Large open day - 100+ visitors

Every year, Hamp­ton Estate in Sur­rey will be illus­trat­ing how they farm regen­er­a­tive­ly and man­age the land to restore nature, with worm dig­ging, pond dip­ping, trac­tor demon­stra­tions, tree plant­i­ng and much more! 

“We love con­nect­ing peo­ple with what we do, and we’ve always done it in some way or oth­er, from bring­ing schools on to the farm to sell­ing our beef direct from the farm gate,” says Mol­ly Biddell. 

“LOFS takes con­nect­ing to the pub­lic to a whole new lev­el. We love it — see­ing every­one get stuck in and enjoy­ing what they’re doing gives you such a buzz. Through LOFS we can reach peo­ple from fur­ther afield — we are one of the clos­est OFS farms to Lon­don, and it’s great to wel­come peo­ple from the city.”

Mol­ly will be recre­at­ing a pop­u­lar activ­i­ty from 2019, a wood­land walk with a quiz to iden­ti­fy dif­fer­ent tree species. At the end, vis­i­tors have the chance to plant a tree to as part of the Queen’s Green Canopy Project and to grow the OFS wood­land that was start­ed in 2019. There will also be a forestry demon­stra­tion and chance to ask the forestry team questions. 

Oth­er activ­i­ties include a wildlife mead­ow for bird­watch­ing, dig­ging for worms, meet­ing the Hamp­ton cows and Huck­le­ber­ries goats and chick­ens, ques­tion time for the local vet, watch­ing a gun dog demon­stra­tion, pond dip­ping in the new­ly restored fresh­wa­ter pond, and learn­ing about the estate’s pas­ture-fed sys­tem. Mol­ly will also be mak­ing the most of the colour­ful infor­ma­tion boards and activ­i­ties avail­able from LEAF to tell the estate’s story.

Mol­ly, who cred­its the ​“fan­tas­tic” team and extend­ed fam­i­ly on the estate who all get stuck in and make the day hap­pen, has invit­ed oth­er experts, includ­ing Huck­le­ber­ries Nur­ture Farm, Sur­rey Wildlife Trust, Space for Nature, the Pas­ture for Life Asso­ci­a­tion The Live­stock Vet Part­ner­ship and Tices’ Mead­ow to get involved to tell their part of the farm­ing sto­ry to vis­i­tors. The estate are excit­ed to wel­come the Sur­rey Vol­un­tary Police Cadets who will be there to help run the logis­tics of the event. 

Mol­ly, who also works for Knepp Estate in Sus­sex, spe­cial­is­ing in nat­ur­al cap­i­tal and com­mu­ni­ty engage­ment, says bring­ing peo­ple onto farm is the most pow­er­ful way to illus­trate the role farm­ing plays in wider society:

“Eco-anx­i­ety is a grow­ing phe­nom­e­non and there is a diver­gence of opin­ion on how to best pro­tect the plan­et. If we can illus­trate first-hand that good rur­al land man­age­ment can pro­vide the solu­tion to many of the chal­lenges soci­ety faces – healthy food, access to green space, cli­mate change mit­i­ga­tion and species pro­tec­tion, it might inspire oth­ers to get involved. Rur­al hasn’t always been seen as cool but there’s grow­ing real­i­sa­tion of its piv­otal impor­tance. We need to con­nect peo­ple to the rel­e­vance of the rur­al world and show how informed choic­es can address a lot of envi­ron­men­tal issues.”