Rupert Isaacson: Thanks for joining us.
Welcome to Live Free, Ride Free.
I'm your host, Rupert Isaacson, New York Times bestselling author of
The Horseboy and The Long Ride Home.
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So now let's jump in.
Welcome back.
I've got Laura Chesterfield.
Laura Chesterfield knows about a sense of place she knows about
story and how to connect with story.
And why she is so
tied up with bound up with this idea of place and home is because
she has spent the last 10 years working for and subsequently running
the Lost Gardens of Halligan.
And for those of you who know what they are, you'll go, ah, immediately.
Anyone who's ever been there goes at the, at the name alone because it's
a little piece of heaven on Earth.
And those that don't know it and that discover it, it's one of
those epiphanies it's it Cornwall.
Southwest of England.
I'm gonna let Laura tell us about it and how this became really a family home and
what is important about carrying a sense of place or curating a sense of place
also for others nature and the mind comes into this, horses come into this family.
Let's let Laura kick this off.
Thanks for coming on, Laura.
Laura Chesterfield: Pleasure.
Lovely to see you.
I hope.
Rupert Isaacson: Tell us, tell us about your, your interesting,
amazing family and this halligan malarkey and how it all came to be.
Laura Chesterfield: Halligan malarkey.
Gosh, it is such, it's such a long story.
I'm gonna try and not cut it short, but sort of, condense it, I suppose,
because there's such a long a long history of hell ligan and a long
history for my family and, and then a different history for myself.
But the Los Gardens are halligan as you've as you've introduced is it's
just a, a stunning garden in, in Cornwall down on the coast of Mei, which
is a sea south fishing harbor town.
And it, it basically fell asleep.
It was lost.
After the war, the gardeners went off to war and they didn't return, and it fell
asleep exactly as it was, you know, and, and when it was first come across and
rediscovered, if that's the right word the tools were all still exactly where they
were left, you know, and, and the gardens were just completely overgrown and.
There was a real feeling of, gosh, yeah.
What happened in that moment?
What, what, where, where did what was going on before that moment?
And real intrigue, a real sense of loss, a real sense of it having been an important
place for people and very much alive.
And then suddenly that being concealed and, and, and ready
for people to bring back to life.
And so my father was part of the, the small group of people who sort of happened
to come across it with the landowner who had just inherited it from the TMA estate.
And he didn't really know what he was I inheriting and he, he, to
meet my dad one day because my dad was actually looking for land to
turn into a rare breed farm park.
And he, he, we were obsessed with pigs.
We moved from London to Cornwall.
Our family were obsessed with pigs and rare breed animals.
And my dad suddenly said, hurrah, let's open a rare breed farm and, and,
and get everybody wild about animals.
And, and met John Willis who'd inherited this land, who then happened
to say, oh, I've inherited a space.
Would you like to come and have a look?
I don't think it's suitable as a rare breeze, farm park, but you know,
really exciting to go and have a look.
And really the rest is history.
They went, they came across underneath.
You know, my memory as a child is of these brambles being, you
know, 10 foot high, you know, and it being just a sort of jungle of
possible adventure and curiosity and.
And they, they went into the gardens and started sort of uncovering the buildings,
the working buildings, and came across one particular room that's called the Thunder
Box room, which you can imagine what went on in there, the toilet and on the
wall of the thunder box room, they came across the signatures and dates of the
gardeners and they'd signed on that wall the day before they went off to, to, to
fight in the world in the First World War.
And it was such a moving.
Thing for, for that group of, of people to come across to realize that, you
know, that story of the gardens had sort of ended or gone to sleep at such a
prominent historical moment that carries so much pain and history and, and all
sorts of things was just so moving.
And so the gardens were then restored in the name of those loft gardeners and
always have been, and still now, you know, 35 years later, those gardens very much
the, the respect for the gardeners that were there before, their skills, their
dedication, their expertise in, in their gardening and their food production and,
and their knowledge actually of just the natural world and science and our place
in the natural world and, and how we fit as humans amongst it inspires to this
day kind of what goes on at Halligan.
So it is got a real sense of.
People at the heart of it and working people, you know, not the people that
were in the big house, but actually working gardeners that really had those
skills and dirt under their fingernails.
And, and, and so the restoration began, you know, it was like a bunch of kids,
even though they were adults, everyone felt like they'd stepped into the pages
of the secret garden, you know, and you know, what's around this next wall and
what's the, through this next door and what are we gonna all find together?
And it was very much, you know, a group of people doing that together on this curious
adventure and learning as they went.
And that was 35 years ago.
And so for me, I grew up as.
It tells you my age now, doesn't it?
But a sort of 6, 7, 8, 8, 9-year-old going every single day in the family
of Volvo up to this, you know, this piece of land covered in brambles and
watching yet another fire get started and another building get uncovered.
And not quite understanding really the scale of what I was involved in
or what I was seeing, but just knowing that it was just really exciting,
you know, and, and felt important and it brought people together.
