May 10, 2011

Half-term and sheep shearing at St Augustines Farm Saturday 28 May to Sunday 5 June 2011

Feed the animals and enjoy a family picnic, with the chance to see Shaun Shorn on Thursday 2 June 2011, during half-term at St Augustines Farm.

While St Augustines Farm will be welcoming visitors everyday of the school half-term, on Thursday 2 June 2011 our flock of sheep will be shorn in what is once again expected to be a real highlight.

As per last year, a group of students from Hartpury College will be in attendance at the farm to demonstrate their sheep shearing skills, and visitors young and old can go right into the shearing shed to see Shaun the sheep – and his friends – lose their hot woolly coats.

Most of the sheep are the curly local Cotswold breed, but this year there are also a couple of Welsh Lleyn types – each of which gave birth to twin lambs earlier in the year. While the lambs won’t yet get a haircut – their mums will!

March 10, 2011

Easter Egg Hunt

St Augustines Farm will be celebrating Easter with a series of egg hunts around the farmyard, taking place from Saturday 9 to Monday 25 April 2001.

See the baby chicks, and little piglets and enjoy meeting the other animals, plus extra fun activities.

October 11, 2010

School Visits Trophy Winners 2010

Gloucestershire FWAG awarded the prestigious annual Silver Pintail competition trophy this year for work with Educational Access to the countryside. The winner, announced at the AGM recently, was St Augustines Farm.



“We are delighted to win this award” said farmers Robert and Elaine Jewell. “ We have been hosting School and other visits since 1988 but this is the first time we have entered a competition for school visits and are excited that our work has been acknowledged like this."



Each entrant in the competition had to send in a short description of the farm and what they offered to their visitors. Then the three finalists were chosen and the final judging was carried out when representatives of Natural England, Farming and Countryside Education (FACE), Farming and Wildlife Advisory Group and Linking Environment and Farming (LEAF) visited the farms.



St Augustines Farm has up to 40 visits a year from schools as well as the many visits from playgroups and families. Schools generally arrive at St Augustines Farm from school in the morning and after a short introduction and welcome the children and their teachers move out into the farm yard to met the poultry snd young animals and to learn about where their food comes from.. A tractor and trailer then take them out into the fields where they meet the bigger farm animals and sometimes see wild birds hares, foxes and other wildlife and learn more about farming and also about countryside conservation. A walk back down the field leaves time to run and play in the meadow and get rid of excess energy before they return to school after lunch.



“ We have to tailor the day to the age and skills of the children but the aim with them all is to give them a new experience, to teach them about food, farming and life in the countryside, to stimulate their imagination and give them a memorable but fun day that will give a basis for school work and something to talk about for sometime afterwards” Rob said.

July 12, 2010

Gerald comes a-courting

Princess the pig lay in her muddy wallow dreaming of her prince when suddenly a gorgeous hulk appeared. Gerald the Boar had arrived!

Princess the Gloucester Old Spot sow is one of the pigs that lives in the Pig Paddocks at St Augustines Farm. Her daughters are in the paddock next door and two Kune Kune pigs also live nearby.

Recently an Old Spot boar visited the the farm and is now living with the farms sows. Princess was very possessive of her paddock when Gerald arrived and bossed him about no end (Sound familiar?) but now he is accepted and shares her meals and cuddles up in the sty with him at night.

“To start with he spent a lot of the day sleeping like most men “ said one of the farm staff “but now he is more active and we expect the patter of tiny trotters in October.”

The weather has been very hot and as pigs can not sweat, Gerald the boar likes to spend the middle of the day in the muddy wallow keeping cool, some times on his own and sometimes with his Princess.

June 10, 2010

Farm closing dates

We will be closed on Friday 18th June until Tuesday 22nd June. We will re-open on Wednesday 23rd June.

May 6, 2010

Class One’s visit to St Augustines Farm.

What a fantastic day !!!! We arrived at the farm and were greeted by Elaine the Farmer’s wife. She told us what we would be doing during the day and told us that she had a surprise.

Our first job was to help with the milking of the cows. We watched Farmer Rob use the special machines to milk 8 cows. One cow made 12 pints of milk! The cows get milked twice a day. It was great fun watching the big jars fill up with milk and then watching it shoot up the pipe to a big fridge , where it will wait to be collected by the Milk truck to sell in shops.

After watching the cows being milked we put some of the milk in bottles and walked down to the barn to bottle feed the baby calves. The baby calves were very strong and very greedy. They loved the milk and got very excited when they saw us.

We had a break and then moved on to our next job of feeding the goats. We had special pellets that we held in our hands for the goats to feed from. Hayden was a bit worried at first but with some help from Miss Wright he really enjoyed the experience.

After the goats we had a trailer ride. Farmer Rob pulled us in the trailer with his very big, very noisy tractor. We travelled all round the Farmers land and looked at all the different animals.

We finished the trailer ride and then the secret appeared. We walked into the big barn and were told by Farmer Rob to be very quiet and there they were … 4 baby lambs, 3 of which were only born a few hours ago. They were so small and so cute. We had to be very quiet as they were frightened of us and were still trying to stand up – it was amazing. Miss Wright was even more excited than us.

After looking at the new additions to St Augustines Farm we petted rabbits and fed the chickens before collecting the cows milk and pellets to feed the pigs. The pigs were very dirty and loved rolling around in the mudbaths they had made. We did so much work before stopping for a well deserved lunch break.

We had our lunch and completed a treasure hunt looking for farmyard treasures. We had to collect some very bizarre things like wool, wheat, straw, hay and you wouldn’t believe it … dried poo! Miss Wrights team won as she tricked the other teams whilst Ethan and Connor ran to victory!

We finished off the day with a fun adventure in the play area before taking our journey home. We left just in time as the rain poured down.

We had such a great day and will return agai one day. We were all well behaved and an asset to the school.

Reproduced from a school magazine.

May 6, 2010

Visit by David Drew MP

It was with great pleasure that I visited St Augustine’s Family Farm in Arlingham on the 23rd July to open their Camera Obscura. Visiting the farm is a lovely fun day out; the activities available increasing all the time and there’s always a wonderful welcome.

A camera obscura is a fascinating concept, I used to visit the one on Bristol Downs as a child with my parents. Imagine being in a very dark room on a bright day. There is only a small hole of light, but if you then look at the opposite wall to the small hole you see the beautiful world outside as if by magic! 

At St Augustine's Farm the light comes through the roof and shines the picture on a table. The camera can turn 360 degrees so visitors will be able to see all the surrounding countryside. It was such a shame that on Thursday the sun did not shine, but I shall visit St Augustine’s Farm again soon.

Reproduced from the website of David Drew MP 25 Jul 2009

April 28, 2010

Alice in Farmyard Land

Excited by the film of Alice in Wonderland, the Farm Folk at St Augustines Farm recently dressed up as characters from the story. Their meadows are home to Mad March Hares as well so that also inspired them and they also gave tractor and trailer rides out into the fields. Spring is a bit late this year so the Hares “boxing” is a bit late too.

Alice was played by Lucie-Anne Clements, the Mad Hatter by Tom Vincent, Flis Jewell was the White Rabbit, the Red Queen by Jenni Vincent and Rob Jewell was the Cheshire Cat.

Just for a change, over the Easter Weekend they all became Easter Bunnies!

April 28, 2010

Free entry for the children in your Playgroup

How to get your childrens free entry.

1. Contact us and book your group visit.

2. All adults in your group pay normal adult entrance fees on arrival (minimum 10 adults).

3. All the children in your group are admitted free (maximum 30 children)


Contact us for bookings, full details and conditions.