As part of our 50th Anniversary celebrations, Robert Musgrave MBE, Vice-Chair of The Shallowford Trust, has been gathering personal reflections from people who have been an integral part of the remarkable Shallowford story through the past five decades. So, pull on your wellies, we’re going on a journey down memory lane! A new story will be uploaded every Thursday throughout 2026.
7. Serena Walcot
I thought Wow! What a privilege!
Sources: Serena Walcot Audio 21 Nov 25.m4a
Serena Walcot, Shallowford Project Manager 2005 – 2024, in conversation with Robert Musgrave MBE at East Shallowford on 21st November 2025.
I thought, wow, what a privilege.I actually live on Dartmoor, down the road from the farm, and I have all this countryside every day, that young people enjoy so much, but they only experience when they come to visit. I just wanted to share it more and more with people.
Some of the benefits of London children, inner-city children, coming to Shallowford? Just that it’s totally different. They experience dark skies, and quiet. Some of them didn’t like it, but most of them did. Most of them appreciated the complete difference. They learnt that you could grow things which they hadn’t thought about in London.
Something that always amused me was that having been driven all the way down here, but by-passing the towns, they had little idea that there were supermarkets and schools not far away. I remember at one meal getting the ASDA tomato sauce out and a child asked if I’d gone to Clapham Junction to buy it!
Shallowford was such a complete contrast for so many.
One of my earliest memoriesof Shallowford was around 1992 or 3. We had only moved to Dartmoor a short while before. I had been introduced to Elizabeth when she held her Tuesday evening Bible studies at Shallowford, which were so helpful in nurturing faith. I was subsequently invited to help when the Providence House families’ weekend took place that summer.
That was quite an eye-opener. Four or five old minibuses pulled into the yard and a very noisy bundle of people fell out, all shouting and greeting each other. And I remember being slightly intimidated. I thought, ‘oh my goodness, who are all this lot?’ They were just so noisy and I didn’t know any of them. But it was lovely. And I very quickly got to know them.
Quite soon after that, I must have come to a Providence Carol Service in London. It was just lovely. I remember as I arrived in the hall, there was a ripple of whispers – ‘that’s Serena from the farm’. Gosh, they all know me. Wow!
So next time it was the families’ weekend, I loved it because I knew most of them, and it was so special to see what a family it was, and how much they all loved the farm. The farm, as they called it, was so special to them.
I think Elizabeth Braund was a visionary before her time. From when she first started in Providence, she could see how important it was for children to meet together and to have something to do, and then to bring them first to Wales and later on to here was just amazing.
She was a woman of ideas. The family weekends were her vision.
I think that was a lovely idea to bring down the parents to see what their children had been up to, and perhaps the younger ones so they could see what they could do later on, and to give them all an amazing weekend. And we had many, wet ones, muddy ones, and tents blew away or leaked. Nobody ever seemed to complain. I was amazed.
The farm to city was her idea, and which of course was repeated after her death and is now a feature every few years. So that was an amazing thought, that that could actually happen. She said, ‘I’m going to bring the horses up to London’, and she did, and they stayed at Young’s Brewery overnight in Wandsworth.
She was not afraid to ask people. She had connections in high places and would always ask, and expect, and somehow got things. She had amazing ideas and went through with them.
I would like to know, if I visited in a few years’ time, that there was still the idea of family and love, so that when children got off the bus, there was always that smiling face, whoever they would meet. That visitors would know that it’s different here, and if you were nervous, you would have the confidence that these people would look after you and it was okay. It was safe. That there would always be lots of new experiences that they could all try.
And they still had the fire, and that apart from the middle of summer, the fire was lit in the house. I would hope that Shallowford can still provide a Christian input to all visiting groups, which I know has been valued in the past.
6. Willem Montagne
Very important moments
Source: 2 Willem Montagne 171025.m4a
Willem Montagne, retired Dartmoor Education Officer, in conversation with Robert Musgrave MBE at East Shallowford Farm, 16th October 2025.
When did I first get connected here? I’ll pin it to my daughter. She is 40, and I must have started working for Dartmoor National Park about two years after she was born, about 1987.But when I first came here, I was already several years into the job.
Something real going on here.