And, and I think that's the thing that has stayed with me the whole
time, is that it's about what people can actually do together.
When it's about something important and, and, and something fun.
You know, going on an adventure, it's, you know, the ultimate.
Thing you wanna do as a kid, isn't it?
And seeing adults still doing that was really infectious.
So, so I've been there since I was a small kid.
And you know, my, my mom and my dad then ran the business alongside other
people and it opened up to the public.
I mean, the public came in before it was even open.
It really captured the hearts of a nation, you know, just sort of seeing this amazing
place and hearing the stories and, and seeing normal people fall in love with
it and want to uncover it, you know?
And so I've watched that and, and it's become a place that.
My family have been, and it's been like a, a sixth member of my family.
And so I've had really personal moments there.
You know, I, I've spent years just kind of going up at seasonal moments, going
for walks with family, going with people who are no longer alive, grandparents,
friends but also getting married there to my husband and, you know, so really.
Touching moments where it sort of feels like a, a home from home if you like.
You know, if I was religious, that would be my church kind of thing.
You know, that sort of connection that you get something really
meaningful and spiritual from it.
And for me, for many years it was exactly that.
And then a turning point in my career, which historically had been studying
horses, studying land management had also been counseling and therapeutic practices
and working within police stations.
So, so really nothing to do with horticulture whatsoever.
At a real sort of transitional moment in my life when I had children, it
was the right moment to come and learn about the family business and
to come and take on a, a project which was all about animals at that point.
And it was starting the bury farm park.
And so I joined the family business nearly 10 years ago.
And in my favorite job I've ever had, which was the livestock coordinator
looking after the animals, starting a berries farm park and, and really kind
of adding another layer of how people engaged with the space at Halligan through
animals and animals place in nature.
I suppose I'm
Rupert Isaacson: rambling
Laura Chesterfield: bit Ruth, but you need to mention
Rupert Isaacson: now a lot, a lot of Brits are quite familiar with Halligan
because there was a TV show, there was the book, your dad's book about, you
know, finding that door in the war and opening out into it is exactly as you say.
You basically had the secret garden as your childhood.
You, you know, a lot of us agreeing with envy.
But the, the people who are listening in from say the UUSA
and other parts of the world.
They don't know, you know, a garden.
Okay.
The gardens are nice.
You know, there's a lot of big country houses that have nice big
gardens, and they're all lovely.
They're all magical to some degree.
I want you to talk us, you, you've touched on the fact that the garden is actually
not, the big house is still there, but the garden as it stands, is the garden.
Mm-hmm.
But it's so much more than a garden.
I want you to paint the picture for us.
Take us on a ver, take us on a tour through the Lost Gardens of Halligan, just
so that those people who are not familiar with it can really taste this magic.
'cause this is, and, and, and those people, by the way, who don't
know Cornwall, Cornwall is one of the magic places of the world.
It's the Celtic Fringe.
They have pixies.
Living forest.
There are, it's, it's, it's a place where the veil between the supernatural and the
na, you know, the natural is very thin.
The Arthurian legends are largely based there.
You know, tin Taal Castle, working Arthur is supposed to have been born Sary pool
where Excalibur supposed to have come up.
This is, this is the type of landscape we're talking about and
sort of these deep ravines with old Celtic rainforest in them.
And then these, you know, smugglers, coves, you know,
down on the, on, on the coast.
The reason why everyone in pirate movies speaks with an AR accent, because that
is actually the accent of Cornwall, which sticks out into the Atlantic there.
Yeah.
I'm
Laura Chesterfield: putting on a voice today.
Yeah.
So,
Rupert Isaacson: so, so take us in because there's a lot more I want
to ask you, but, but guide us now.
Okay.
The listener has arrived at Halligan.
Take us through.
Laura Chesterfield: Okay.
So you've really, this is quite a task, isn't it?
It
Rupert Isaacson: is.
Laura Chesterfield: To compete with actually being present in the space.
Just
Rupert Isaacson: do it free flow.
Laura Chesterfield: Free flow.
So I mean, I think with Halligan it's.
You are absolutely right.
There's, there's hundreds of gardens and they're all beautiful and, and
I think what is really special at Halligan, there's a number of things,
but we're not the best at anything.
But we have so many ingredients.
The variety is like where this, this very special place on earth where you
have woodlands, you have meadows, you have water, you have walled productive
gardens, you have a jungle, you have all these different ingredients.
You have an Italian garden, you have a flower garden, you have a scented
garden, you have Rockies, you have farmland, and actually all these
different habitats in one place.
And all these different, also incredible plantings, you know,
the great plant hunters bringing back some incredible species is.
It's just the diversity of it feels joyful and optimistic.
I think that's how it feels for me.
Mm-hmm.
Is to be able to see all those things at once rather than some locations
you might go to and they, they do one thing brilliantly or, or they have
two different 'cause sort of habitats.
Having all of it in one place is really, really special.
And I think also with GaN, we are not a museum, so I've already talked a little
bit about the history of the place.
