Gentleman farmer
Above: George Jessel at his Kentish home, Penstock Farm in East Brabourne (Kent Life Magazine)
Above: George Jessel's Kentish home, Penstock Farm in East Brabourne (Kent Life Magazine)
Above: George Jessell at the County Show (Kent Life Magazine)
Above: George Jessell (Kent Life Magazine)
George Jessel, farmer, cheesemaker, landlord, brand-new Ambassador of Kent, former chairman of the Country Land and Business Association and current chairman of the Kent County Agricultural Society, didn’t believe that Kent Life was serious about wanting to interview him for the ‘Character’ slot.
“When the showground first rang me and said that you would like to profile me, I said are you sure – I don’t think I’ve got to that elevated status in Kent yet, can you just double check?” George confesses. Eventually, once convinced it wasn’t an elaborate ruse, the message came through: “The man from Detling, he say yes!”
Typical George
It’s typical George, who is part larger-than-life extrovert (the hair, the hat collection, the bow ties!) and part extremely modest, all-round good guy. We’re sitting in his sunny conservatory at beautiful Penstock Hall Farm in East Brabourne, just after the 79th County Show and a few days before a much-deserved family holiday in Cornwall, yet he shows no sign of preferring a bit of time on his own to recover and reflect.
Born in Ashford in December 1957, George and his siblings grew up in Ladham House in Goudhurst, where their father, Sir Charles Jessel, and grandfather had both lived. The baronetcy running through the family goes back to George’s great, great, great grandfather, who was the first Jewish Master of the Rolls, Sir George Jessel; the eldest sons still rotate the names of Charles and George down the generations.
George went to school locally and at Milton Abbey in Dorset, where he was very active in the school corps, before travelling to New Zealand, Australia and India.
You didn’t have a gap year back then, you basically travelled to become a man
“You didn’t have a gap year back then, you basically travelled to become a man – and I came back looking like God, with a beard and long hair, to my parents’ horror,” laughs George.
The hair soon got shorn, however, and he went into the Army and was a commissioned officer for four very happy years, leaving to attend Cirencester agricultural college before coming home to “knuckle down” and farm with his father.
George married his wife Vicky in 1998 – the couple have two children, Amelia, nine, and Charlie, eight – and his big farming break came two years later when they bought Penstock Hall.
“It was owned by a very old Kent family and we had 800 acres bordering this 500-acre arable farm with redundant building and a house that desperately needed a family to live in it,” George recalls.
With foot and mouth decimating farming in 2001, there wasn’t too much competition to buy the farm and he and Vicky have thoroughly enjoyed turning it into the lovely family home it is today.
Settling in
The Jessels have settled well into their community. “I enjoy shooting and we have a hunt meet here every year and I climb aboard a horse for that that,” says George.
“I’m also very keen on the Wye beagles – I’m passionate that the rural world has its own life and it’s too easy in this modern world to discard it as no longer being relevant, or cruel. Things like hunting and beagling, carnivals and village quiz nights are vital to rural life.”
George also works closely with Brabourne School, the local primary, doing pond dipping with the children and taking them to his neighbour’s dairy unit to show them how cows are milked.
George describes himself as a diversified farmer: “I have a suppler herd, I share grassland with a next-door neighbour, whose heifers I rear, and I use his milk to go into my cheese plant, which is located in my old dairy buildings, and then on my arable side, I am a share farmer with Andrew Martin, who is using my rape to press to make rape oil.”
Part of the diversification process is the Kent Cheese Company, which George started this January at South Hill Farm. “I’d got rid of the cows two years ago and suddenly had all these empty dairy units and it was such a forlorn sight, and I’d had such happy memories of cows being milked,” he says.
“I have a real soft sport for cheese and my original plan was to make one cheese, a Penstock Blue, so I went on a cheese course in Cheshire and realised that I couldn’t do this by myself.
“I teamed up with a cheesemaker from Brogdale, Geoff Parker, and we’ve made four cheeses – a goat, a semi-hard called Kentish Crown, Brabourne Brie and a Camembert called Chaucer’s Choice,” he says.
“The Kentish Crown won an award in the British Cheese Awards, which is really good news in our first six months of trading.”
The general public is looking at agriculture and realising that we do a very good job and they want to take an interest in it
While George still dreams of producing his Penstock Blue, he has also launched an unusual fifth variety as part of British Cherry Day, held on 19 July - the Cherry Down Cheese, made with brandy-soaked cherries.
When he bought Penstock Hall, George also acquired a number of redundant farm buildings, which he has converted into business units and now has as tenants Kent Downs AONB, Kent County Council Public Rights of Way and, most recently, Action with Communities in Rural Kent.
Last but not least is his wife, who runs a millinery business, Get Ahead Hats, in a unit that used to be George’s office. Converting one final building into an office for his own use is now one of George’s main projects for 2009.
“As a farmer, you either concentrate on your core business, ie agriculture – pigs, chickens, corn or whatever - and do a really fabulous job, or you’re like myself and you look over the fence and think, right, I’m very good at that, but I’m better off if I share it or go into contract with another farmer,” he says.
Cooperative believer
“I’m a great believer in cooperation. For example, I like to find a tenant before we finish a building, so they are involved in the whole process. Half the fun is that we do work as a team here – I’m an extrovert type of chap and I need people around me.”
And working well in a team has stood George in good stead in his role with the County Show, an event that has been part of his life since family visits as a child, becoming a steward, joining the committee and working his way up to his current position as chairman.
“Our County Show is the only place where the livestock, the horticulturists, anyone who produces in Kent, can exhibit and re-engage with the public. It’s the biggest event in Kent every year,” he says with pride.
While this year’s attendance was slightly down at just over 90,000 – 8,000 down on previous years - it’s not half bad in the current climate, and Kent is actually riding high in the top five per cent of county shows in the UK.
Half the fun is that we work as a team here – I’m an extrovert type of chap and I need people around me
And as George says: “This year’s Show had a fabulous atmosphere and it reflects that farmers and agriculture are suddenly playing an important part in the county. I think this has come about because we’ve got increased final price – which admittedly is offset by increased inputs, ie fertiliser and fuel – but at long last farmers feel we are being taken seriously because of food security.
“The general public is looking at agriculture and realising that we do a very good job and they want to take an interest in it. I’m determined to make our County Show a spectacular focal point for the county, somewhere where you can meet kindred spirits, take the family and find out something about Kent you never knew before.”
The Detling site is also going through a massive change, with aspirations to becoming a centre of excellence for equine via partnership with Hadlow College, and a 2012 training camp.
“By bringing Hadlow into the County Show, we create a legacy – we are doing something that for 30 weeks of the year will be used as a higher education campus for Hadlow College, and when it’s not being used, those building can be rented out for other events, such as the pony club camps, or carriage riding. The County Show will also have lovely new buildings to operate out of.”
Great expectations
But, warns George: “We can’t just expect people in Kent to buy local if it’s not very nice, and if they think that French cheese is better than mine, they’ll quite rightly buy the French one. So that makes me stand up and say, right, I’m jolly well going to make a nice cheese!
“We’ve had to change, we’ve had to pick ourselves up and say, right guys, we’ve got to get better at what we’re doing and reconnect with the public, and I think that’s why organisations like Produced in Kent are so important, because one way a farmer can re-connect, if he doesn’t want to do it through mediums such as the public and the press, is through Produced in Kent.
“It’s all about re-engaging and survival and I think Kent’s worth hanging on to. Agriculture is the backbone to the county and we have a beautiful county here. Our motto is Invicta, which means unconquered, so let’s hold our heads up high – let’s be good at something and when we’re good, let’s shout about it.”