After five years of detailed negotiations, on 19 November Swindon Council signed a 25 year lease with the trustees of Lower Shaw Farm in West Swindon, ensuring continued development of the educational, environmental, cultural and community activities that were first endorsed by the council more than thirty years ago.

The agreement is a huge relief to the huge number of farm supporters who protested against proposals to redevelop the site for housing in 2006.

Good news in mid-December for farm trustees Matt Holland and Andrea Hirsch from Swindon Council deputy leader Gary Perkins

The former dairy farm was leased to an educational charity in the late 1970s and over the years - as the three acre site in Shaw became a green oasis in West Swindon surburbia - it has become a heavily used and much loved centre for family related, community and environmental activities, from creative arts and craft courses to juggling and circus skills, gardening and cookery workshops, a popular weekly community cafe, and numerous Children’s Project events.

The farm is also a venue for several writing and poetry groups and is the base for the Swindon Festival of Literature.

In September 2006, Swindon Council considered the proposal that the farm site be redeveloped for housing, but a short sharp campaign by thousands of farm supporters in Swindon and from across the country, and indeed abroad, convinced councillors of the huge opposition to the idea. Read the SwindonLink coverage of the campaign here. Search 'Lower Shaw Farm' at swindonlink.com for other coverage.

The new agreement is a big plus for Swindon according to Council deputy leader councillor Gary Perkins, who represents Shaw & Nine Elms, the ward where the farm is located. “This is a positive for the town. Lower Shaw Farm is something different and unique and we recognise how important it is to Swindon’s community and culture.

“Whenever I visit I’m always struck by the range of activities and how the farm attracts people from both  West Swindon and all over the town. Most importantly there is a very strong sense of community ownership. Over many years Swindon has taken Lower Shaw Farm to its heart and this agreement gives the trustees the opportunity to invest in and develop the property for the long term good of the town.”

Farm trustee Matt Holland said: “Good work takes time, and these negotiations certainly have. But the outcome is testimony to vision, good sense, local politics, and the people’s will.

“This is good news not only for people of all ages and backgrounds who use the farm but also for Swindon. Many is the time over the years that visitors have said to me: ‘I wish we had a Lower Shaw Farm in our town.’ Well, Swindon has, and will continue to have for many years to come. Terrific.”

Pictured above, children from Peatmoor Primary School visiting the farm. Below, Diana Eddy and her grandchildren with Matt and Andrea holding the Observer Ethical Award

Reaction has been hugely positive. Diana Eddy from Old Town successfully nominated the farm to the Observer ethical awards in 2009. She said: "Knowing the farm has now received a long lease from the council is such a relief that the real heart of Swindon will continue to beat.
 
"Anyone who has visited Lower Shaw Farm knows exactly how warm their welcome is, and how values that have seen us through centuries are still alive there. Swindon would be so very much the poorer culturally and educationally if this wonderful warm farm had been taken away from us.
 
"The future lies in the hands of such establishments because their awareness and care for our planet and humanity is the only way we will survive."

Mothers attending the Wednesday morning community cafe in mid-December were delighted to find out that the farm has a long term future.

Sarah Willmott from Shaw, left, who was involved in the campaign to save the farm from housing redevelopment and helps at the Wednesday cafe, said: "It's absolutely fantastic news, but a shame that it has the uncertainty has been going on for so long. Lower Shaw Farm is now protected for the next generation. I recently told my seven year old son that he can continue to come to the farm and he would be able to bring his own children. It's beautiful to know that my grandchildren will be able to enjoy the activities at the farm."

Melissa McBride said the people of Swindon will benefit from the council's decision. "Matt and Andrea have created a neighbourhood treasure. Swindon Council have understood that the town needs a variety of cultural and community places. We're all winners from their decision."

Andie Bright from Stratton, who discovered the farm after her first child was born. "For many parents the farm is a life-saver because it gives you the chance to get out of the house and meet others. There's nowhere else like it; the Wednesday cafe has a lovely atmosphere. There are lovely people here and the children adore coming."

Natalie Marshall from Eldene agreed. "It's a truly special place where you can stop the world spinning around you for a few hours. The Wednesday cafe allows you to meet up with others and know that everybody is looking out for each others children."

Sally Tang from Taw Hill, said she started to come to the farm with her new born daughter Eilidh, only a few months ago. "I've only just discovered Lower Shaw; it's a fantastic place for children and parents, an oasis in all these houses where you can meet other people."

Phillippa McIntyre from Cirencester believes Lower Shaw Farm has been all about the Big Society for many years. "Matt and Andrea have been building community and neighbourhood links for over 25 years. You just cannot put a price on what they do and the kind of place that Lower Shaw Farm is."

Right, Nathalie Marshall with Alasadair and Andie Bright with Brianna and Tessa. Bottom, Sally Tang with Eilidh

Matt and Andrea's daughter Rosa Hirsch-Holland was born at Princess Margaret Hospital in 1985 and grew up on the farm with her twin brother and sisters. "It's unbelievable that the long lease has been agreed," she said. "I don't want to tempt fate, but I'm delighted because it means my own children will be able to enjoy Lower Shaw as I did."

