History of the site

The land around the Hostel site was originally rough heath land which was brought into food production by the War Agricultural Department in the early 1940s, and farmed by the Women’s Land Army from 1942 until 1950. The Leavenheath hostel was one of many established around the country for the WLA, and up to 70 girls from all over the UK lived here during those years and worked on the land to help feed the country during the war.

Bill and Devora Peake purchased the Hostel site from the “War Ag” after the war. They also bought the surrounding 500 acres for just £12 per acre, to include the farmhouses – a great deal of money in those days!.  This land was eventually developed into the two championship golf courses and the adjoining apple orchards that you see here today. The Peakes employed Italian prisoners of war who were living near the site during the 1950s to help plant up the original apple orchards.  In more recent years the family has also planted strawberries, raspberries and blueberries in this area.

Soon after they bought it in 1950, Bill and Devora converted the hostel into a school for Organic Husbandry for a couple of years, working closely with Lady Eve Balfour from the Soil Association. They also grew organic apples, potatoes, sweetcorn, vegetables and wheat in the fields next to the hostel site – and even had a stone mill in Daltons Barn where they produced their own organic flour under the Peake’s Organic brand.  Bill and Devora were way ahead of their time as organic farmers, and founder members of the Soil Association.

Over the next 40 years the hostel buildings were adapted by Bill and his foreman, Percy Rose, to firstly accommodate pigs, then turkeys, ducks and chickens. Percy had originally worked for the War Ag as a driver to transport the Land Army Girls to and from the farms and in 1947 he married Phyllis Seymour, one of the Land Army Girls who, together with Percy, carried on working for the Peake family for the next 50 years. Some of the other Land Girls also stayed on to work for the family.