Who We Are

Welcome to the first of our Hitchin Lavender blog posts!

Through these posts, we shall be updating you on the farm – how the field is looking, what you can do with the bunches you have picked, how we are caring for our lavender in and out of season – as well as giving you useful information on how to care for your lavenders at home.

Having brought the Victorian pharmacy Perks & Llewellyn back to life we would like to share with you what we found out about our own local history. We shall be periodically posting about the people and the places that made up the grand tradition of lavender farming to keep these memories very much alive.

But, as this is the first post, we thought it would be a good idea to introduce ourselves, who we are and what we do.

Hitchin Lavender is a 25 acre, family owned, pick your own lavender and sunflower farm situated on Cadwell Farm in Ickleford – North Hertfordshire. The farm, which has been operating since 17^th Century, has been in the Hunter family for over a hundred years, but the rows of lavender were not planted until 2000.

When Alec Hunter put those first purple plants in the chalky earth 17 years ago, no one anticipated what would happen next.

Although originally intended to only be an agricultural business to sell oil at local farmers markets, after shots of our fields had been included in local and national publications, it soon became apparent that people were dying to come and spend some time amongst the lavender.

Since 2009, tens of thousands of tourists have flocked to us from all over the globe to come and enjoy the purple.  The café and shop, situated in a 400 hundred year old barn, has developed from a small operation, selling a few products – we literally used to be just a tea urn and a table! – to a bustling outfit selling hundreds of lines of lavender related cosmetics and souvenirs, as well as a range of delicious homemade comfort food.

From then until now, it has been the mission of Tim and Maria Noel Hunter to not only strive to improve this business and the experience of customers, but inspire community in the area. Through fundraisers for local charities, giving talks to primary schools, brownie and beaver troupes, as well as endeavouring to use British independent suppliers, Hitchin Lavender has always been a place for everyone to share in our successes.

If you have never been before and would like to make a trip, for more information, find us at www.hitchinlavender.com, like us on Facebook www.facebook.com/hitchinlavender) or Twitter (our handle is @HitchinLavender).

Also please subscribe to the blog, we shall be updating every week on everything lavender!

If you have any further questions, check out our FAQs tab on our website. If that doesn’t help then do not hesitate to contact us.

We hope to see you in the future!

Will

Hitchin Lavender