Carole Bamford and 20 years of Daylesford
It’s a sunny day at Daylesford Organic Farm in Gloucestershire and founder Carole Bamford is surveying the perennials with Jez Taylor, head of the market garden. Bounding between them are her dogs – two blond Labradors, Cassie and Olive, and a pair of Shih Tzus, Tequila and Margarita. “I had a few die recently,” she says of what used to be a septet of Shih Tzus. “Mimosa and Cosmopolitan died in 2021. Bellini, who I had for 17 years, passed away in March. Those are his granddaughters. Spice died in June.” Absent today and rounding off the list is Sugar. “They’ve all got their own [foibles].”
Now 76, Bamford is wearing the latest pieces from her eponymous clothing line: a white organic-cotton shirt and a waterproof khaki organic-cotton skirt: “So I can sit on a log in the middle of winter and not get my bottom wet,” she says of something she does quite often while walking the estate where she has lived for 30 years.
Some of the farm’s herd of Old Gloucester cattle © Max Miechowski
Bamford with Jez Taylor, head of the Daylesford market garden, and her dogs © Max MiechowskiHer official title is Lady Bamford. Or Baroness Bamford, after her husband Anthony Bamford, the chairman of JCB, was made a life peer in 2013 (having already been knighted) and took the formal title of Baron Bamford of Daylesford in the County of Gloucestershire and Wootton in the County of Staffordshire (their other farm estate). To staff at Daylesford, whose farm shop and café turns 20 this year, she is known as “Lady B”. But don’t call her Lady Bamford in print, she pleads. It isn’t the only honorific she resists. Shy by her own admission, she speaks softly and shrugs off big titles or big claims that might draw too much attention. With its requisite focus on her, this interview to mark the 20th anniversary of Daylesford often makes her squirm. Settled in the Chelsea Garden Room with a fortifying glass of sparkling rosé, she points to a stack of bracelets on her wrist. “I believe in the power of crystals,” she says. “I buy these in India. They bring calm. Today, I thought, I want to be calm.”
Since the farm shop and café opened in 2002, the Daylesford flagship location has grown to include a cookery school, wellness spa, Michelin Green-starred restaurant, bakery and patisserie, creamery, smokehouse and fermentery. Other properties include the nearby pubs The Wild Rabbit and The Fox, a string of rental cottages and four more farm shops with cafés in London. A new website just launched to meet the demand for Daylesford produce, which soared during the pandemic. Among Daylesford devotees is Boris Johnson, who reportedly had about £12,500 worth of Daylesford food delivered to Downing Street during the pandemic and this July hosted his wedding bash at Daylesford House (Lord Bamford is a Tory donor). In addition to Daylesford, Carole Bamford also founded her own clothing line (launched in 2007), which uses natural fibres, and bath, body and homeware collections that promote wellbeing. They are sold at Bamford stores in Mayfair, Bicester, Brompton Cross, Seoul and Tokyo and more than 75 other global stockists. All of which underpin Daylesford’s philosophy of “looking after the bigger picture of the world and the smaller picture of ourselves”.
Fresh produce from the market garden © Max Miechowski
The farm’s Tamworth pigs © Max Miechowski
Taylor picks an artichoke © Max Miechowski
Given the size of the operations – Daylesford employs 795 staff across the business with an annual turnover to March 2022 of £49.5mn – you would think words like “entrepreneur” or “businesswoman” would be fitting titles for Bamford. At Daylesford she basically originated the concept of luxury organic retail and the Bamford brand has been pioneering in sustainable fashion and organic beauty; Bamford herself has even been called the “British Ralph Lauren”. And yet: “I’m not a businessperson,” she counters. “I don’t identify as that. And when [people] talk about a brand, I never wanted a brand.” Her preferred title is organic farmer. “I identify with having a belief,” she says. “If you believe in something, things happen.”
The original Daylesford farm shop in 2006
Her other preoccupations at Daylesford include attaining B Corp status, while everything from dog snacks to vertical farming with hydroponics is in the pipeline. At one point she describes her role at Daylesford as “the visionary”, though she later baulks at this term and suggests instead, “I push people.” She says: “I go around and think, God, did I do all this? Until I talk to someone like you, I don’t take it in. I don’t have time. I’m on to the next thing. I’m a driven person. I always have been.” Where that drive came from she won’t say (“that’s personal”) but she notes how driven people are often shaped by childhood events: “They’ve either lost a parent [or] had to rely on themselves at a very early age. At 16 I thought, it’s up to me.”
The Bamford pantry
Daylesford Cotswold blue legbar eggs, £2.99
Daylesford organic parmesan biscuits, £7.99
Daylesford estate honey, £50 for 800g
Daylesford organic heritage tomato and chilli jam, £8.49
Bamford Geranium hand and body wash and lotion, £48
Bamford Orla Skirt, £315
Bamford Kiln tea set, £65
Of Bamford’s years before she married in 1974, little is known except that she was a grammar-school girl from Nottingham who became a flight attendant. “[When] you haven’t got anyone to lean on, it makes you self-reliant. That’s funny me saying that because people see me as a very lucky girl. And I am. I’ve got the support of my husband. Still, I didn’t need to do anything. But I did.”
“Nobody’s perfect,” she adds. And that includes her. Asked how she reconciles a jet-setting lifestyle with efforts to be sustainable, she concedes: “There is no answer to that. I’m guilty. I fly in a helicopter. I fly around the world. Journalists will chop my head off. But [what I do is] better than doing nothing. Lots of people that live my life do nothing. I used to feel guilty. I don’t any more.” What changed? “I grew a thicker skin.”
Time is up. I ask what the past 20 years of Daylesford have meant. “A lot of hard work,” she says. “But I work harder now. There is always more to do. Always more to learn.” And with that, she’s off, on to the next thing.
This story originally appeared on: Financial Times - Author:Ajesh Patalay