So some people might be thinking, oh, you know, it's another sort
of historical place and it's not.
It's, it's alive.
It is absolutely alive.
We are a working estate, so we have all of the, the, the livestock there.
They are, they are managing the land.
They have a job.
There's no field ornaments.
They are absolutely managing our landscape and they're doing that regeneratively and
they're doing that in harmony with nature.
We, you know, we have productive wall gardens growing.
Every month of the year.
Food that is then given, you know, fed to our visitors in our kitchen and actually
showing those skills of 3, 6, 5 growing, especially in the seasons that we get in
Cornwall, which my God is a challenge.
I mean, these, the gardeners we have are magicians.
I mean, I call it magic.
To actually know those skills of how to work with nature, how to work with the
science of nature as well as kind of, you know, everything nature froze us is magic.
And it is a dying knowledge set actually that we have today.
And I think part of the magic for people coming around is seeing that
that still exists, that it's still cherished, it's still put on a pedestal.
It's still something that we champion really actively, that we should
all know where our food comes from.
We should all care about where our food comes from, and we should all, and.
Have some knowledge that it's not just delivered on a shelf in Tesco's,
you know, and, and actually to come and be on a working estate and seeing
it happening around you, we don't, you know, they don't change what
we do every day for the visitor.
The visitor has to kind of, sometimes, you know, where are the cows?
Well, a grazing over there, you're gonna have to walk further to see them.
They're not put on show just for the people coming to visit.
And I think it's the magic of seeing.
A space that is alive actively with so many different habitats is very magical.
But it's also, it is not just the beauty of it, it is the, you know,
we've talked a little bit about the loss and the landscape, but actually
having these layers on the space people, people feel it and they talk about hell
being a healing place all the time.
And it's actually an anagram of the word healing, which we've always
sort of felt very apt because so many people come to halligan experiencing
loss, experiencing pain, experiencing bereavement and difficulty.
And there is just a real feeling of the place having a history behind it of.
Sharedness, I guess, you know, of humanness and being a space that is open
for people to feel and be in whatever emotional state they want to be in.
So the landscape is really healing because we kind of celebrate the
fact that it's, you know, there's loss, there's abandonment, but
there's restoration, there's human hands, and this huge sense of time.
You know, when, when I walk around and look at some of my favorite trees,
which I've actually walked with you, you'll remember some of those oak trees,
you know, maybe nearly 200 years old.
And the stories they've seen, the things they've seen, they give you a real sense
of place and time and, and that, and that just connects you, you know, it
just connects you in a different way to walking around a, a more kind of
perhaps formal garden that's sort of very structured for the visitor, perhaps.
Yeah.
And so you'll walk around and you'll, you'll, I think also at
Elegant, what's special is that you can kind of lose yourself in the
place in whichever way you want to.
So we of course get some visitors that they want a map and they
want a prescription, and they wanna know where to go and how
to feel and how this is gonna be.
But for us, we're like, go and lose yourself.
Go and switch off from the outside world.
Go and just find your experience.
You know?
And there's certain parts of that that are absolutely curated, but in
a way for people to experience it in, in the way that they need on that,
on any given day, whether they're in a large group or on their own.
Rupert Isaacson: I think, I think there is a story that needs to be
told, which is sort of how this is, well, you, you mentioned the jungle.
Yeah.
And you mentioned the, the plant hunters.
And you mentioned that feeling of being lost and timeless.
So Cornwall has this microclimate within.
The UK and the Northern hemisphere where you can grow some sub tropicals
and tell us about the Tremaine family and the plant hunters and how they got
going with this and created that jungle.
And then take us through that jungle.
'cause I feel that that jungle is, that is sort of, to me,
the wild heart of Allergan.
Do you know what I mean?
There's something, it's like you go in there and you rewild you reset.
So, so tell us about the Tremaine family.
How did they get, why did they create this jungle?
What were the plant hunters?
And then bring us up to the present day.
Laura Chesterfield: Okay.
So, I mean, I'm gonna start by saying I am not a horticulturalist and I'm not gonna
pretend to be as incredible as, as some of our horticultural team or our historians
in terms of how I tell the stories.
But I think what's I think the space, as you say, is really wild because
to actually have a, a jungle you can go to that's not a, a captive jungle.
It's not it, it is really wildly cared for.
It does its own thing.
And, and being in the climate that we're in, that's so unusual.
You know, normally you'd need to be flying to a different
continent to experience that.
And it's, you do step back in time because you are transported to a place
where nature is being natural, you know, and it's doing its thing naturally.
And it's, you're seeing growth, but you're seeing decay.
You're seeing.
All of the seasons and how they kind of work together and, and, and
that in itself, it just transports you from wherever else you are.
'cause you can't hear any, anything from the modern day.
So you could be transported back to the 1920s and you wouldn't know
because it's just so peaceful and.
And that's really rare actually to have that and to be
completely immersed by plants.
Also quite rare, you know, there has been so much deforestation and
so much kind of controlling nature across, certainly across the uk.
