Harvest Week 47 · Tuesday Dispatch
St Leonards opens its gates six days a week — for monthly walks, week-long courses, and the kind of long lunch that turns into a wedding by supper. Margaret, Tom and Will would be glad of your company.
Join the 2026 Course Waiting List
A word from Margaret
My grandfather bought this hill in 1932 with twelve ewes, a border collie and a borrowed horse. Ninety-three years on, my sons and I still farm the same 280 acres the same way — slowly, in rotation, by the names of the animals. We don't open the gates because it's good marketing. We open them because the only way the next generation of smallholders, chefs and curious eaters will learn this craft is to stand in the field with the rain on their back and the soil under their boots.
Every year we host more than two thousand visitors on open days, run a dozen week-long courses that book out within hours, and welcome families for weddings and long-table suppers under the old apple trees. If you'd like to come and spend a day, or a week, or a lifetime with us — we'd be honoured.
The farm through the year
What you'll see depends entirely on when you come. Lambing in March, haymaking in July, apple harvest in October, the first hard frosts of December. Every visit is a different farm.
Three ways to spend a day at St Leonards
The featured track below is our 2026 course waiting list — bookings opened in October and the spring intake is already two-thirds full. Open days and venue hire run alongside, all year round.
01
Week-long residential courses in butchery, charcuterie, smallholding, sourdough and regenerative horticulture. Twelve intakes a year; taught by Tom, Will, our in-house butcher and a rotating roster of guest chefs.
02
Free Saturday walks from March through October, run by Margaret or one of the boys. Two hours across the pastures, into the orchards, around the chicken paddocks, finishing at the kitchen for tea and a slice of something.
03
The Dutch barn, the old dairy and the walled garden are available for hire from May through September. Catered by us, or by your own chef using our produce. Couples book eighteen months ahead; corporate retreats a little closer in.
“I came for the butchery course and stayed for the language of the place. By Wednesday I'd broken down a whole White Park carcass; by Friday I understood why every steak had a field and a name. I run two London kitchens now and I still phone Tom most weeks about what's good that week.”
2026 Course Waiting List
Add your name to the waiting list and we'll write to you the moment your chosen intake opens. Priority booking, alumni discount on the farm shop, and a standing invitation to every open day.