It’s funny, that this place, and its running, lies very much at the heart of what I felt about where National Park Education should be: providing real experiences for young people. There’s real farming going on here. There’s real contact with animals going on here. It’s missing out on those real experiences, which I find so sad for a lot of children.
I always I found Elizabeth’s approach to be kind of original, because I don’t think I’d come across anybody else doing something similar. Fitting in very much with my ideas of the importance of the direct contact, making sure you don’t deprive people of the touch and the smell and the direct experience, and always trying to open up experiences.
I had, quite frankly, very little idea about her background or where she was coming from. I knew there was a religious or evangelical zeal there somewhere.
Coffee on the go
I remember coming here and it was always wonderful because you’d come into the farmhouse, there would be all kinds of kids scattered around the house. There would be coffee on the go, breakfast on the go for the young, and you can muck in and have a nice sort of cosy chat, or longer expansive conversation with Elizabeth around the aga.
I would discuss whatever tasks the young people could do, sometimes quite ambitious jobs. Often conservation work in the morning, a hearty lunch, and then an afternoon walk to a curious part of the moor.
If I had one sentence to describe Shallowford I would simply say it was all for the good. Education for everybody all round. Always charming and positive.
Direct experience
The animals and the connection with the land it’s on, that is the important thing; and that’s something that’s a reality which a lot of children don’t get, or they don’t get that connection very strongly.
I’ve always felt all of my life as an education officer that I was fighting with certain, as I call it, ‘forces of darkness’, that seem to want to put something between children and direct experience.
Let’s say you’re taking a group out onto Dartmoor for a walk. You’ve got 101 reasons why you shouldn’t scramble up that tor, why you shouldn’t cross that boggy area, why you shouldn’t cross that stream, why you shouldn’t go over rough ground, why you shouldn’t go into a bramble or gorse patch.
I always felt my job was to give licence to be able to do those things. Because without those experiences, you just don’t learn a thing. That I think Shallowford has done well. The limitation of experiences for me lies very much at the core of what is not right.
I know that in my heart that children paddling in a stream is a good thing. Make it possible: there are risks, but minimize them and make sure it can be done.
Perspective
We took a group of young people onto the moor, and one lad couldn’t understand why people standing on a tor some distance away looked so small. For the first time in his life, he was learning about perspective.
On another occasion, it was a sunny day, and a cloud shadow crept across whole moor. A boy asked if it was pollution? He didn’t understand, because he had never experienced it before. Now he had.
I think these are very important moments. I hope Shallowford can continue to provide them.
5. Terry French
The great fire at Shallowford & other farming tales
Sources: 4 Terry French Main 16.10.25.m4a / 1 Terry French 16.10.25.m4a
Terry French in conversation with Robert Musgrave MBE at East Shallowford on 16th October 2025.
The barn on fire
I can remember that I was working with Richard Norrish over at Foxworthy. It was a Sunday afternoon, in the 1980s. I said to Richard, there’s hell of a smoke coming out from Shallowford, and he said, we’ve got to have a look. We jumped in the land rover, and we came out here, the barn was ablaze. It was a hay fire.
In the barn there were a lot of old bits, carts and things; so we took them out and put them down in the meadow for safety, and then the fire engines came. Now, of course, this is the new grand barn accommodation at East Shallowford.
Water troubles
I remember coming to Bagpark Manor and meeting Miss Braund, not many months after she first arrived in the village. I was working for Patrick Coaker at the time, and there was some trouble with the water, and we had to lay some pipes. That was 50 years ago.
Richard and I also ran some water for her at Shallowford. We were laying a water supply from the top fields running down. We were up there, somebody was digging the trench and Richard and I were laying the pipe along the trench and I said to myself, what’s that sticking out of the side of the trench? It was all telephone wires, you see, and we’d cut off the line down the valley.
That created merry hell with some neighbours, and the telephone engineer, when he came out wanted to make us liable; but he soon changed his tune when his van was stuck in the mud, and he needed us to tow him out.
Sheep shearing & other farming
I remember, too, with Richard putting the roof on the shippon after the old one blew off, and doing a little bit of stonewalling for Miss Braund; but it was sheep work I did most.