That to go somewhere that you are absolutely immersed with Gunnar
leaves that are, you know, 10 foot high and tree ferns that are historic
and ancient is a really unusual thing for the senses to be around.
That just really does something for people, which is why it's probably
the number one thing people come to Halligan to see, actually, because
they, they feel a sense of adventure.
'cause people wanna come to places like us for fun, you know?
Yeah.
Experience.
They might not get somewhere else.
And then, yes, on the other hand, it is also about people that are, you know,
really interested in the horticulture and the history of the plants and,
and those, those adventurers if you like, you know, from way back when they
would go to other continents and bring
Rupert Isaacson: who, who were these adventurers?
Who were the tain, you know?
Yeah,
Laura Chesterfield: yeah.
So I mean the, the Tain family, Jack Tain, I mean, there was many
generations that sort of built and created different parts of the gardens.
They.
You know, they were of a generation where it absolutely was about showing
off some wealth and you know, having a garden with all these different
plants and it bought from, this is
Rupert Isaacson: sort of back in the early 19th century, right?
Yeah.
Late 18th, early 19th century.
Laura Chesterfield: Yeah.
So there's definitely showing off involved.
You know, look what I've got.
Look what I've brought back.
Look at all of these specimens that we brought back, and there's a lot of, you
know, there's a lot of historical parts,
Rupert Isaacson: but they were colonialists, right.
And empire builders, and they went out to these exotic places and brought
back these, these plants, right?
But that, that, that was as you, as you say, I mean, it wasn't
just a trophy thing though.
I mean the, these were clearly people who had a real feel for
nature in a certain way.
Laura Chesterfield: Yeah.
Right.
Yeah.
I think, you know, today isn't about going down the, the political side of
you know, of, of what was happening at that time and, and, and in those days.
But they certainly were in tune with nature of, of recreation attached to
nature, you know, and that actually.
Their enjoyment in a day.
What they would do for fun would be to immerse themselves in these spaces, to
take friends, guests into these spaces.
You know, they would have ornamental dwelling gardens that they built
for for spending time in, you know?
Yeah.
And how built these gardens.
There was definitely obviously the operational parts that were about
providing food, but there was definitely these, the recreation, the beauty, the
being amongst nature, which they very much understood and did at scale, you
know, and, and did in a way that was to bring species back that many other
areas maybe wouldn't have bought back.
But that also our habitat being so close to the sea, you know,
that, that some of those water,
Rupert Isaacson: right.
And it's, it's quite rare to see, I mean, you go to a place like Q
Gardens, like a proper jog, botanical garden, and it's always awe inspiring.
Laura Chesterfield: Yeah.
Rupert Isaacson: But as you say, when these guys brought back.
These giant tree ferns, these, they then let them create a jungle similar
to the jungle that they went to, to go and get these things that I think
was almost unheard of at that time.
Normally people formalized it, you know, you'd say, here is the tree
fern, you know, here is the thing.
But to, to plant them in the way that down, that the ravine.
So for, for listeners and viewers, you've got to imagine that you enter
this ravine and it's suddenly like you're in South America or New Zealand
or these giant galleries of tree phones.
Laura Chesterfield: Yeah.
Rupert Isaacson: That absorb sound, and I think that's one of the things that
creates that feeling of timelessness.
Yeah.
Laura Chesterfield: Yeah.
Absolutely.
Rupert Isaacson: What was it about these people, do you think that made them
so unusual that they would kind of.
Create a rewild place like that, not a formalized place.
It's, it, it's unusual.
Laura Chesterfield: It is.
It is unusual.
And I mean, there's probably many reasons for it, but I think it was like a hobby.
It, it was the, the going on the adventures, the bringing the prize
back, the seeing, you know, and, and obviously enjoying being in
nature and feeling the good of that, which has been lost since then.
A little bit, you know, in, in more modern generations, as we know, people are,
are losing that connection to nature, then people are not as aware of it.
And actually I think that they were, you know?
Mm-hmm.
And there wasn't all the modern day things that we have right now,
you know, that get in the way of that it nature was very present and
people were very dependent upon it.
Yeah.
And they had the money, they had the wealth, they had the connections
to enable that and, and a very special climate down in Cornwall.
I mean, the Cornish Gardens are famous and they are unique, not just Halligan,
but other Cornish gardens as well.
You know, the, the climate being so close to the sea, you know, the gardens
here are very different to what you would see near a London or, or or
further north in the uk because of the specimens that do do well here for sure.
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
It's, it, it's also not just a, a garden where you look at plants or
woodland or these obviously these giant cathedral like roded entrances
that you can go climb around it.
It is extraordinary.
But there's also a lot of art.
Tell us about.
The art, the mud made the giant, this stuff, you know, talk, talk us through.
'cause it, it's a real place of the imagination, I feel.
Laura Chesterfield: Mm, yeah, definitely.
Definitely.
I mean, the sculptures, the sculptures really capture people's imaginations.
