Brightleigh Farm is a mixed livestock holding near Outwood in Surrey, run by Penny and Nigel Franklin alongside Penny’s daughters Ellie and Joely. The farm produces 100 percent pasture fed beef, free range pork, poultry and eggs, all sold direct to customers through their on farm shop and a small number of local farmers markets.
In the fourth instalment of my twelve part Indie Farmer series, supported by the Lund Trust and the High Weald National Landscape, I visited Brightleigh Farm to spend a day walking the land and talking with the family about pasture for life farming, selling direct and what it means to keep a small family farm going in uncertain times.
At the kitchen table
We begin the day in the farmhouse kitchen, sitting around the table with mugs of black coffee. It is early October. After a long dry summer, the rain had finally arrived and the grass has begun to move again. From the window the fields look different to how they did only a few weeks earlier.
Conversation turns quickly to the weather and what it means for the weeks ahead. How long the cattle might stay out. How quickly conditions can change at this time of year.
“At the moment it’s growing,” Penny said. “You just make the most of it.”
It is not a dramatic start to the day, but it is a familiar one. Farming here is not driven by fixed plans. It is shaped by watching what is in front of you and responding accordingly.
A farm built over time
Penny’s connection to Brightleigh stretches back to 1959, when her father Jim Brunton arrived with eight Ayrshire cows and the determination to build a farming business from scratch. Coming from a non farming background, he relied on long hours, careful spending and a belief in keeping systems simple.
Over time the herd grew, buildings were modernised and the farm settled into dairying. Under the Milk Marketing Board, stability was possible. By the time Penny was twelve she was already milking alongside her father in a small parlour. “It was just what we did,” she said. “I loved it.”
That certainty did not last. The collapse of milk prices in the 1990s brought the dairy enterprise to an end. The herd was sold in 1999 and the sense of security disappeared almost overnight.
From dairy to suckler cows
After her father’s death, Penny returned to help her mother keep the farm going. For years she searched for a system that might work economically without the vulnerability of dairying. Pedigree bulls were tried. Margins remained tight.
“There wasn’t a clear path,” she said. “You just kept trying.”
A turning point came in 2014 at the Oxford Real Farming Conference, where Penny discovered the Pasture for Life Association. The idea of producing beef entirely from grass appealed not as a movement, but as a practical response. For Penny, it simply made sense.
“It’s the most natural thing for a cow,” she said. “Grass, forage, hay and silage. They stay healthier, you get fewer issues and they’re happier animals.”
Back at Brightleigh, she began experimenting with Angus and Hereford crosses better suited to forage based systems. Grazing management evolved slowly. Set stocking gave way to smaller grazing blocks. Cattle were moved more frequently. Taller grass was trampled rather than topped.
At first it felt wrong. “But then the land started responding,” Penny said. “That’s when I trusted it.”
Soils improved. Swards diversified. The system grew more resilient.
“I’m still learning,” she added. “You never stop.”
Different skills, shared responsibility
When Penny met Nigel in 2017, the farm was already changing, but much of the responsibility still sat with her. Nigel had not grown up farming. His career had been in event branding and visual communications, far removed from livestock and land. But he was drawn to what Penny was building.
“I could see how much work had gone into it,” he said. “And how fragile it still was.”
As he became more involved, Nigel focused on areas where his skills made sense. How the farm presented itself, how customers found it, how to explain pasture fed beef to people who had never set foot on a farm before.
“People don’t need a lecture,” he said. “They just want to know where their food comes from.”
When the decision was made to sell direct, his experience proved valuable. Clear signage. Simple messaging. Consistency.
Over time Nigel became a full partner in the business. Penny focused on livestock and land. Nigel focused on customers, systems and flow. Together, the farm found better balance.
Out on the farm
We started the farm walk with the cattle.
Penny and Nigel headed out across the field where cows and calves are grazing. When the electric fence is lifted, the cattle moved forward calmly, spreading across the new grass and getting their heads down. There is no calling, no urgency.
“They know the routine,” Penny said. “It’s the best part of the day.”
Turkeys, hens and guardian dogs
From there, Ellie and Joely suggest we head off to see the rest of the livestock. A short drive brings us to a small paddock where a batch of turkeys are being reared for Christmas. As we step out of the vehicle, a large white Maremma dog rises slowly from the grass and positions itself between us and the birds before relaxing once it recognises familiar faces.
“They live with them,” Ellie said. “All the time.”
“They’re not pets,” Penny added. “They’re working dogs.”
We drive on to the laying hens next. The flock is surrounded by electric fencing, with another Maremma lying nearby for protection. Joely opens the door to the egg collection machine and winds the handle, eggs rolling gently into view as we talk about fox pressure and daily routine.
“Just having the dogs here changes everything,” she said. “You don’t see the problems you used to.”
Next door, the broiler chickens are checked, moving steadily across their paddock as they forage.
Pigs in the woods
By mid morning it is time to feed the pigs.
The first group is housed in woodland, where the ground is soft underfoot and the canopy provides shelter. Ellie and Joely introduce me to several breeding sows and a group of young piglets that rush forward.
Further along, an older group roots beneath oak trees, hoovering up fallen acorns.
