating, diverse, interesting projects, and obviously it's a broad place covering your four Hs and your, you know, all, all kinds of different actors within it. How do you hold together a sense of your mission, what you need to do in this interwoven, interconnected, you know, multifaceted space because it must be hard to keep hold of a clear vision as well as enable each of the different actors to do their wonderful individual thing? Sammy Leslie: It is. The way this estate is set up is that it's a preservation trust - they'll act as the guardians. They hopefully will be the guardians to make sure everybody stays online in the next hundred years. Hospitality works at the base of social enterprise. I get a salary like everybody else. We also have set up a charitable foundation, which would carry out the majority of the projects. And I have my little garden shed, which is Innovations, and that's where, um, I hope, even after I'm gone, there is always that sort of spirit of curiosity that anything is possible that then you take through the process to make realities. So, all I can do is set the structure up, bring good people on board, do that sort of master plan, and then like anything, no matter how, you know, organised and linear you want to try and make it, it isn't and, and things will change, and quite often it will be funding that decides which projects pop up to the fore., Dave Erasmus: But it, it's not a small thing. You've glossed over it very nicely, very quickly, as you would, but it's not a small thing what you've done. You've, you've turned it from a mini monarchy to a democracy of some kind. Maybe not a democracy, but some kind of codified structure. You've individually chosen to put all of your private stuff into a structure that you no longer own or control. Sammy Leslie: May 10th next year is when we have the, the big day to- Dave Erasmus: Wow. Sammy Leslie: -go public with everything. Dave Erasmus: I know you wouldn't think of it too much like this, but it's millions of pounds worth of assets that you privately own, I assume now. And now you're putting them into a structure to ensure their long-term flourishing effectively. And what possesses you to do that? Sammy Leslie: Oh, there's a lovely saying at home - ÔThey don't make pockets in shrouds.Õ I don't believe in a sense of entitlement. I think it's probably one of the most dangerous things [you] can instill in a child. I think it's probably one of the most unfair and cruelest things you can do because they don't learn a sense of reality. And also all the coping mechanisms you need because one day, you know, no matter how perfect your life is, it's something will go tits up. And that is a technical term. Come on, I'm a woman. I don't believe very much in the patriarchy either. I really do believe in meritocracy. So whoever steps forward with the skills and the want and the passion to do things no matter how small or how large gets embraced. And if that's a member of the family, wonderful, but more than likely it won't be. And it's being set up on that scenario. And if it's a member of the family, they have to be better than anybody else to get the job. There[Ôs] no entitlement. Dave Erasmus: So it's a meritocracy but essentially you and I assume some others have encoded the values into a structure. So what are those values that make it all hang together for you then? Sammy Leslie: Ooh, um, meritocracy. You, you get to do the job because you're good at it and you continually do the right thing. Um, one of the fundamental ones is kindness. We've become very unkind to each other.. And very unkind to our planet. We seem to think we can wrestle it into submission. Dave Erasmus: Mm-hmm. Sammy Leslie: I think Mother Nature is very close to telling us to take a hike and go and find it somewhere else to live. We need curiosity and critical thinking now more than ever. And also that constant ability to work things out as the world changes. It's being able to weave in some boundaries and some parameters and some guidelines, and then let the magic happen and weave in between. Dave Erasmus: Mm-hmm. Sammy Leslie: You know, you can't rule from the grave! Dave Erasmus: Throughout your story, health is a large part of what I think you seek to help develop at the estate. What other ways have you interacted with health as a theme in your life and, and that of the estate? Sammy Leslie: I've, all my life, struggled with issues around food and digestion, and I'm only starting at 58 to get to the bottom of that. So I've always been fascinated in gut health and soil health and, and the connections throughout our body. In my early forties, I developed breast cancer out of the blue. Still don't know, you know, the whys and what triggered it and probably will never know. And I've always struggled with exhaustion through a lot of my life. And then the year after breast cancer, I got diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, M.S., which was like, ah, seriously, lads, come on! Dave Erasmus: Come on! Sammy Leslie: So, very aware that life can be both extremely delicate and extremely fragile and incredibly robust at the same time. And one of my very dear members of team, who was actually my general manager at the time on April Fool's Day of all days, had played rugby that morning, was in the kitchen taking the mickey outta the other chefs, ran up a set of steps and dropped dead with a brain aneurysm, um, with the most beautiful wife and an 18 month old baby who at the wake was going ÔDaddy up! Daddy up!