What was the Women’s Land Army?

The Women’s Land Army (WLA) was a British civilian organisation which was operational during the First and Second World Wars. The WLA played a fundamental role in Britain, providing food at a time when merchant ships were being destroyed on their journey from America.

In order to grow more food, and with many men being called up to the military, more help was needed on the farms. In effect, the Land Army’s role was to place women on farms that needed workers, the farmers being their employers. The majority of the Land Girls already lived in the countryside, but more than a third came from London and the industrial cities of the north of England.

During the Second World War, tens of thousands of young women were recruited by the government into the Women’s Land Army to work in agriculture and feed the nation. Coming from every walk of life, these girls often left their families, friends and all that was familiar to them, to be posted at hostels across the country. The recruitment posters painted an idyllic picture for the Women’s Land Army, but the reality was extremely hard work for very little pay. 

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, including 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 Peake’s 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. 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.