Matthew's Journal

I was shocked and saddened to hear that Bob Dearnley has died, apparently at his own hand, at Burpham Court Farm, in Surrey. A long time ago now, I spent some weeks doing work experience there (and learned, amongst other things, how to lead llamas); without looking up my paperwork, this was probably in around 1995 or so. At that point, the rare breeds bit of the farm had yet to take off in a big way (there were a few school trips while I was there, but it was still mostly farm work to do). It was one of my better chunks of on-farm work experience.

It seems that in 2004, the National Trust installed new weir gates on the River Wey at Bowers Weir[1], which lead to an expensive court run-in between Bob and the NT. Bob lost, appealed, lost again, and was declared bankrupt, seemingly owing the National Trust around £100k in legal charges. He was facing eviction, and Guildford Borough Council confirmed that they had started eviction proceedings.

I'm sorry it ended like this.

[1] search for "Rare Breeds Farmer" here for more background.