A little about us…
(the farm history)
John Butler and his family moved from Henfield to Freshfield Lane at Latchetts Farm, Danehill with 6 cows and a bicycle in 1952. Through doing the milk round they managed to buy more cows and buy Heaven Farm to expand the dairy business. Through contract farming and tenancies, later joined by his Son David (aka. Dad) by 1980 built up the cow numbers to 900 cows.
John (Grandad) then started to diversify Heaven Farm as the dairy businesses moved the herds to larger farms and Heaven Farm became Grandad’s next project at home as he set up his camping business, Heaven Farm Leisure.
After the big storm in 1987 he cleared his beautiful bluebell wood into a nature trail and his daughter Ruth and her husband Colin set up The Stable tea rooms at the site and hundreds of thousands of visitors came to enjoy our beautiful farm and surrounding Sussex countryside, as well as his six grandchildren who spent their childhood with their Grandmother Margaret making camps in the woods and playing pooh sticks in the streams.
When the grandchildren grew up, Grant having joined the family dairy farming business decided to follow another childhood dream and set up his own gelato parlour in 2019 at Heaven Farm, naming the parlour, Latchett’s, after the first family farm down the road at Freshfield Lane.
Robert, another of John’s four children had also by this point joined to help his Father as he got older manage the campsites and nature trail as he became a co-owner of Heaven farm Leisure. In recent years Robert has added adult only camping, camping pods and expanded the campsites at the farm to include bushcraft activites and many other wonderful things to do to enjoy the woods and the beaurtiful farm.
In the last few years a number of activities have been added to the family farm including a playbarn for children, a crazy golf course and seasonal flower fields and pumpkin patches enabling visitors to spend the day here with the whole family.
Rachael, Grant’s sister has taken over the original tea rooms as Auntie Ruth and Uncle Colin decided to take a well earnt retirement in 2024! The Butler’s Pantry has both The Stables cafe and Sussex Barn restaurant and they have set up BBQs for the Summer to cater for the many visitors we have to the farm.