And we've worked on, we've just opened the fourth sculpture by the same local
Cornish artist, Sue and her brother Pete Hill who created four very different
sculptures at GaN that are all inspired by different elements of folklore and nature.
And.
Playing, you know, very playful.
And, and it's, it's a really beautiful side of the space, you
know, that encouragement to be silly and to be creative and to allow
those parts of yourself to come to life and to be accessed and to
tell stories and make things up.
And I think the sculptures do exactly that.
They encourage families regularly to sit there and talk about, you
know, the Mud Maid in particular.
You know, what,
Rupert Isaacson: can you describe the mud maid for us?
Laura Chesterfield: Yeah.
No, you mean she's such an iconic sculpture.
She's a sleeping maiden made from moss.
And you find her in our, in our woodland walks of lying on
her side, peacefully asleep.
She's dreaming and she's called the mud made, and she's just magical.
She's so beautifully created that she's part of the landscape.
So she really.
Feels very natural.
There's a real spirit about her, a real energy of, you know, some people think
of her as being like mother Nature.
Some people, she's a character of in a different way.
That's about stories.
Some people it's about nighttime and what happens after dark.
And she's.
She just captures everyone's imagination.
I mean, people go straight there and you hear people of all generations telling
each other their stories of what you know, whether it's about what she's
dreaming about or who she's friends with at night when we all go home.
You know, and it's, she just captures.
The spirit of the place.
I think that playful side and that folklore side, which as you've touched
on is, is ever present in different ways.
So you have the mud made, you also have the giant's head which was made
out of the stump of a tree that fell many years ago, back in the nineties.
And it's this sort of giant peeping out of the soil and it's just his head and face
and all his grass is creating this really funky hair doing big eyes and a huge nose.
And in the years since he was born as such, you know, he's got older and he is
got more and more facial hair and more and more facial crevices and is very
much alive, you know, and part of nature.
And I think that's again, what.
What these sculptures kind of get you to think about is people being
part of nature, nature being part of people, and actually that sort
of yeah, working together and, and not separate from one another is,
is probably the deeper side of it.
But you know, again, where does the giant go after dark and who is he friends
with and where are the other giants and all that stuff that there's books
and all sorts of things written about these sculptures that, you know, kids.
Know them as characters, as if they're actually people, you
know, and the GaN giant is a, is a character and, and that's wonderful.
You know, it's such a great way to transport people to that, you know, that
part of their minds to be creative and to.
To wonder and to make things up and to be silly and to have that
imaginative play as they go.
Then we've got a third sculpture, which is the gray lady I
Rupert Isaacson: was gonna ask you about the gray lady.
Laura Chesterfield: Yeah, we like the gray lady, don't we?
We've had,
so there, I mean, again, it's folklore, it's historical folklore and quite a
little bit darker because there are lots of stories of historically seeing this
gray lady after dark at sunset, walking the gardens and stories of her being the
long lost lover of one of the gardens of being someone who's been murdered.
There's all sorts of folklore about who she was, what she did, whether she's kind
and lost in her spirit, or whether she's.
A bit darker and a bit sort of, spookier, I suppose it's probably
the spookiest, bit of GaN.
But again, it's that imaginative that she represents people and history and
stories and how stories evolve, you know, and, and, and how, and what we tell
ourselves over the years and how that, you know, Chinese whispers if you like,
of, of, of this, of, you know, just.
Stories that have captured people.
And I think that's, you know, again, so important for what that then brings into
your future and into the here and now and what that brings into the future.
You know, for younger people that now hear this story is very powerful actually.
To think that that woman that was probably someone just wearing a gray
dress, having a wonder one day, has turned into this, you know, folk clawing
Cornwall of, of, of scale, but has captured imagination and actually doing
that through a sculpture that half our visitors can't actually see the sculpture.
'cause it's sort of, it's made out of metal, but it's sort of see through.
So unless you catch it at the right light, you're kind of looking straight
through it at the trees behind.
And some people stand, they go, I can't see it.
And it's, it's their sort of hidden quite ghost.
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah, it's like a ghost.
Yeah.
Laura Chesterfield: So, so clever.
I mean, the artists are, again, wizards are just, they're just incredible.
And the most recent sculpture that we commissioned from them
opened in September last year.
And we, you know, we realized how successful the storytelling and
the engagement had been at Halligan through these sculptures and thought
we really need to invite Sue and Pete back to come and tell another story.
You know, what is the story that for us in 25 years time,
my kids are gonna be telling.
You know, that their friends and the kids then about, you know, the next sculpture
and you know, and I think that's the thing with these projects is it's about legacy
and it's about kind of that taking stories forward that are important or meaningful
or, you know, that connect us all.
I mean, stories connect everybody, the world over.
Right?
So it's, we
Rupert Isaacson: are the storytelling act.
Yeah.
Laura Chesterfield: Yeah.
That's so, so it's so important to have those, those triggers within the space
to tell stories and not, you know, heli again, we don't wanna be somewhere
that's just got hundreds of boards.
You know, you people don't feel something from a board.
Rupert Isaacson: Board With the board.