Andrea Hirsch said the news is still sinking in. "Twenty-five years give us the chance to plan for the long term. It's too early to be detailed about the ideas we have for the farm, but we formed a co-operative last year so we're looking at the next steps to increase membership and working out how to attract investors."

Discover more about Lower Shaw Farm at: www.lowershawfarm.co.uk

Meet the children who lived at the farm during World War II below

Nostalgic visit for former farm children to West Swindon educational and cultural centre

SwindonLink: 21st September 2011 by Juliet Platt and Roger Ogle

In early August Phyllis Webb, 80, and younger sister Molly, 66, top, returned to Lower Shaw Farm, the place of their childhood, for a trip down memory lane, and to tell current residents Matt and Andrea Holland and their children about their recollections of growing up there in the 1930s and during the war.

Foundry-worker turned farmer Charlie Webb, and his wife Ivy from Motcombe in Dorset, moved into the farm in 1933, with their two children Phyllis and Bobby.

Seven more children were born at the farm. Molly, Cynthia, Collin and Rosemary in the front parlour, what is now the Swindon Festival of Literature office (second image); whilst Margaret, Celia and Roy were born upstairs, and all had to do their bit as soon as they were old enough. "From quite an early age I was given the job of riding the shire horse bare back to Purton to have his shoes changed," said Phyllis who recalls helping to milk the farm’s 40 cows by hand. “We each had a three legged stool and it would take two hours in the morning; I never liked getting up on the frosty mornings but you got quite warm leaning up against the cows and squirting the milk into the bucket.

“After milking I would go to school in Lydiard Millicent; a bus would pick us up in Old Shaw Lane. When I came home, because I was the oldest, I would look after the babies and play with the children, then I'd do another two hours in the milking parlour. We were usually in bed by 8pm because we were tired out.”

Phyllis’s memories of the house are quite vivid. At the staircase in the front hall, she recalled the war years. “The gas masks were kept in the cupboard under the stairs, which was our air raid shelter. It was a very small space for all 11 of us.

“One day I was upstairs with scarlet fever and a German bomber flew over; my father was outside in the field and I watched him run for cover between two hay ricks. We were all quite frightened.

“The room where the television is now used to be where my father would hang the pig to cure, and there used to be a huge marble slab down one wall used for cutting up the meat."

The hayloft above the kitchen is now used as an activity room for meetings and yoga sessions, but Phyllis remembers it being where all the apples were kept during the winter.

The biggest surprise for Matt, director of the Swindon Festival of Literature, was that the front parlour, now his office, was the birthplace for five of the Webb children. Phyllis said, “the room hasn’t changed much at all. There’s the same door and windows, and the same fireplace. There used to be brown lino on the floor. I didn’t know there were wooden floorboards.

“We had to use a chemical toilet in an outhouse and at night we all had chamber pots under the bed which we would empty in the morning. The children had a bath once a week in a tin bath in front of the kitchen Rayburn, using the same water.”

Molly has fond memories of the walk-in larder, (fourth image) which is the same as it was in her childhood, and of their Sunday jaunts in the milk cart.  “Father would clear it out and put seats all around the side and the shire horse would take us on a ride around the area. It was lovely on a Spring or Summer day.

"One event I'll always remember was when the hay caught fire in the Dutch barn. The baker was coming up the drive with the bread in a basket and all of a sudden the flames burst out from the hay stack. It burned really hot. Sadly nobody remembered that the donkey was tied up on the far side and he perished."

"Our father Charlie was a good footballer and a trial in goal for Swindon Town during the war but he said he was too busy on the farm to play regularly. But he leased a flat piece of land at the top of Old Shaw Lane so that Shaw Football Club could play home games."

"With a growing family money was always very tight. There was no NHS in those days and the mid-wife had to be paid with every new arrival. We were always knitting so that the younger children had something to wear as they got older.

“It’s wonderful that Lower Shaw Farm lives on, it’s changed very little over the years. You get the sense of the slower pace of life we enjoyed when we were children, but it has a modern purpose which families enjoy now.”

The visit of the Webb sisters came fifteen years after their mother Ivy had come to see the farm for one last time. Matt said, “I’ve retold the stories that Ivy gave me to visitors; it was terrific to have them corroborated by Phyllis and Molly. When they saw how we’re using what was their farm today, nearly half a century later, I was reminded how important continuity is for people."

As a teenager living in Purton in the 1960s, Matt would help a friend with a tractor during haymaking and at harvest time. They would tour farms, including Lower Shaw, earning money cutting hay and humping bales. Little did he know that he would return to live there in the late 1970s.

He added, “Places like Lower Shaw Farm provide real and tangible links between the generations. Continuity and community go hand in hand. To feel Phyllis and Molly’s appreciation of that and their joy at seeing their home so well used by so many people was magic.”

Bottom picture, children of the farm, Phyllis Webb with Matt Holland, right, with Molly, centre, and Jake and Anna Holland, born at Princess Margaret Hospital, and brought up at Lower Shaw