About us
About Over Farm: here’s our history, the good, the bad and the… pumpkins!
Hello, I’m Rees, the Farmer here at Over Farm!
Growing up on Over Farm, I never realised how different a farmer’s life really is. It was only when I met my partner Kate – and shared stories of a childhood spent running around strawberry patches, collecting onions and, err, dressing up as a vampire – that I understood that we have a history worth sharing.
So if you’ve ever wondered where Over Farm came from and how we got from growing apples and into kids entertainment, a farm shop and lots more – here’s the lowdown.
Oh, but before we get started, allow me to introduce you to some of my family, so you know who’s who when you cast your eyes further down the page!
The 1920s and 30s
It was nearly a hundred years ago that my great-great-grandfather Roger moved to Over from Tewksbury to start farming. With all the enthusiasm and hope that many had post WW1, Roger moved into the old farmhouse where Kate, Ralph, Connie and I live now today, and got started with a real melting pot of activity.
He farmed everything from beef cattle, sheep and pigs, to cereal crops and apples, producing plenty of milk too. Then in the 1930s, his son (and my Great Grandfather!) Rees took over the reins, continuing to manage Roger’s mixed bag of farming.
It wasn’t just the farm he was overseeing either – back then there was a lot more wealth in farming so Rees was managing plenty of staff too. He was busy starting a family as well! Here’s my Grandfather with his sisters on the front lawn in the 30s.
Find out more about what life was really like at Over Farm in the 30s in this poem written at the time by my Great Grandmother “Granny” (or Mary, as most people called her!). The final verse was added in the 90s.
My First Day at Over – 29.9.34
In case you’re struggling with Granny’s lovely handwriting!
Alarm rings loud – 6.45.
Rees goes out before men arrive,
I slumber on in 7th heaven
But it’s my turn when the clock strikes 7.
Go down, unbolt door at back
For crusty old Sprigg whose proud knack
To start the boiler and clean the shoes
Is something I should have to lose
Gardiner, with milk float comes for churns,
While I match the toast in case it burns,
When Rees, in smock, comes from the stable,
– I put the porridge on the table.
He’d asked carter Hyett, with short bow legs
To harness Kit and take feed to the tegs.
At 9, Hyett’s mother arrives by bus,
She washes and scrubs without a fuss
Five rooms, all with concrete floors,
And all outside between the doors.
Now I scrape out ash, and shine the grate.
– Sprigg chopped me some wood before bait.
I dust the dining suite with pride,
Ewbank red carpet side to side,
Mop all round with ‘Flexible Flo’,
Then to hall and porch I go.
Room upstairs are empty, except ours
So bed made, I go outside for flowers
Or veg, to clean for dinner –
I hope my meals don’t make Rees thinner!
My Florence oil stove is four burner,
To trim and use it, I’m a learner
Some callers come at half past three,
They leave their cards, don’t stay for tea
Though I’ve cakes and buns in airtight tins
All ready for the kith and kins.
At 6, wireless with fretted wood
Forecasts the weather, bad or good.
To reap the corn and build the stook,
Rees says we’ll need both Price and Duke.
Later on, we sit at east
To have our milk and bread and cheese
With Worcestershire sauce which has always been
An essential ritual for a Keene!
The border collie has his meal.
We’re happy and content, and feel,
At home at Over, and we hope to stay
For ever, be times sad or gay.
Now Rees is back and Mathew too,
May you be blessed dear Rob and Sue
With as full a life as in our day
And God be with you all the way.
Wartime at Over Farm in the 1940s
Grandpa (Farmer Richard) remembers seeing the American tanks and troops driving by on the A40 as an 8-year-old, as the A40 was the main supply road from the landing ports of Wales to the front line in Europe.
We have an old World War 1 pillbox on site too, which could have been used in WW2 too – it’s like an igloo made of concrete, with little holes in the sides through which defenders could fire weapons. Strange to think of it being used on our lovely serene farm, but that’s wartime for you!
Grandpa also remembers hosting the family of an American officer for a time, and the anti-radar streamers that were often dispensed in the air. They’d float down and land in our elm trees, and he’d collect them to make decorations!
Metal detectors have found anti-aircraft shell delay timers in our soil too, likely fired from the docks or from one of the three airforce stations in Gloucester.
The 1950s and 60s
After the war, farming in general became much more streamlined, with farms tending to focus more heavily on one single stream of revenue. Everyone wanted to become more efficient and churn out the most cost-effective food possible!
Together, British farmers did a huge amount to reduce food prices, increase yields and drive Britain out of the post-poverty war years, with Rees, my Great-grandfather a key part of it.
My Grandfather Richard decided that he would like to move to Rhodesia (Zimbabwe as it’s now known) with his new wife Caroline to make a new start as Great Grandfather Rees was still running the farm.
Sadly, Rees died rather early and Richard and Caroline came back to take over the reins after the farm was left to them in the 60s.
Over Farm in the 1970s and 80s
Grandpa concentrated on cereal production in the 1970s, though still keeping his hand in with some animals before finally switching to crop only in the 80’s.