Laura Chesterfield: Yeah.
Board with the board.
It's, it's rare that they do.
So trying to create other ways for people to feel has been the way that I've curated
and done the job of is to experience that.
It is, it's always been about what's the feeling that comes from that and
from seeing this or hearing this or.
Or being in a space, what does it feel like?
Because that's what people remember.
You know, that's where memories come from.
That's where a connection to a place and an emotional connection to a
place comes from is feeling something.
So, so the, the newest sculpture is a six meter high fox.
She's a vixen, and her name is LOEs, which is Cornish for vixen.
And she's utterly spell binding.
Spell binding.
Spell.
Is that, yeah.
Rupert Isaacson: Spell binding.
It's
Laura Chesterfield: spell binding.
Enchanting.
I mean, she's,
Rupert Isaacson: where is she in the, in the is,
Laura Chesterfield: she's on the wooden walk, so she's further down
from the other, the other sculpture.
So it all flows really well.
Mm-hmm.
And I mean, there's a, there's a few stories behind this sculpture.
One was that we did an incredible project last year, the last couple of years with.
Poet Laureate, Simon Armitage the most incredible poet.
And, and he came and did a project with us where I asked him if he'd write some poems
about Halligan and and let us hide them in the landscape for future generations.
And, you know, there is no one better than words.
It's official.
So it was just such an honor and such a joy to, to be around him being
creative and interpreting the space.
And we, we left it quite free in terms of a brief for him because.
We just wanted him to do his thing.
And actually letting people feel the space and interpret it in
their own way is really important.
And so Simon came and spent, you know, two days with our team and met all the team
and went to all the different habitats and, and went away and wrote poems and,
you know, we didn't, we were nervous.
Like, what's he gonna come back and say, what's he gonna, what
thing is he gonna pick up on?
And, you know, is it, where, where's this gonna go?
It was, you know, really sort of exciting.
And he, he wrote to me and he, he said, Laura, I.
I feel like it is a safe home for so many creatures, for so many secret inhabitants
within, you know, the wildlife world that we don't see, but that actually
halligan makes it a home, not just for humans, but for so many species.
And you know, that in itself, to have that feedback that that's what someone
gets from a place is amazing and really moving that, that, that, that was kind
of what he felt about the place was that it was enabling life to live naturally.
Rupert Isaacson: Well, it, it, it halligan is kind of poetry.
Laura Chesterfield: Mm.
Rupert Isaacson: In form.
Laura Chesterfield: Yeah.
Rupert Isaacson: Do you know what I mean?
It it, the, the landscape and the interplay between the
landscapes and then the human relationships with those landscapes.
Laura Chesterfield: Yeah.
Rupert Isaacson: It's, the whole thing is, is poetic.
And of course, while you're talking, I'm just Googling quickly.
I'm like Simon Monica poem.
Uh uh.
Poem Halligan.
And I've got, I've got one.
So I was gonna ask if you, if you got one, but I saw you were
sitting there, so I thought maybe she hasn't actually got it to hand.
So I'm gonna read it.
Shall I read it?
Laura Chesterfield: Which one have you got?
Rupert Isaacson: Hive.
Laura Chesterfield: You've got Hive.
Yeah.
So there's, so, so, I mean, the poems, he wrote 16 for us and some
haikus, and then he loved it so much.
He asked if he could release it as a collection of poems, as a book.
And the collection is called Dwell.
Rupert Isaacson: Yep.
Laura Chesterfield: Which is such a great word.
You know, it's just like
Rupert Isaacson: dwell,
Laura Chesterfield: dwell, you know, and it's, it's magical.
So the book was released, it's a Sunday Times bestseller.
It's, it's stunning.
And everybody has a different favorite and it's all about the creatures
that dwell at GaN and some magical kind of creative interpretations of,
Rupert Isaacson: have you got the book to hand?
Laura Chesterfield: I do, I do.
Rupert Isaacson: Do you want to read it?
Why don't you read it?
Laura Chesterfield: Yeah, I mean, I can, I can,
Rupert Isaacson: dwell by Simon Armitage, poet laureate.
Okay.
Poems of halligan.
All right.
Laura Chesterfield: Yeah.
Rupert Isaacson: Oh, what a treat.
Okay.
Laura Chesterfield: Gosh, I'm not, I'm, I'm not as nearly
as good at poetry as he is so,
Rupert Isaacson: well, luckily you don't have to write it,
you just have to read it.
Laura Chesterfield: I know.
I'm just looking for, let's see, which one shall I do the one?
The fox one?
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
Do the fox one
Laura Chesterfield: den.
So the fox one is called den.
Okay.
So this is den for the pelt harvest bushels of dead bracken
quickened with poppy blood.
Cokes forked lightning onto a barbed wire fence to forge the teeth, the
incisors of quartz, the claws flint.
The tail is a copper beach hedge back combed by west winds and tipped with snow.
