Farm ride organiser

Jackie Howard-Jones has made a success of farm diversification by offering rides in the glorious Chilterns

- Lucy Higginson

Our farm in the Chilterns is in an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty and was bought by my late father-in-law in the 1950s. 

My husband Ted and I run the farm now, but the soil is chalky and flinty and most of our crops are eaten by deer. We’ve diversified, and one day we met a lady business adviser who also rode and said: “You’re in a great area – why not consider rides from your farm?” 

We were sceptical at first, but we’re just five minutes from the M40 so we gave it a go and started mapping out self-guided rides.

That was about eight years ago and now we’ve had over 700 riders with their own horses to visit Cholsey Farm Riding. We’re just loading our routes into an Ordnance Survey app, too.

We offer off-road parking and 17 different-length routes around the area.