60 HESKETH FARM PARK & HESKETH HOUSE JUN / JUL 2021 • farmers-mart . co . uk
PROVIDING THE ‘ REAL FARM ’ FARMING EXPERIENCE
Chris Berry talks with Chris Heseltine of Hesketh Farm Park & Hesketh House .
ABSOLUTE carnage . That was Chris Heseltine ’ s thought twenty-one years ago as he and his wife Sue sat on a bale of hay one really wet Easter Saturday with the rain pouring down incessantly and their dreams of starting a diversification enterprise in tatters .
‘ We needed to do something different , in addition to our normal farming , as we could see that the historic payments we ’ d been used to would probably be dropping and our suckler cows weren ’ t making any money ,’ says Chris . ‘ We ’ d been thinking of having specific farm open days .’
‘ At that point we thought there was no way we could have people coming around our farm . That ’ s when we started looking around at what others were doing with their farm parks . After we had looked around we decided that we could go into it .’
Hesketh House and Hesketh Park Farm now operate as a combination of farm enterprise and attraction with Chris , Sue and their son Tom all involved .
Chris has always been keen to keep Hesketh Farm Park as a true agricultural experience and not somewhere that particularly ‘ dresses up ’ the farm with livestock that doesn ’ t pay its way .
‘ The public don ’ t generally have a clue about life on a farm - about sheep , cattle , pigs or anything – so we try to tell it and show it pretty much like it is . We are a working , commercial farm at 600 feet above sea level . We don ’ t have rare breeds . They are rare for a reason , because in my opinion they ’ re no good .’
‘ Normally from Easter until the summer holidays we would have 100 schoolchildren here every day and most of them inner city children many who have never stood on real grass in a field in the countryside before . It ’ s fair to say it ’ s quite a culture shock for them – and it was a shock for us too when we started over how much isn ’ t known about farming that we take for granted .’
‘ That ’ s why we now know just how important it is for us to educate . We get the children to mix the milk to feed the lambs
and calves , to collect the eggs and they get a tractor ride with me out around the field where they see , and I talk to them about cows , calves and bulls .’
There is one type of animal that doesn ’ t appear to have the same kind of place in Chris ’ farming order .
‘ I ’ m not quite sure where the three giant tortoises we have fit into that regime , but we started with them by accident when a lady rang up asking if we wanted hers . We actually said we didn ’ t want it , but she landed two weeks later saying she was going on holiday and never came back for it .’
‘ Our three currently are George , who came from Butterfly World in Lincolnshire ; and Samson & Delilah who we bought from Essex having seen them on a website called Slowcoaches ! They do provide amusement for visitors as when it ’ s a sunny day they are always at it , so to speak ! Sadly , our original one , Fluffy , died .’
Guinea pigs , donkeys , a Shire horse and a couple of ponies are also around for additional
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