Õ because that's how she got him up in the morning. So there is that balance between, [being] very aware of the fragility of life and I want to make sure that I don't leave a shit show if something does happen, and that's a robustness and wanting to make sure things continue for the next hundred years. And I'd love to be here for the next hundred years to, to see them and annoy everybody, run my walking stick down railings. Um, but yeah, none of us know what tomorrow will hold. Dave Erasmus: And one of the things that attracted me about working together with Matt on the Crown Estate connecting conversations together is because The Crown Estate has a really long term mindset, which in modern society dominated by capitalism or political cycles, is extremely hard to find, even in extraordinarily well-paid, senior leaders. But I feel like without us even getting into the present day or where you are headed in your seventh generation, I already know from the way you tell your story that you share that same kind of long-term thinking because it, your story doesn't begin with you, it starts all the way back there. Do you think that's true, firstly, and if so, do you find it easy to find others that think in that same way? Sammy Leslie: Oh, we would very much talk about a hundred-year plan. But you know, when you look at old land and, and fabulous old trees, a hundred years isn't actually that long. You know, we've got a chestnut tree at home outside the lodge, which, you know, the, the girth of which would fill this room has to be 350, 400 years old, which puts it earlier than almost any building around, and I love that fact that tree will hopefully be there for, you know, another a 100, 150 years so, in one way, a hundred years is a very short period of time. At the rate we're mucking up our planet, it's a very long time. Things are changing so fast and starting to get to some very scary points. Mm. Dave Erasmus: 400 years is your timeframe, isn't it, Matt? Isn't that what they talk about at The Crown Estate? Matt Mason: Yeah, we have oak trees in, in Windsor Great Park that meet the criteria as ancient oaks when William the Conqueror rode through- Dave Erasmus: Wow. Matt Mason: -in 1066. So it is funny you reference trees and actually it's come up in other episodes of the podcast but, uh, I always find those trees a great reminder of the, the, kind of, longevity of nature versus the brief moment in time that we're, we're occupying the same space. Dave Erasmus: And then going on, then from there, from school, where did your journey wander you? Ooh, horses have always been part of the family. They are incredible teachers and incredible healers as well. You know, horses have been part of human life since the last five, five and a half thousand years, and I think that's part of why now I'm so fascinated by our interaction with them, and especially for children with needs and other areas, other societal issues. At 15, they were wonderful to work with. They didn't read, write or speak English, you know, it was fantastic. And they're very logical in how they learn. And remember, we can take a, a baby horse right the way through from being totally untouched to an Olympic champion. So their capacity to learn is phenomenal, and you look at the number of different sports that they're in, but you also then start to look at all the different areas that they work in in therapy as well. They're incredible teachers. Matt Mason: So you mentioned using the estate and horses as a way of escaping school and avoiding school. So what was little Sammy doing instead of sitting in a classroom at that time? Sammy Leslie: Ooh. A number of things. Either down in the yard, working with the horses, and again, it's just sort of the sound and the smell and their breath and, and being with them, taking my shoes off and walking barefoot anywhere and everywhere. That feel of warm soil and grass and your feet and mud squelching between your toes. Taking the majority of my clothes off and quite often, sometimes all of them at midnight on a full moon and getting into the lake and swimming. And there is just something about fresh water when it's that perfect temperature, almost silk and, and swimming on a full moon is not recommended, but it is incredibly magical.. And for me, it was also the sounds. Dad was a wonderful dad - as kids we used to do things like he'd take us down to the icehouse 'cause it was a dragon that lived in the bottom of it. And you fed dragons fire. I mean, of course they eat fire. What else would they eat? And he would, like, roll up balls of newspaper and light them and drop them down into this huge pit to feed the dragons. And as for kids, we were convinced we had dragons. And on the top of the big hill, there's an old washer system and the pump used to pump the water up to the tanks at the top for the town washer. We didn't know that, of course, as kids, but you could sit at the hill at a point you could hear the Ôba-bum, ba-bum, ba-bumÕ which we were told was the heartbeat of the mountain. So he was wonderful at telling stories like that. And for us, we have about 20, 25,000 rooks and they will come in in the dawn and the dusk and just the sound of them is incredible, especially [when] we're in a boat in the middle of the lake when they do their evening flights. And I think probably, one that I don't think sadly happens anymore in a real reflection on climate is the whooper swans coming in. And because the castle sits high overlooking three incredible lakes on the estate and the main lakeÕs about a mile long, and the migration whoopers would come in and they would fly down in a large flop to land on the lake, and they would come below the level of the window of the house and dad would wake us up, again, often when there was a full moon, drag us out of bed and open all the windows and shutters in the green bedroom, and you would stand in the moonlight and you would listen to the whoopers come in and that incredible sound and them hitting the water. And then our pair of swans swan- swanning down and going Ôgo-eyÕ, and they all lift and they would do it again. But that magical, magical sound of the swans coming in, in the middle of the night. But