The Dowdeswell sisters who farmed here in the s protected one of the last herds of Gloucester cattle and descendants of this herd are now the only authentic source of Single Gloucester cheese, which must be made with milk from pure bred Gloucester cows in Gloucestershire. There are Gloucester Old Spot pigs too. The primary school children who come here have a rare opportunity to experience a little bit of 17th century England much as Queen Elizabeth might have seen it.
Wick Court, Gloucestershire. As a Friend, you will be helping us: — Improve access and facilities for staff and visitors to the Farm. We are celebrating this special birthday on the 21st of June. Click here to read all about the event and ways you can support Wick Court now and into the future. Please click here to find out more about the event and our Sponsorship packages.
Friends of Wick Court. Friends of Wick Court For 20 years, groups of up to 36 primary school children from mostly urban areas have been coming to our Farm with their teachers for a week long stay. Blane stops mid-brush and turns dark eyes on me. When I hug her, it somehow feels as if she is hugging me back. Noel is busy brushing the granddaddy of horses, year-old Hugo, whose eyes are drooping inexorably in an impromptu siesta.
The three grooming Cuckoo whose dad came an impressive third in the Derby are a multi-cultural world in themselves. Jovan has family in Uganda; Ayoub in Morocco. Mel Smallman, who looks after the horses at Wick Court, is grinning as she supervises these calm, caring children. One of the few non-singers tugs; he wants to tell me something important. Heather Tarplee, farm school manager at Wick Court, sits me down at a huge wooden table in the staffroom and hands over a mug of steaming coffee.
Beside us is the wooden lattice-work that once separated cheese from animals; on the window-ledge is an old black-and-white photograph of a mahogany herd of Gloucester cows. This year, Wick Court celebrates two decades of welcoming inner-city children onto its buttercup-strewn pastures and into its Enid Blyton farmyard; 20 years of being a part of the innovative Farms for City Children charity. Some struggled to run in a pair of wellington boots. Many are not used to doing any physical activity — certainly not barrowing, shovelling, sweeping.
She loves the effervescent enthusiasm that particularly characterises London children. The charity was founded in by the author Michael Morpurgo and his wife, Clare. Their insight was that urban children — some of whom suffer deprivation of material comforts; others of security and care; all of them deprivation of experience — could be transformed by a week of life on a farm: breathing fresh air, eating fresh food, caring for animals, exerting themselves physically, working as a team.
The Morpurgos opened their first farm at Nethercott House in Devon; and their second was Lower Treginnis, a year-old sheep farm on the Pembrokeshire coast. When Wick Court — sad and neglected over many years — showed itself in need of a new owner, the Morpurgos demurred. Once a fishing lodge for Berkeley Castle salmon, eel, flounder and lamprey, scooped from the nearby Severn, were plentiful consolation during meat-free Lent , the house has a history dating back at least to medieval England.
Its final owners, the Dowdeswell sisters and brother, had died unmarried and childless — the last sister in Unfortunately, that generous thought was not backed by money to shore up its sagging floors and leaking roof. But fate had a plan.
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