There was a whiff of change in the air at the start of the 1980s, when my father Rob hopped across the pond for an exchange program in America. That’s where he got the idea for the farm shop, which was a growing market in the States.
So when Rob arrived back in the UK, he persuaded my mum to help him open Over Farm Market for the good people of Gloucester. She married him a couple of years after that, so it can’t have gone too badly.
Back then, we were still producing lots of fresh fruit and vegetables in bulk quantities here on the farm, so that’s what Mum and Dad put on the shelves.
There were oodles of potatoes, onions, cauliflowers, sprouts, beans of all shapes and sizes, and loads of other crops too. This was back before supermarkets gained prominence, and the quality of food sold in corner shops was poor – so farm shops became a big point of difference and veg was well worth growing for a good run.
Pick your own strawberries at Over Farm
Dad had a real flair for innovation and was always on the lookout for ways to add value for the local friends and families of Gloucester. Our land meant we had a great space for growing strawberries, so Dad opened our Pick Your Own fields in the late 80s. Here are Ben and Josh as kids with Granny on marketing duties, dressed up as a giant strawberry!
We upgraded our patch in the year 2000 so that the strawberries were grown at waist height to reduce the impact of mud on the crop and the experience, and to save pickers’ backs! Plus we’ve added more soft fruits and even sunflowers into the PYO mix since!
Over the years, thousands of people have come from far and wide for a fun, cheap day out picking strawberries in our enormous patch. Back in the day, plenty of them would go home and make jam – anyone still doing that these days?!
Winding down our produce: the rise of supermarkets
Sadly, supermarkets soon got very good at getting their hands on quality produce at low prices. Through the 90s and 00s, it became less and less viable to grow and sell crops ourselves, as was the case for most small holding farmers in the UK.
The farmers that are still able to do this today are doing it on a massive scale, far more efficiently (and arguably better) than we ever could! The final year we grew potatoes, we had our best quality crop ever, but we made zero profit in the process. It was time to stop.
The same thing happened with our cereal crops too. After decades growing wheat and barley here at Over, the time came to stop doing it ourselves. I know putting an end to something our ancestors had started decades previously was a real wrench for my Grandpa, but he knew we needed to focus on the things that could make money and that meant saying goodbye to cereals.
Did you know we’ve been growing pumpkins since the 90s?
Another idea my dad Farmer Rob brought back with him from the States was pumpkins, so in true Rob-fashion he went out and planted a field’s worth! Big, orange vegetables that could be carved into freaky-looking faces? What’s not to love?! Only problem was…no-one in the UK knew what to do with them.
So Dad persuaded the local mayor to judge a pumpkin carving competition and created a pumpkin party with a maze for people to walk through, with a few carved pumpkin displays dotted around. Back then it was a one-night thing, nothing like the pumpkin festival we’re known and loved for now.
As the Halloween and pumpkin scene’s grown in the UK, we’ve been right at the centre, growing thousands of them every year and making our Pumpkin PYO and Pumpkins After Dark events bigger and better as we go.
Over the years, thousands of people have come from far and wide for a fun, cheap day out picking strawberries in our enormous patch. Back in the day, plenty of them would go home and make jam – anyone still doing that these days?!
Frightmare: Scaring the fine folk of Gloucestershire from 2003 to 2022
Another thing Dad came across in America was the concept of scare attractions like the Haunted Hayride. No one was doing it on our side of the Atlantic so when we opened in 2003, we got rather a lot of attention.
As teenagers, my brother Matt and I spent plenty of time fully made up running all over the farm, scaring people. It’s actually how I met my partner Kate – a very romantic story involving fake blood, face powder and lots of screaming.
Matt ended up taking Frightmare over and turned it from a ramshackle event into a frightfully good show that saw 20,000 visitors come in at its peak. Rising running costs and unpredictable weather eventually meant it wasn’t profitable – could we bring Frightmare back one day? Who knows, there’s nothing like a load of terrified people running around your farm in the dark to raise your spirits, that’s for sure.
Barn on the Farm: The Farm's Music Festival
It was in 2010 that an excited 19-year-old, Josh Sangar, rang up our Dad to ask if he could host a music festival on the farm. Dad being Dad said, “why not?!”, and thought it might not come to much.
That first year, Josh hosted about 30 guests, who were dotted around on old carpets in our old barn between the odd musician with a guitar. It was incredibly simple but there was something about it that just made people happy. Word spread and 300 people came the following year, and as more years passed, Barn on the Farm only got bigger and better.
Ed Sheeran played while The A-Team was at number 1 in the UK Top 40, I’ve laughed at Lewis Capaldi singing loudly around a campfire, hosted Sigrid in the farmhouse, and my son Ralph even had a private sing-along with Sam Ryder once! It’s always a chaotic month to negotiate on the farm, but seriously good fun.