I was shearing sheep here, on and off for 25, 30 years, until I had my hips done, which was around 2007. I would come springtime for lambing. Then in May time and tail dock sheep for her. In June for shearing, as well, of course, for anything else that cropped up.
I taught Rosemary to trim the sheep’s feet. She just needed the confidence to do it, and when you’re telling somebody to do something, you’ve got to give them confidence and say, ‘you’re doing a good job’.
I could shear with electric shears when I was 14. I started with hand snippers, when I was about 8 or 9. And Grandfather, he didn’t mind me snipping away, even if I was making a mess with it. When I finished, he would tidy it all up. But you learn, you learn by your mistakes. Always, always watching, aren’t you? That’s how you learn.
I used to come to help get the sheep in. Miss Braund had a sheep dog, who was useless as that cup, and didn’t make any difference. So, she’s trying to get the sheep in one day and I came and I said, do you have a paper bag, Miss Braund? Of course. So, I took the paper bag, and I put a couple of stones in there, little pebbles in the bottom. The sheep are used to their nuts with feeding. I went out to the Barn Park gateway and just rattled the bag. And they all came running. Straight down over the hill, you see. I said, you learned all these little tricks from watching.
Shallowford and Benefits
Shallowford has done a lot of good for the kids. Some children never saw a cow, never saw a sheep, a pig, any kind of animal, till they came here; and they wouldn’t go near the sheep, so I said, ‘sheep’s not going to hurt you’.
I think she’s done a wonderful job for the children. They didn’t know – where their milk comes from, where their eggs come from. I think it’s definitely made lives a lot better for a lot of children that have been able to come here.
It’s a farm.
Miss Braund came but she didn’t change the farm as such, she changed the farming style to suit the students that were coming here, showing them how to look after the animals.
It hasn’t changed, the farm hasn’t changed.
4. Rosemary Bird
Co-founder the Shallowford Trust
Source: Conversations with different people
‘I don’t think you can underestimate the value of good role modelling. I do think you can sham it, and make it about yourself. About a good worker there is an authenticity. It is more than skin deep. When you scratch the surface, it is still there. It is like Brighton rock, through and through. That was Rosemary – through and through.’ Robert Musgrave.
‘She was one of those people for whom faith was something you stuck at and that stuck to you.’ Robert Musgrave.
‘She was a Christian lady who had no enemies, a fine human being with a deep faith, whose life was dedicated to the care and service of others.’ Rev Edgar Daniel.
‘Rose never seemed to lose her temper, even when we played tricks something rotten.’ Bob Read, one of the first members of the old Providence.
‘I always remember Rosemary’s greeting when I came to the farm, in a sing song voice saying, Well, hello-o-o-o.’ Doug, who came to the farm as boy, man and driver.
‘Rosemary was always the person that opened the door. She had this lovely smile and hello, which was just so friendly and welcoming, wherever she was.’ Serena Walcot.
‘My strongest memory was being on the farm during lambing, and one morning Rose woke me up at 3am, and asked if I would help her with some lambs that had been born in the field. I quickly got up and met her outside. It was a very cold and frosty night. We found the sheep with two lambs and Rose picked up the lambs; then looked at me and said, “you bring the sheep”. My hands were freezing, and the sheep’s fleece seemed to be covered in frost. I buried my hands in the wool, and they were so cold I thought they would drop off. Somehow, I managed to keep hold of the sheep, and following Rose and the lambs, we got safely to the shed. That’s when I learned what Rose’s work was all about.’ Phil Dorman.
‘Rosemary Bird was at Providence House long before me. She wasn’t there at the very beginning of the life of Providence. She came first, along with other willing volunteers, and it wasn’t long before she was drawn into the work with young people in the mid-sixties, while studying as a physiotherapist, then working as one at Westminster Hospital, along the Horseferry Road.
‘When the new Providence was opened in 1970, and there was far more demand for people’s time, she took a part-time job in Battersea, at St John’s Hospital.
‘My earliest memories of Rosemary at Providence House are of her arriving from the hospital, grabbing a quick lunch and straight into whatever was happening in the club, and the day not ending until the last sweeping was swept up and the last set of lights turned off.
