Tuesday, August 03, 2010

Fantastic visit to West Town farm, Devon

Recently, I was able to travel to Devon to meet shareholder, Andy Bragg, on his organic beef farm in south Devon. Andy tenants his family farm from the church and over recent years has moved from dairy farming to organic beef. As well as selling some of his beautiful beef direct to the public, he also runs many inspiring activities for the community, very similar in nature to those that we do at Fordhall.

Andy is an inspirational person and extremely passionate about West Town farm and involving the community. I left feeling even more inspired and enthused about the possibilities for Fordhall - I may even steal some of his great ideas! For example, they have a fantastic community library which we could incorporate in our new tearoom. I was especially jealous of the many characterful old farm buildings that Andy has and is able to use for their community activities - something which we desperately lack at Fordhall.
They also run an insprirational project called Organic Arts, where children and families are encouraged to learn about farm life through the arts. This truly is a wonderful place and I must thank Andy for his hospitality on our visit. I left full of inspiration and ideas.

If you are ever in Devon I would definately recommend a visit. We do have a volunteer weekend and a clay oven building course this weekend at Fordhall, however if you find yourself in the south then West Town Farm have an Open Day this Sunday. See their website for more details.

http://www.westtownfarm.co.uk/
http://www.organicarts.org.uk/

Charlotte

1 comment:

John said...

Charlotte

Many congratulations on achieving the £100,000 target.
...must let everyone know if the RDA funding was successful. (sure you will!!!)
Also West Town Farm in Devon looks an exciting place to go - will put it on my list.
We live too far away from Fordhall to really help regularly,
but you know we follow everything, and you have our full support
Will try and get up next year

John Gill David