Sadly like many of the UK’s smaller festivals though, Barn on the Farm had to have a fallow year in 2024 & 2025, because the costs of just about everything to do with running an event have continued to spiral over the last few years. Josh and Oz are bringing it back again in 2026 and I certainly look forward to the month of chaotic good fun that will follow.
Over Farm Market
Before Over Farm Market began, my grandfather and dad used to sell potatoes and onions on a trestle table outside the farm at Hartpury. But Dad’s trip to America in 1980 opened his eyes to the wonderful world of farm shops and since opening in 1982, we’ve never looked back.
During that time, our farm shop’s been through rather a lot. Many different managers, two facelifts and, sadly, a flood! Mum and Dad, (Sue and Rob), got things started and, turned an old lorry garage into a vibrant store where people could find more than potatoes and onions.
In the 2010s, my dad’s sister and her husband, Gill and Barry helped to stabilise the shop and turn it into a more viable business, taking it back into profit after a few years of pain. These days, their son and my first cousin Ben has taken the reigns and really made it flourish after navigating the pain and madness of Covid. He also saw in the opening of a much-improved café offering and better online services.
Over Barn
In 2009, one of our Microlighting friends Phil, asked whether his son Jim could get married in “that old barn” where we’d been having riotous family parties for years.
Back then the barn was unrecognisable from what you see today. The bride cried the first day she came to see it – it really was that horrendous. And then she cried on her wedding day because of the transformation it had undergone! We dug out the floor and laid a new one, sandblasted all the beams, upgraded the electrics and we continue to make improvements every year.
I’m sure you’ll agree, Over Barn is a pretty breath-taking wedding venue these days, and it’s been huge fun hosting scores of weddings, parties and Christmas Ceilidhs every year.
The catering offering has been completely overhauled by my first cousin Josh (Ben’s brother), who does a mean hog roast, fresh woodfired pizzas, burgers and all the more delicate, traditional stuff you’re imagining too. Seeing the wedding business grow has been so exciting, and pretty lovely too. You feel very privileged when couples choose to do one of the most important things they’ll ever do on your farm, trust me!
Covid-19 at Over Farm
Well now, that was a strange time. Like everyone, we didn’t know what was coming from one day to the next. As a working farm and farm shop, our team was deemed essential workers so we were all in every day, and what a family we became. (Yes there really are actually people who work here who I’m not actually related to!)
The café that was supposed to open on 20th March 2020 was shelved until the following year, but the shop? It exploded!
Looking back, it was an extremely difficult time – constantly on the Government website to try and work out what we could and couldn’t do (with the rules changing the next day anyway!). Meanwhile, trying to manage hundreds more customers than we’d ever served before, all while keeping the farm going and maintaining stock from our suppliers who had their own challenges. Argh!
But we did it, and I’m so grateful for the opportunity it gave us to meet new customers and show people that we really are here to serve each and every day.
And then there was the flood.
Just as we were beginning to think we might just about to have fought our way through Covid, we watched the rain pour on the 23rd of December 2020 and ended up 3 inches under throughout the shop by nightfall. Somehow, I’m not sure quite how, Ben and the team managed to honour every single Christmas delivery and even opened the old family trail around the animals in time for Christmas.
Within just two weeks, Ben had pulled out the stops to create a new click-and-collect service, which was the bare bones of the online shop you’ll find on our website today. We used the Roundhouse, where our seasonal events usually take place, and refrigerated vans to unite customers with their orders while the shop was out of action.
The damage to the inside of the shop was so bad that we lost quite a bit of stock and equipment. So we made the tricky (and expensive!) decision to do a complete refit, and ended up changing the layout of the shop. By the time we reopened in February 2021, Over Farm Market was unrecognisable – and all the better for it. Funny the way these things happen.
It was a pretty tough time for us all when the flood happened, but we got through it in true Over Farm style…
Countryside Adventure: how it all started
Years ago, my Dad opened up a free animal trail on the farm so locals could come and say hello to the animals that we keep. There have always been lots of children on site – my cousins and I have grown up here and now my kids are too – and with so many locals visiting, we wanted to make something more of Over Farm for children.
The idea was to turn the farm into a destination not just for grown-ups and grandparents to come and have a coffee and buy some nice fresh produce, but for parents to be able to take their children out for a good day’s fun in the great outdoors too.
So throughout the summer of 2018 we created a more structured farm trail and charged a tenner per child. It was very simplistic, nothing hugely exciting but, still, it brought 600 customers through the doors. More importantly, it told me that people do want to do fun stuff outside, even when it’s not Easter or Halloween.
We knew we wanted to do more, so we kept adding bits and pieces each year, and rather a lot during Covid in particular. Then in 2022, things got really serious and we built the huge Barnyard Play Area that you know and love today. And finally, Countryside Adventure was born!
While you're here
Explore our Farm Park
Our much-loved farm park for kids, Countryside Adventure, is open during school holidays and at weekends. You’ll love it – whatever your age!
Visit our shop and café
Step into Over Farm Market for tasty home-cooked food, farm-grown ingredients, local wares, fresh meat and baked goods.