what an incredible thing for a parent to do to get the kids out of bed in the middle of the night to, to listen to it. Yeah. It's, it's the sounds when you stop and you listen to nature, it's an incredible orchestra. Dave Erasmus: Love that. I was always lost with that. You took me there. Sammy Leslie: Oh, I just wish we'd had film in those days. Yeah. And of course the whoopers don't come through anymore. Dave Erasmus: Yeah. So getting into like horse whispering, I'm gonna call it- Sammy Leslie: I'm gonna kick your shins under the table. Dave Erasmus: I think that's a compliment. I mean, is is it a bad thing to say? Sammy Leslie: No, it, it's not. It's not at all. It's more they, they whisper to us too. Dave Erasmus: So let's talk about that because I'm fascinated when I, when I was doing a set of dialogues into listening, somebody told me you need to speak to a horse whisperer. That's why I use the term. And so I think there's probably something to be learned there. But then to go into hotel management and stuff, that's quite a different shift. Was one a, a labour of love, let's say? Because you obviously excelled at that very quickly. And was the other also a labour of love or was it a strategic choice to sort of yin and yang your experience to set you up right? Sammy Leslie: Um, I think I always knew I needed the, what we call the four Hs, which was hospitality, heritage homes - I, I've built some houses over the years - and horses. Horses and hospitality are very much about logic and, and consistency. So there is a lot of sort of crossovers, but I just knew it would take all four areas. I mean, to make enough money out of horses to be able to restore the estate and to buy all the bits back was never going to happen. And we're doing a, a gazetteer at the moment with a wonderful conservation architect called Dawson Stelfox to work out what we've done to date, the number of buildings, what we've sort of spent to date, and what we've got to do to finish the estate. So in a funny way, after 35 years, I'm back to the start line. Dave Erasmus: Well, do you mind me asking what a gazetteer is? Sammy Leslie: I had to ask the same thing. I thought it was a gaslight! It's a, a document that talks about all of the different buildings, their size, their shape, their purpose, their current status, and then what it would take to restore them back up to standard where we can do something with them. And we are using, as a pricing model, what a government agency would spend, which for us is, tends to be a much higher budget because they tend to have the budgets. . Um, so yeah, it's going to be a very interesting exercise and a very large, scary figure. Dave Erasmus: What is it then about the relationship that we can learn through listening to horses and letting them whisper to us? Sammy Leslie: I think if you strip it right back I think, one, we forget we have an old brain in a new world, two, we forget that we're prey animals, we assume because we've got opposable thumbs and we've created all this amazing tech, our brain is still not wired as a prey animal and prey animals are herd animals as well and in herds there will always be one animal that's sentient and watching to make sure there's any sense of danger, and at the end of the day, the human brain is hardwired to stay safe. That's its primary function. After that it gets into, you know, nutrition and reproduction and then we start to look at social and all the other ways our brain evolves. But our amygdala is hardwired to, if there's a sense of danger, it's high cortisol, high adrenaline. Get the fudge cakes out of there, stop smelling the daisies, just leg it. And so much of our world creates that, sort of, levels of stress. Especially for children in- with autism, quite often they're locked into that fight or flight. You know, the, the four reactions are fight, flight, freeze, or fawn. With horses being, being herd animals as well, they have to be able to hear each other as such. When one horse goes ÔughÕ, there's a problem, he doesn't make a sound. He just changes his body language and his heart rate changes. Their hearts are 10 times bigger than ours. The electrical magnetic field around their hearts is 10 times stronger. So when one horse senses danger, the rest of the horses go- and they're out of there. Our heart rate is obviously 10 times smaller, but when you're working with a horse and they're in a calm state, we pick up on that. And our heart rate will drop to a point where it's calm and it's only when our brain is in a calm, relaxed state that it's in that learning open, curious state, and that's where you get the brain growth and you get the development and more synapses growing and forming. So they take us to that state when we work with them and we allow them to, and their heart rate is a three four rhythm.And we write our lullabies in three four. So it's fascinating how calming they can be. And when you work with the trained therapy horses, that's where their heart rate is. Dave Erasmus: Well, you've articulated that beautifully. Matt Mason: And I think one of the amazing roles that larger states can play is in stewarding the land and playing a role in how we live with that land because it plays such an important role in feeding humanity. We're realising that if you mess with the land and you mess with soil, then you suffer the consequences. I know that you have thought about that in Castle Leslie and done work, and it would be great to kind of spend a bit of time talking about that. Sammy Leslie: It's wonderful having the dreams to create utopia, but it still has to be self-sustaining. You know, either you're a government body and you get state money, or you're a self-sustaining organization as a not-for-profit, for social enterprise to do it. So, yes, you can ask me this question again on the 10th of May when we figured out how