Our opening date is announced!

                                                                                                                         We are pleased to announce that Fairytale Farm will be opening to the public on 25 May 2013. Times and prices will be posted here soon.

News Roundup

Much work has been done at Fairytale Farm over the summer.

The sensory trail path has been fully laid out and various activity panels have been installed. These include water play, interactive weather panels and giant musical instruments. Work has started on the sensory garden section, which will include raised planters and an arbour. This was made possible partly because of our donation from the Cotswold Conservation Board (see ealier news item).

Elsewhere, we have now laid the path through the main play area and concrete bases for the play equipment have been laid ready for installation over the winter. Several small animal field shelters have been installed in the animal zone and fencing has started to go up. More fencing will be erected over the next few months ready for opening at Easter 2013.

You can view a photo of the newly laid out sensory trail here (many features still to be added!) and the path through the play area here. One of our new animal shelters can be seen here. There are many more photos of daily progress at our Facebook page: www.facebook.com/fairytalefarm.

The Banbury Guardian ran a nice little article about our project in August. You can download a scan of this from here.

Finally, we are desparate for donations, volunteers and sponsorship. If you can donate anything to us - however small - it will be very gratefully received. This can be items such as building materials, benches, etc, or money. If you wish to send money, please send via PayPal to nick@fairytalefarm.co.uk. If you would like to be thanked for your donation  on our website and/or at Fairytale Farm itself, please let us know.

Thank you to everybody who has helped us so far. We are excited that our goal of opening in 2013 now seems to be achievable.

News item added: 1 October 2012

Progress with Enchanted Walk

Significant progress is being made with our Enchanted Walk, a series of fairytale-themed displays inside a series of mock shopfronts.

Designs for the displays have been produced for us by theatre set and costume designer Rhyannon Richardson (www.rhyannon.co.uk). The designs are Goldilocks and the Three Bears, Hansel and Gretel, Little Red Riding Hood and Sleeping Beauty. The Little Red Riding Hood designs can be seen to the right. (All the designs can be viewed in a special photo gallery).

Two of the sets (Little Red Riding Hood and Goldilocks) have now been built. They were created by a team of volunteers - Rhyannon Richardson, Robert Miles and Alan Bower - using workshops at the Academy of Live and Recorded Arts (ALRA), a Drama and Acting School based in London (www.alra.co.uk). A big thank you to Rhyannon, Robert and Alan for their work throughout August, and to ALRA for use of the workshops and equipment. View a photo gallery of the sets under construction here. 

The buildings in which these sets will be housed are now under construction and good progress is being made. View a photo gallery of the construction here.

News item added: 28 October 2012

Thank you!

A big thank you from everyone at Fairytale Farm to the Cotswolds Conservation Board. The Fairytale Farm project has received a grant for £5,500 from the Board's Sustainable Development Fund. This has allowed us to complete construction of our sensory trail, which is designed to inspire and educate children with disabilities and their brothers and sisters. We would not have been able to build this facility without this contribution from the Board.

The sensory trail is on an area of land of around half an acre and central to this is a series of features designed to encourage children to think about the environment around them, particularly those with sensory, learning and physical disabilities. The trail features the following items: sensory totems, sensory garden, water play area (where children can pump water and watch it move to different levels), rain wheel, mirror, arbour, willow tunnel and giant musical instruments. 

The Cotswolds Conservation Board is the organisation that exists to conserve and enhance the Cotswolds Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB). Established in 2004, the board is the only organisation to look after the AONB as a whole and is a statutory body created as a result of the Countryside and Rights of Way Act 2000.

The main aims of the board are to:
•to conserve and enhance the natural beauty of the AONB
•to increase understanding and enjoyment of the special qualities of the AONB, ensuring that these complement the conservation and enhancement of the area

The sensory trail will be open to the public on a series of special days this summer, then the whole of Fairytale Farm will open to the public at Easter 2013. For more information on the Cotswolds Conservation Board, please click here.

News item added: 24 April 2012