“They do a good job in here,” Ellie said. “But you can’t leave them too long.”
Coming back to the land
We finish the loop back at the barn field, where Penny prepares to move a group of fattening cattle onto fresh grass. The field is cleared within minutes. The system is well practised. Only once the livestock are settled do we stop to talk.
Ellie reflects on leaving the farm, riding professionally as a jockey, then spending last summer working on a 13,000 acre ranch in Montana. The scale was huge, but it sharpened her appreciation for what they have at home.
“When I came back, I realised how productive this land really is,” she said. “If you manage it properly, it just keeps giving.”
She now works full time at Brightleigh, splitting her days between livestock, pasture and the farm shop. “My favourite time is spring,” she said. “When everything goes back out again.”
Joely’s role centres on the day-to-day management of the poultry and the guardian dogs, alongside part-time work off the farm.
Farming here is not defined by job titles. It is defined by shared responsibility.
Advice for new entrants
For Ellie, returning to Brightleigh has also sharpened her view of what it takes to build a life in farming.
“If you’re thinking about getting into it, the best thing you can do is get as much experience as possible,” she said.
Formal training matters, but she believes it only works alongside time spent on different farms, seeing how systems vary and learning what suits you.
“Every farm is different,” she said. “You can learn a lot at college, but you need to be out there as well. Helping at weekends. Working during the holidays.”
She is realistic about the demands. “It’s hard work,” she said. “You need to know what you’re getting into.”
But she is equally clear that support exists.
“There are a lot of people who want to help if you’re willing to listen and learn,” she said. “You just have to put yourself in the right places.”
Selling direct
In early 2020 the farm opened a small pop up shop. It was never intended to be permanent.
Then lockdown arrived.
“People queued down the drive,” Penny said. “We couldn’t believe it.”
Today the farm shop sits at the heart of the business. Beef, pork, poultry and eggs are sold directly to customers. Conversations happen across the counter. Feedback is immediate.
“You hear exactly what people think,” Ellie said. “It keeps you honest.”
As the afternoon draws on, we return to the yard and step inside the shop. Stainless steel surfaces gleam under the lights. Chillers hum quietly.
Nigel talks me through the layout and the thinking behind it.
“This is about making things sustainable,” he said. “For us and for the customers.”
Sharing the farm
For many customers, that relationship does not end at the shop door. Social media has become another way for people to stay connected between visits. Ellie helps run the farm’s online presence across Instagram and Facebook, sharing short updates, photos and short videos from daily life.
“We’ve got about 4,000 followers on Instagram and around 2,000 on Facebook,” she said. “Just posting consistently and letting people know we’re here has made a big difference.”
Short videos tend to work best.
“The reels usually do better than photos,” she said. “People like seeing the animals. Even if it’s only a few seconds, it gives them a feel for what’s happening on the farm.”
She is honest about the challenges too.
“The algorithm isn’t always great for farming posts,” she said. “But it’s still worth doing because we’ve met so many lovely customers through it.”
For Ellie, the aim is simple.
“It’s not about going viral,” she said. “It’s just about being open and showing what we do.”
Holding the future lightly
Conversation also turns to some of the pressures that sit quietly beneath day-to-day farming. Access to local abattoirs. Rising costs. And the uncertainty created by proposed changes to farm inheritance tax. Penny’s mother still legally owns the farm, which has made long-term planning difficult.
“The land looks valuable on paper,” Penny said. “But the business doesn’t earn that kind of money.”
Since my visit, some of that uncertainty has eased slightly following a partial government u-turn, which increased the proposed inheritance tax threshold for farms from £1 million to £2.5 million (or £5 million for a couple who jointly own the farm). For families like the Franklins, it has offered a degree of breathing space, but not certainty.
“It helps,” Penny said. “But we’re not out of the woods.”
Advice remains ongoing. Decisions are cautious. The focus, for now, is on keeping the farm working day to day while trying to plan responsibly for the long term.
Looking forward
With some of the bigger uncertainties still unresolved, the focus at Brightleigh remains on what the family can control. For Ellie, that means continuing to build confidence in the system they have created. Improving grazing. Learning from other farms. And finding ways to open the place up more to the local community. She talks about hosting more open days, welcoming school groups and sharing what they have learned about rotational grazing, livestock and working with the land rather than against it.
“We’ve gained so much from visiting other farms,” she said. “It feels natural to want to share that with others too.”
Nigel sees that openness as central to the farm’s direction.
“People want to know their farmer,” he said. “They want to understand where their food comes from and how it was produced. When you can offer that honestly, it changes the relationship.”
Rather than chasing scale or rapid expansion, the emphasis is on strengthening what already exists. Building resilience into the system. Deepening relationships with customers. Creating a farm that can support the family and remain rooted in place. Progress here is not about speed, but about intention.
Watch the film
To help bring this series to life, I am also filming and editing a short documentary episode from each visit as part of my Indie Farmer Stories project.
You can watch the Brightleigh Farm film over on the Indie Farmer YouTube channel by clicking here.
About the series
This article forms part of a twelve part Indie Farmer series supported by the Lund Trust and the High Weald National Landscape, exploring the realities of farming and food production across the region through long form storytelling and short documentary film.