Volunteers very excited to reopen Victorian farm

Volunteers who have resurrected a historic working farm have said they are "very excited" to welcome the first visitors back.

Acton Scott Heritage Farm, near Church Stretton in Shropshire, closed in 2021 after Shropshire Council decided it had become financially unsustainable.

A board of trustees was then formed and they were successful in gaining charitable status to get it reopened.

On Friday the farm was able to admit a limited number of visitors for guided tours and it hopes to be fully open in the spring.

The farm, which recreates farming in the Victorian era, sits within the Acton Scott estate and had been operated by the council since the 1970s.

It featured in the BBC's Victorian Farm series and annual visitor numbers peaked in 2009 at about 45,000.

But numbers then fell and the authority said in 2021 it had been operating at a deficit of £168,000 per year, with taxpayers subsidising the farm at a cost of £8.40 per person.

Sarah Farquhar, the chair of the new trust, said launching their bid to reopen the farm had led to a busy two years.

She said they had "learnt a lot as a charity committee and we're very excited to be at this stage".

The farm had shown visitors what life was like for Victorian farmers

Ms Farquhar said the volunteers were "just really passionate about keeping it open and having such a treasure within Shropshire available for us all".

But she said the next step would be to recruit a management team to run the site as a proper visitor attraction.

This summer, she said the farm would be able to offer "bespoke guided tours" to show the work that had been done by the volunteers.

By the spring of 2025 she hoped to have it fully open five days a week.

"This is just the start," she said.