The reflection of serious balanced in two puddles of fresh rain will serve as
the eyes for the tongue, bury raw meat for a month to la maggots dance then
from daylight's cauldron, pour everything earthwards, flooding the chambers and
layers, and seal the kiln with the door of night into a wet morning out of
ash and filth, a fox emerges, dripping with flames, setting the mind on fire.
Rupert Isaacson: Beautiful.
All right.
I'm gonna read, hive
Laura Chesterfield: Gone.
Rupert Isaacson: I've got it here and I can't resist.
Wow.
Okay, here we go, hive.
So this is a B hive.
Laura Chesterfield: Yeah.
Rupert Isaacson: The weather inside is always a blazing storm.
Feverish cells colliding particles being drawn in, batched around, thrown out.
Imagine dipping your hand into the swarm, feeling the furious
blizzard at the reactor's core.
Imagine the same frenzy of fusion and fishing conjuring
up the wrought hexagonal.
What the heck of a honeycomb and jars of sunlight in edible form.
Laura Chesterfield: Great.
Hey,
Rupert Isaacson: brilliant, and those are your halligan bees.
Laura Chesterfield: Yeah.
Yeah.
So, I mean, read the collection.
I mean, it's, it's, it's just a stunning collection of, you know, of, of work.
Yeah.
And you know, what an honor that he's written them about the place, you know,
that, that we work and that we also dwell.
And so that poem then we, we gave the collection of poems to the
artists and said, you know, we would love to bring these poems.
'cause they were obviously, you know, curated to be seen in the
landscape, not just within the book.
So we thought, well, let's interpret one in a different way through a sculpture.
And the one that was chosen by the artists was Den and was the Fox.
And we also had some amazing photographs taken by our head of restoration.
Actually, Andy Wilson is also a photographer, a brilliant
wildlife photographer.
And he had taken some photographs of the foxes that live at Halligan and
their cubs, and took this one picture.
That it's just iconic of, of a fox leaping through the air, really kind
of in its natural hunting state, you know, feeling so free at elgan
to be its most authentic self.
You know, they're not cute creatures that are all cuddly
and, you know, need a cuddle lay.
They're fierce hunters, you know, in the landscape.
And, and, and this picture really encaptured that.
So the artists were inspired both by Simon's words and Andy's photography.
And created this sculpture, which as I say, six meters high, you know,
we, we went big, we went all in.
And and I, and I hope your listeners will, will either visit, but go, but
Google Luana and, and see an image.
And it's not you, you can't really describe how she makes
you feel because she's so big.
You feel like the prey when you are there, you are underneath her and
you're tiny and you really feel that power of a powerful wild animal.
And for us at Halligan that, you know, that was about, again, same as
all of the sculptures telling a story and people being able to just see the
piece of art and, you know, making up their own story with their families
and, you know, pretending to be eaten alive and taking their photographs.
But it also, you know, for us was absolutely signifying our intention
as a business to say we are here as a safe space for animals, for wildlife,
for people you know, and that we are.
We are celebrating the natural world at scale.
Rupert Isaacson: I'm looking at, I'm looking at some photos of her now, Lois.
So, a a lot of listeners may not know Cornish is a form of Gaelic.
It, it's, it has its own Celtic language.
Lois is a vixen in in Cornish.
Laura Chesterfield: Yeah.
Rupert Isaacson: And I see her.
She's leaping.
She's mouthing, but she's huge.
And she's beautiful.
Laura Chesterfield: Yeah.
Rupert Isaacson: I can't wait to come and see her.
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Laura Chesterfield: Yeah.
So the other part of Luann is, was that we, we had one of our historic
rends fell in, in a storm a year ago.
A year ago now.
At the top pond of the jungle.
And it fell and it was like a moment of mourning, you know,
this tree with all this history.
And I remember gathering round the tree with Alistair Moore, who was
our head of gardens at the time, who, you know, and we both sort of felt
like sobbing, you know, it was like.
All that history of where that tree had come from and the things
it had seen over the years.
And it was, you know, it was fallen by nature really naturally,
but we felt a real loss of it.
And that was at the start of this project of LOEs.
And the artists were just amazing.
They said, let's, let's restore her.
Let's restore the tree and turn her into something else.
And so the entire sculpture is encased and crafted.
Every last bit has been craft handcrafted by them from the roaded engine tree.
So it's kind of come back to life.
Hmm.
So it, it's actually a 200 year old fox because the, the wood is got
all that history, but that it also just leads to how special it is,
you know, that there's that history in the material that's been used.
And, you know, really
Rupert Isaacson: again yeah, it's nature in the mind.
It's the, it's the interaction of the human with the landscape on every level.
Laura Chesterfield: Yeah.
Rupert Isaacson: Aesthetic, natural, edible, healing.
You know, I, I think maybe Halligan is one of those places that reminds
us what our species actually is.
Yeah.
Because, you know, we, I think most of us spend a lot of our lives in a quiet
state of stress, not knowing we're in a quiet state of stress because
we are just not in the habitat that our species are supposed to be in.
Right.
Yeah.
