The Mitchell brothers, Ian and Robert, celebrated the centenary of Foxbury Farm, their family’s home and workplace since 1909, with a party at the farm last weekend.
More than 200 family, friends, current and ex-employees, and colleagues from the industry were at the farm to mark the occasion, which featured an exhibition in the oast house and the launch of a book about the farm and the family, researched and written by Robert Mitchell and his wife Helen.
The book, Foxbury Farm - 100 years in the making, charts the progress of the family, which arrived in Kent in 1892 from Paisley in Scotland and built a farming business from scratch in the Garden of England. It details the trials, tribulations and success stories of the last 100 years at Foxbury Farm and describes the events and people that have shaped its history.
Ian Mitchell said: “What the book really highlights is how many people the life of a working farm touches, and how important such traditional enterprises are to the character of the countryside and to the rural community. Of course, in the old days, a farm such as this would have employed many more people, all of whom lived locally. Things are quite different now for all sorts of reasons. However, I would just say that politicians and planners - indeed, all of those able to influence things - need to remember that farming in this country is not just about producing food - itself a pretty good reason on its own in these uncertain times. But it is also about the continued wellbeing of the countryside environment and of those who live within it.”
His brother added: “All of my family have been natural hoarders - a fact that has taken up much storage space over the years but has enabled us to put together this exhibition. The book is intended to be our contribution to this process, and I would love to think that in another 100 years some copies will have survived to tell future generations what we all got up to.”
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