to weave all these amazing ways of thinking together. They all have a commonality in looking after soil. Healthy soil, healthy nutrition-dense foods, a healthy gut helps healthy humans, and the cycle continues. Dave Erasmus: To get a bit more artistic for a second, let's fast forward a little bit. 30 years later, a hundred years later, you and whoever else is merito- I can't say the word Matt Mason: Meritocratically Dave Erasmus: Thank you. Whoever else is meritocratically chosen to help lead - let's say it's a raving success. Everything you want to flourish, flourishes. People come, they see what's there. They think I can do that where I am, and it spreads. Just help us imagine, what does that place look like, feel like, smell, like, taste like if all your various strands of woven projects actually come together and work Sammy Leslie: Well, I think it's quiet and loud at the same time. Loud because it's, there's so much biodiversity, thriving that, you know, you hear the bird song and the buzz of the insects and you know the roar of the deer. Quiet and peaceful in that all you do here is nature. Very busy in some places, but totally open-minded and free thinking. We haven't got all the answers. All we can do is set up places and platforms for people to, to do different things. You know, I am probably the least qualified person around to do any of this. It's attracting, you know, the best and the great talent and people that are passionate about making the world a better place. Maybe I'm [a] totally raving lunatic and nobody else is really interested. But I took a lot of solice from the Guardian survey recently about the silent majority, where they looked at countries around the world to ask how many people were seriously interested in climate and biodiversity, but thought they were the only ones and never really spoke out because they thought other people would think they were stupid and the only oddity in the room. And the stats came out between 80 and 89%, depending on the country, thought they were the silent majority. So how do we tap into that? I hope home becomes a place of inspiration that gives people advocacy and a voice to stand up and make the changes because one little corner of Ireland, no matter how wonderful and beautiful, can't do it all, you know?Can we be part of the catalyst? Dave Erasmus: Mm-hmm. Sammy, is there anything else that you want to share with our audience with us whilst you're here? Sammy Leslie: No, just come and see us. If anybody out there wants to be part of it, let us know. Dave Erasmus: Mm. And there's so many projects that people can probably volunteer with and help with and get involved in and support in various ways, as well as maybe coming and having a right old party at the house. Sammy Leslie: Exactly. Exactly. Matt Mason: How would someone do that? How do they find you or get in contact with you? Sammy Leslie: If you want to find us, Google ÔCastle Leslie EstateÕ, everything about hospitality is up online. A lot of the things we've talked about aren't really online just yet. Early next year is where we hope to go big and bold and loud and proud about it. My email is there. Contact us if you'd like to be part of it in any way, no matter how small or, or how big. As I say, we're fellow human beings on a, on a shared place in a shared space. And the more people that become part of it and hopefully become part of trying to make our world a better place before we really muck it up, [we] welcome with open arms. Dave Erasmus: I hope you don't mind me saying, but in the number of conversations that we've had so far, hopefully just the beginning of, of many more, some raucous, I hope, but you strike me as a very sensitive and, and also somebody that invites intimacy. I think maybe that's the horse stuff. There's a, there's an intimacy there and there's a sensitivity there and a selflessness that comes with the custodian mindset that I think that you've talked about. And I think it really excites and encourages me that somebody like you has been able to assemble the pieces to bring wholeness to a place in order to, you know, set it off for the next 500 years or whatever it might be. And I feel that that's in the very nature of who you are and how you've reassembled the pieces. I find it a real inspiration and hope that others take heart from that, that it's possible and that thoughtful, kind, sensitive people are leading the way on land and, and finding ways to create space for the future. So just thanks and well done for managing to do it. It's not easy to get all those pieces together and pull it off, so I'm just amazed by it really. Sammy Leslie: Well, thank you. I mean, we are only at the beginning. Again, it's gonna be a really interesting journey and I'm not perfect like everybody else. I can be a thundering wagon on a bad day, so, um, I just, that point? No, I'm, I'm too tired. Yeah. Uh, but it's exciting and daunting and there's still so much to learn. Dave Erasmus: Mm. Well, we're excited to figure it out with you and come and see what's going on. Thanks so much for coming in today. Sammy Leslie: No, well, the door as they say in Ireland, the door is always open and the kettle is always on, so never be a stranger. And if you're in our parts of the woods, please reach out and come and say hello. Dave Erasmus: I look forward to joining you at your table. Thanks very much. Thank you, Matt. Matt Mason: Thanks Dave. Dave Erasmus: Always a pleasure. Dave Erasmus (outro): Thanks for listening to Shaping Places from the Conduit and the Crown Estate. If you've enjoyed the conversation, follow the show wherever you get your podcasts. For any links or resources mentioned today, check the show notes in your podcast app. I'm Dave Rasmus with Matt Mason, and we record at The Conduit in London. Until next time, take care of yourselves and look after each other. 1