‘When the project to the farm began in that first year of experiment in the autumn of 1975, it was goodbye to paid or salaried work for her for ever. Somehow it all worked out, until her fall in the winter of 2008, from which she never fully recovered, and finally passed away on Sunday 10th January 2010.
‘I never knew a woman so humble, so patient as Rosemary, who in her fitness worked all the hours God gave her, and in her weakness graced her room with a smile, a look with laughter in the eye. Even in her last wheelchair months, she spoke with a prescient movement of her eyebrows, an understated word that veiled a knowing.’ Robert Musgrave.
Last word from Rosemary herself, which was typical of Rose, not wanting to draw attention to herself:
‘But Elizabeth and I get on well because we’re totally different. Couldn’t be more different. I mean, she is somebody who has a flair for innovating things, and I will plod on and do the background things. But we are very different, very different.’ Rosemary Bird in BBC interview with John Govier.
3. Mark Butler
“It’s a Long Way from Battersea”
Mark Butler, Estate Warden, Duchy of Cornwall remembers Shallowford
I came to East Shallowford over New Year 1979, when I was 9 years old, being the youngest in a group of boys. It was with Providence House (youth club) and we came down in the old blue van. We walked to Widecombe in the freezing snow. I think I cried all the way.
I remember the boys – My mates Spencer,Leigh, Rickie, Darren, and Trevor – who the pony threw in the field, and his brother Tracy, who rode another pony that just sat down and rolled over. Mark Baxter was there who lived two floors above me behind the youth club in London. There were others, most of whose names are still in the visitor book at the farm. Mine isn’t. In truth I might not have been able to write in those days.
We went to Bellever, and got freezing cold in the river, then I lost my too big welly boots in the mud near the farm gate and had to go home in my socks. Although I knew we were on Dartmoor, I had no idea where it really was. We went to church, with a striking view of the hills. We all had tasks to do: washing up, peeling potatoes, mucking out the pigs. The first time I ever saw a pig was on the farm, and as an adult I have reared my own pigs. Miss Braund would tell us Bible stories, give us homework to do on the dining room table, and serve us hot orange juice by the great fireplace. Ever since I have had my own house, I always made sure there was a fireplace. There was a table tennis table in the barn, and also stacks of bedding straw, which we were told not to climb on – but of course we did.
I think it cost a fiver to send me down here for the week, and my Mum said it was the best fiver she’d spent to get rid of me for a week! When I got back home the first thing Mum did was put me in the bath.
I lived in Irving House, Livingstone Estate, close to Clapham Junction station and from our flat we could see the trains all day, every day, and heard them all the time. It was all a bit wild west living on that estate. I grew up close to drug dealing, police raids, and all sorts of goings on. When we were 15, 16, lads were getting into trouble, going to Feltham young offenders, in and out of Battersea Police Station. But I didn’t want that and started going to Providence House Youth Club, costing 2p collected in an old marmalade jar.. I wanted to get away and lead a normal life and think if I’d stayed there, I would have ended up like so many of the other lads; so as soon as I was old enough, I joined the military, and by 18 was in the Royal Marines and never looked back.
I spent many years in Plymouth, and lots of my training was on Dartmoor and learned to love the countryside, and once I was able to own a house, I made sure it was not in the city. I now live at Belstone on Dartmoor, in an old cottage, with great views across the moors. It’s a long way from Battersea, and I feel so privileged that a boy from the city can have this amazing outdoor job as an estate warden for the Duchy of Cornwall.
My interest in nature was stimulated all those years ago. In Battersea we would fish for eels at low tide on the Thames, or swim in the Queensmere pond on Wimbledon Common, or follow the deer at Richmond Park. Family holidays were in Cornwall, so from an early age I was introduced to the countryside.
Then one day before Covid, we heard on the news an item about an emerald brooch found in a chest of drawers that was being prepared for auction – linking back to Miss Braund and the farm. I couldn’t even remember the farm’s name, but worked out where it was on the map, and my then wife and I drove to Shallowford, and reconnected after all those years.
2. Debbie Dowman
“A Good Addiction”
Debbie Dowman first came to Shallowford on a school trip as a teenager, back in 1978 – and four generations of her family have continued the tradition.
