History
Jenny Cook was born and grew up at Highfields Farm. Frustratingly, the Post Office decided to drop the ‘s’ to Highfield and this is how we now appear on all official address lists. However, to us, it will always be, simply, “Highfields”.
Jenny growing up at Highfields. With her Mum, Dilly; with her Cairn ‘Judy’,
as a flower girl at the Village Fete and on her Pony ‘Missy’
The Cook family has farmed this valley for 6 generations. Over this time they owned four farms – now it’s just two, Highfields Farm and Penwern Farm, owned by Jenny’s cousin Lynne. The family also provided the vicars for two local churches – St Illtyd, Mamhilad and St Michael, Llanvihangel Pontymoile.
The Church of St Illtyd at Mamhilad. The Reverend Christopher Cook and his family are buried to the right of the path.
It was the Reverend Christopher Cook, Jenny’s great, great grandfather, who perhaps, had the biggest impact on the community. ‘Parson Cook’, as he was known, was the son of Dr Philip Cook of the Swansea Valley, surgeon to Nelson at Trafalgar. He was the vicar for 70 years at St Illtyd’s from 1855 to 1925 and at St Michael’s for 75 years. Famously, when the Archbishop of Wales wrote to him in his late 90s and suggested that the time had come for him to retire, the indignant Parson Cook replied ‘If I had known in my 20s that this was a temporary appointment, I would not have taken it on’. He refused to step down but was subsequently decapacitated by the Church and had to retire. At the time, it was claimed that he was the world’s oldest and longest serving clergyman. He died at the age of 103 following a fall on an icy path. He, and his family are buried at St Illtyds.
At the start of the Second World War, Jenny’s father Charles, was brought back down from University to run the farm with his brother and sisters for the War effort. This was at the adjacent family farm, Blackbeech, owned by, Rev Charles Cook of Mamhilad, and Penwern Farm. Blackbeech had been farmed by his father Christopher Cook and mother Gertrude during the First World War. Christopher died in 1921, leaving Gertrude and the children, Phillip, Charles, Florence and Francis to struggle on in serious hardship. ‘Gran’ used to take a cart full of vegetables for sale at Pontypool market, 5 miles away. These were tough times for the Cooks.
In the 1940s Charlie managed a troupe of land Army girls and Italian prisoners of war to grow vegetables. This continued after the War when he met Jenny’s mum, Hilda, or Dilly as she was known, at a Greengrocers in Pontnewydd. They were married and subsequently bought Highfields as their new home. Jenny was born and Charlie’s mother, Gertrude, came to live with them.
Charlie was a Renaissance man, a studious, resourceful farmer who built all the farm buildings and was keen to adopt the latest agricultural practices. However, he loved horses and still ploughed with a pair of carthorses, Blackie and Nip ( who would bite – and no-one wants to be bitten by a carthorse), always rode a horse around the farm and taught Jenny to ride almost before she could walk! He was a keen cricketer, loved exotic wildfowl and Great Danes, loved good food but most of all was a keen gardener, taking Jenny on many garden visits
Jenny’s father Charlie Cook. He developed Highfield Farm Garden and provided us with the legacy of weather protection with a curtain of trees on the western boundary and a wonderful collection of specimen trees and shrubs including Liriodendron, Gleditisia, Auracaria, Ginko, Magnolias and Betula papyrifera trees, together with huge Camellias, Hydrangeas and a box parterre. Great bones.
Jenny’s Godparents, Myra and David Knight were market gardeners, originally from Badsey. They, and their daughter Leah, who worked on the farm, also had a major influence on Jenny’s horticultural development. Family folklore tells of Jenny throwing her doll out of its pram, filling it with soil and planting it up.
Growing up on the farm at Highfields in the early days was idyllic. Charlie and his brother were running the three farms with dairy, pigs, chickens, beef and vegetable production. The family became prosperous and settled. They employed many locals and one, Mike Fleming, who was in junior school with Jenny, is still part of our garden team today. However, things were to change in later times when foot and mouth and fowl pest epidemics had a profound impact, and traditional farming, as we knew it, went into decline.
And then, Roger turned up for Christmas in 1965 – and he’s still here!
After studying Botany and Microbiology at University, Jenny accepted a post as a commercial plant breeder at Sutton Seeds whilst Roger did his Masters in Nutrition.
Jenny, a commercial plant breeder for Sutton Seeds
Jenny began her first horticultural enterprise in 1974. We had returned to Highfields because Roger’s research money had run out and he needed to write his thesis. She set up a plant nursery, Highfields Vineries. We built a greenhouse and erected a poly tunnel, which caved in after a big storm but was thankfully replaced. Jenny grew seed crops – polyanthus and Aquilegia – for Sutton Seeds. Seed collection was back-breaking work. Jenny also grew perennials and bedding plants for local garden centres and for sale from the farm and propagated and supplied house plants to a local supermarket. Roger worked on and managed the farm for Jenny’s parents.
Highfields Vineries, Jenny’s nursery at the farm.
However, after a few years, Roger’s career beckoned and we left the farm for work and life experience around the world. During this time Jenny worked for a tropical plant importer near Heathrow, for a florist in Bad Homburg, Germany, set up her own ‘Jenny Lloyd Interior Landscaping’ business in Darlington, gained a garden design qualification from the Open University, volunteered at Longwood Gardens, Pennsylvania, USA and became partner in a garden design practice, Folia Design, in Knutsford, Cheshire. She’s bona fide. Roger is a gardener by marriage.
The story comes full circle when we returned to live permanently on the Farm in 2015.
Fundraising
In 2004, Jenny’s mum, still living at Highfields, became seriously and terminally ill. We were living in Alderley Edge in Cheshire, Roger was still working, and abroad much of the time. The burden fell squarely on Jenny’s shoulders to care for her mum; difficult when you are 120 miles away. Macmillan Nurses came to our rescue. These wonderful, selfless, caring people were a Godsend for Jenny, providing her with some respite from her tireless duties and sensitive, gentle nursing support to Jenny’s mum during her last days. We felt profoundly indebted.
So we decided to develop and open our garden in Cheshire to raise money for Macmillan. The NGS was the perfect partner for this. We opened for 5 years before making the decision to move back. Then, the task was to sort out the house and then quickly set about recovering, renovating and extending Charlie’s garden with the ambition to open up again in 2 years and continue fundraising. By the end of 2023, we have raised £60 000. It’s our raison d’être now.
Highfield Farm Garden 