Lucy at Fordhall Farm

Those of you reading our Muddy Marathon blog might remember the story of Fordhall Farm and Charlotte and Ben Hollins’ fight to stop the tenanted farm, which had been farmed by their family for seven consecutive generations, being sold for development.  Their father, the late Arthur Hollins, had taken it over in 1929 at the age of 14, and subsequently dedicated his life to building a successful business, improving the soil fertility and pioneering organic techniques long before anyone really knew what it meant to be ‘organic’.  When this was under threat, Ben and Charlotte set up a national campaign, placing the farm in community ownership and selling non-profit making £50 shares to nearly 8,000 people around the world.

We were really inspired by their story and during our visit talked about trying to organise a Muddy Matches singles working weekend on the farm.  The way we saw it was that it would be a good excuse for muddy people who weren’t necessarily involved in farming to come away for the weekend, learn more about organic farming, get their hands dirty and potentially meet some like-minded muddies.  The Fordhall volunteer weekends have already got a reputation for being a bit of a love fest (without any meddling from Muddy Matches) as many of the volunteers, as well as Charlotte and Ben, met their other halves on some of the earlier weekends.

With a view to organising something at the end of the summer (assuming we get one this year), Lucy went along to one of their volunteer weekends to see what they’re all about and had the most fantastic time:

“About 30 volunteers turned up on both days and we all mucked in to finish some of the jobs that needed doing to restore the farm to its former glory.  The most pressing of these was finishing the new lambing shed so it’s ready for use next week but we also planted new flowerbeds, put up new fences, cleaned and re-felted the chicken shed and painted some new signs to draw in the crowds.  It was hard work but I met some really cool people and found the whole experience really rewarding.”

If you think you’d be interested in getting involved with the first Muddy Matches Fordhall Farm Volunteer Weekend, get in touch with lucy@muddymatches.co.uk.