I first came to East Shallowford Farm in November 1978 from Battersea County School and it was very cold. I didn’t know Providence House in London at the time, or the farm’s connection. . I had just had my thirteenth birthday and remember my dad dropping me off at school, because my mum was in hospital having given birth to my brother. My first memories of Shallowford – it was amazing. We were all so excited, it was so different to Battersea.
I remember in the barn they had a makeshift badminton court although the house was like it is now, apart from the horrible metal bunk beds upstairs. We used to call them prison beds. We loved the amazing open fire – I’d never seen anything like it. And I still haven’t even after all these years. We helped with household chores and one day we made a lemon meringue pie, I had no idea that meringue was made out of egg white, and that if you just keep whisking, it forms – it so fascinated me. Mind you, I have never made one since!
We would be driven to the village; but I did take a walk on my own one day, without permission. I wanted to go home, as some of the children hadn’t been too nice to me and I had enough. I walked to Widecombe where there was a phone box – it cost 2 pence a call. I phoned my mum and dad but there was no answer. Then I went to the shop and bought a big selection box, and sat on the wall outside. Suddenly, Miss Braund pulled up and said, Debbie, get in the car now. On my first visit, I wanted to go home, but ever since, I’ve wanted to come back.
I never returned on a school trip but in 1992 I returned with my family. By this time, I was involved with Providence House, and joined in with a families’ weekend. It was wonderful. I was really happy to be back – it was still the same, but now I was bringing my own kids. And now I am addicted, it is the best addiction you can have. Shallowford does something to you, you feel very much like it’s part of me, a family, it feels like home. It actually makes me feel closer to God for some reason, perhaps it’s the beauty of Dartmoor. It’s like you see his hand, his hand print there. I mean it’s beautiful.
Four generations of my family have been here. My mum and my dad, sisters and my brother, in fact my dad used to drive a group in the minibus here. My husband Shane, and our two children, and now each of their children, grandchildren and partners from all both sides of the family. My nephew Antony lives on the farm. I’ve been here as a punter, as a beneficiary. I’ve been here as a helper in the kitchen and with youth groups.
I think the changes to the farm have been so well done. Mind you, I do miss the chickens and the geese strolling around; and seeing somebody randomly walking past leading a cow. Each evening they would bring the horses in. I loved seeing that. I remember some of the outings we went on. We climbed Haytor, visited the Ten Commandments and visited a quarry, which was so muddy my friend’s boot came off. We had so many laughs. One thing is that each time I come down here, it’s different, so though you’re at the same place, the experience is always different.
If I had only one thing to describe Shallowford, I have just one word: Amazing. Oh, and it’s an addiction. It’s a happy addiction. One thing I’d like to end with: I think it’s really lovely that my daughter, Anita, is a Trustee at Shallowford, and who would have thought that back in the day!
1. Elizabeth Braund
Fifty years ago this day, Elizabeth Braund and Rosemary Bird had already spent their first Christmas and New Year on Dartmoor.
Nine months later, they would have been established at East Shallowford Farm, with the first group of young people there. Young people have been staying ever since.
In an interview with the BBC, Elizabeth said, ‘This idea of having them at all, came from me having lived among the families in south London and knowing very well the life of the housing estates and how cramped it is in many ways and how a lot of kids grow up there.
‘Young people see growing things and they may vandalise them, probably not realising what they are looking at, and very often don’t have the opportunity of going out of London into a real country situation. We wanted to give that opportunity. Here at Shallowford, they have to share in the life of an ordinary farm. And that means they have things to do in the house. And that means, too, they begin to work together.’
Elizabeth went onto say: ‘We’ve got a lot to be very, very grateful for in the way it has been and the people who have supported us along the way. Hundreds of kids and several generations have been part of this, and the young people who’ve grown up themselves and then come back to us, and have been a great help to us and come back again and again. We’ve enjoyed all that! In between all the upsets we have had! And there’ve been a few of those too!’
Elizabeth never wavered from the conviction of the value of the project, especially for those who stayed ‘long enough to have lasting effect.’
She never changed from that opinion.
Since those first pioneering days, hundreds, if not thousands of young people have benefitted from residential stays at East Shallowford Farm. Rosemary died in 2010 and Elizabeth in 2013, but the work of The Shallowford Trust continues.
This year we celebrate 50 years with a series of events and activities.