Farm Takes Over The Burlington for the School Holidays

With the school summer holidays in full swing, The Burlington care home in Shepperton set out to give local children something proper to do with their time off: an afternoon on a farm, without leaving Manygate Lane. Working with Browells Wood Pet Therapy, the home built a Farm Experience day designed from the start to bring children and residents together, with goats, sheep, pigs, ponies, cats, dogs, a tortoise and a flock of chickens as the reason to do it.

That pairing was the whole point. Rather than a holiday activity for children alone, or a quiet visit for residents alone, the day was planned so the two groups would spend it side by side: feeding animals together, sharing a craft table, sitting on the same patch of lawn. Browells Wood Pet Therapy already visits The Burlington often throughout the year, and the team there has seen first hand what those visits do for residents. Turning that regular friendship into a full day, open to the local school-age community, felt like the natural next step for both organisations.

Our team loves seeing residents’ faces light up whenever Browells Wood come to visit, so we wanted to build a whole day around that feeling and share it with local children on their holidays, said Margielyn “Margie” Gonzaga, Home Manager at The Burlington. Watching a child and a resident work out between them how to hold a lamb steady, or finish a play-dough model together, that is exactly the connection we hoped for.

More than 50 children came through the gates over the day, joining residents, family and friends across the garden and lawn. At the craft table, children and residents shaped play-dough side by side under a member of staff’s watchful eye. In the pony pen and the pygmy goat enclosure, grandchildren, residents and grandparents took turns feeding and stroking the animals together. A lamb dressed for the occasion in a pink bow was passed carefully between laps, and a tortoise, unhurried as ever, drew children and residents to the same spot on the grass to sit with it for a while.

For Kirsty Ford, Admissions Manager at The Burlington, that mix of ages is exactly what families ask about before they even move a loved one in. Families want to know what life here is really like, day to day, and whether it still feels connected to the wider world, she said. Seeing children and residents sit together with a lamb or a tortoise between them, working out how to introduce themselves and share the moment, answers that better than any conversation in an office ever could. That is the trust we ask families to place in us.

Browells Wood Pet Therapy shared its own thanks after the event, in a message that captured the spirit of the day as well as anything The Burlington could say about it. It was a great day, a spokesperson for Browells Wood Pet Therapy wrote. We cannot thank everyone enough who came to support us and who turned up to help. It really means so much to us, and we are feeling very blessed.

By the end of the afternoon, the day had raised £300 for Browells Wood Pet Therapy, money that goes directly back into the animals and the visits residents look forward to. But the total is not really the measure of what happened. For one summer afternoon, a school holiday activity and a care home garden became the same place, and children and residents filled it together.

Ameet Kotecha, Founder and Managing Director of Boutique Care Homes, said the event reflects what he wants every BCH home to build. The Burlington’s role in Shepperton was never going to stop at the people who live there, he said. Giving local children something meaningful to do in the holidays, alongside our residents and a partner like Browells Wood Pet Therapy, is exactly the kind of community we set out to build when we started Boutique Care Homes.

Days like this are why families choose The Burlington in the first place. Care so good, it speaks for itself, whether that is in the quiet routine of daily life or in an afternoon when a farm, and a generation of local children, turn up at the door.