Our Story
Fifteen years of asking: what if we did things differently?
Fentenfenna didn't begin with a farm.
It grew from fifteen years of working with people, communities, food, land and enterprise, trying things, learning as we went and gradually discovering how much more becomes possible when those things are connected.
This is the story of how we ended up here:
WHERE IT ALL STARTED
2011-2014
It started with an idea on a small piece of paper.
Long before Fentenfenna, Luke had an idea.
Having experienced his own struggles with mental health, he began thinking about whether working with nature, growing food and being part of something useful could help people who were struggling too.
The first version was scribbled onto a piece of paper: a community nursery, growing food and creating opportunities for people.
It was a small idea which didn't stay small for very long.
Luke and Amelia began developing the idea together, combining community, nature, enterprise and design and started the long process of turning it into something real.
2014-2024
The idea became a place.
That early idea became Newquay Orchard, founded by Luke and Amelia Berkeley in 2014 and built with an extraordinary community around it.
Over the following decade, thousands of volunteers, staff, supporters, funders, partners and local people helped transform an empty field into a thriving community space.
It became somewhere food, nature, learning, work, wellbeing and community could exist side by side, and taught us an enormous amount about what can happen when people are given a place to participate and contribute.
2020
Then a farm came up for tender
In July 2020, in the middle of lockdown, a 13-acre Cornwall Council farm came up for tender.
We'd never even heard of Council Farms.
Naturally, we decided to apply!
We put together a business plan that was well outside the usual council-farm model: rather than one farming business occupying the holding, we imagined a place that could support multiple small enterprises while creating opportunities for people and improving the land.
Cornwall Council decided to take a chance on us.
Fentenfenna Farm began.
There was one fairly significant flaw in the plan.
We didn't really have any farming experience.
The farm was also in a pretty sorry state.
So we set up Fentenfenna Farm CIC, found people who knew considerably more than we did, secured funding and investment, rolled up our sleeves and started learning.
From the beginning, Fentenfenna wasn't about us doing everything.
It was about creating a place where different people and enterprises could bring their own skills, experience and ideas.
We had quite a lot to learn.
2020–2024
For four years, the stories overlapped.
While Fentenfenna Farm was taking shape, we were still leading and working at Newquay Orchard.
In fact, the two places became connected from the beginning. Grown, Newquay Orchard's regenerative market garden, became Fentenfenna's first tenant.
That period gave us an unusual opportunity to see ideas around food, community, enterprise, nature and wellbeing working in different settings, and to start understanding the connections between them.
JANUARY 2024
Time for a new chapter.
In January 2024, after almost a decade, we made the difficult decision to step away from Newquay Orchard and hand stewardship to the team who would take it into its next chapter.
It was emotional, we'd poured a huge part of our lives into it, but it also meant we could finally focus full-time on Fentenfenna.
And the farm was ready for it.
2024-TODAY
The farm started becoming more than we'd imagined.
Businesses began sharing skills and equipment. Partnerships developed. People came for work experience and internships. Food moved through the Food Hub. New ideas appeared. Wasted Apple was re-launched.
Some of it was planned. Some of the best bits weren't.
2024/2025
And then there were apples. Lots of apples.
Wasted Apple had been one of Fentenfenna's founding tenants. When the opportunity came for the CIC to take it forward, it felt like a rather perfect fit: a real trading enterprise built around reducing waste, supporting local food and creating something people genuinely want.
So now, apparently, we make cider and apple juice too.
NOW
The farm is part of a much bigger idea.
Somewhere along the way, we realised Fentenfenna wasn't really about creating a successful farm. It was about asking what a small farm could make possible around it.
Could it help new businesses start? Could it create routes into work? Could it strengthen local food? Could it improve biodiversity? Could it provide useful infrastructure that small organisations couldn't afford alone? Could all of those things strengthen one another?
These are the questions we're exploring now.
We started this without knowing exactly where it would lead. We still don't.
Fentenfenna is a place for trying things, learning from what works (and what doesn't), and sharing what we discover with other people who are trying to make their places work better too.
The next bit is still being written.