And a lot of us now need that, you know, total, total wilderness
is beautiful, but it also, if you how to be in it, it'll kill you.
The, a place like Halligan, which which is this absolute sort of
interface between the civilized world and the wild, natural world, it.
I think it speaks to something very deep, you know?
And then you go from that woodland walk and the gray lady as well.
And you look, you see that meadow where you sometimes have your pigs.
And beyond that meadow, you see the cliffs and the ocean and the sea.
And then you go down into that ravine, which is the, which is the jungle.
And you are in that cathedral of tree phones.
And you go across this swinging rope bridge, which is so amazing.
And you could go in all these different directions.
And there are also these giant oak trees as well, sort of.
And then you, when you come out on the other side, and then you ascend
that ravine and you come back out into that meadow, that big medal,
you've then got bugging and palace.
Laura Chesterfield: Yeah.
Rupert Isaacson: Tell us about bugging and palace.
Laura Chesterfield: Bugging and palace.
The, there's actually, Simon wrote a poem.
About bugging and palace as well.
It, I think, I'm not sure it's my favorite, my favorite changes all
the time, but it was the one that I laughed out loud every time I read it
because Bugging and Palace is a project that, that I started with a member
of the team, a guy called Sam and.
I think he wanted to kill me by the end of it because I wanted
to build an insect hotel that people could sort of engage with.
And that was in a location that was accessible to everybody.
But again, I wanted to do it at scale.
I wanted to make it impressive.
I wanted to make it, you know, were a visitor destination at the end of the
day, so, you know, you wanna do it where there's, there's lots of stories that
are gonna be presented for years to come.
So said, let's make it big.
And we looked at the world record and we went, okay, we're aimed for that.
We actually ended up doubling the world record because you know, why not?
And so it is the largest insect hotel in the world.
And it's, it's a beautiful thing because it has been designed so beautifully and
so naturally by the team at Halligan.
And, and as with most of the things we do at Halligan, our team do it themselves
and, and, and are absolutely brilliant.
You know, whether it's a play area or the bug and bug palace, it's our team
that get their hands dirty and create it.
And so this bug hotel is absolutely enormous, but the species that have
come to live in it are astounding.
I mean, we have had real specialists come and, you know, be so generous with
their time and, and sort of exploring the hotel for species, some of which, you
know, you can't see with the naked eye.
But we, we've had one specialist who is a Beetle fanatic and this guy
called Jerry Lee has come in and, and, and basically gone the whole way
round this hotel looking for beetles.
And he's found species that have never been discovered in the UK before.
He's found species that.
He thought were in extinct in this hotel.
We've had types of fungi grow that are incredibly rare.
Like the lion's mane.
We had that suddenly.
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah, I got really excited about that one.
Laura Chesterfield: Yeah.
It suddenly grew and then it grew a friend, and then it grew another friend
and we actually, I mean it was a very funny story of actually having to get
Gabe a Gabon that looks a bit like a cage and kind of place it over the
top of this lion's mane that had grown because you, we were so worried people
were gonna steal it, but also quite hallucinogenic properties and quite sought
after and, and also incredibly rare.
And it was the first time I think that a fungi has been on BB, C.
World news you know, at seven o'clock in the morning because it was just
such a story of, of it being put in this cage in captivity to protect it.
But we've, we've got lots of stories like that from, from the Bug Hotel,
where I think creating something so large and also filling all of the, a lot of
it was built using gabon's, filling it with wood from so many different areas.
Mm-hmm.
Straw leaves, all sorts of things, has just bought all of these different
characters and different inhabitants.
And it's sort of part of what we try and do at Halligan is make
that hidden world visible, but in a way that protects its stick.
Mm-hmm.
So trying to find ways where you can tell those stories through different
ways, but still protect the habitat because we don't want people to go and
look for the foxes at liver halligan because, you know, you get 300,000
people TRAs in through the woodland.
It's not a safe habitat for them.
So it's that real balance of like, how do I let people get close and engage, but.
Still, you know, protect that space so that it prolongs and remains.
So Ingham Palace does that, 'cause we can keep it shut a lot of the
time, but we get amazing photographs.
We,
Rupert Isaacson: and you say there was a, there was a poem written about it.
Laura Chesterfield: Yeah.
So one of Simon's poems.
Rupert Isaacson: Is it there in Dwell?
Laura Chesterfield: It is, yeah.
Rupert Isaacson: Read it to us.
Laura Chesterfield: Oh my gosh.
I mean, this one needs someone really good with, with voices
because it's basically like a triple
Rupert Isaacson: Imagine I'm your kid and you're reading to me at night.
Laura Chesterfield: Oh gosh.
I should have known that this, this conversation was gonna be like this
insect hotel.
Right.
Okay.
Rupert Isaacson: Slow down so we can hear it.
Laura Chesterfield: Okay.
It is quite long actually, this one.
Rupert Isaacson: This
Laura Chesterfield: is good.
So, it's written brilliantly a bit like a TripAdvisor review by all
of the insects that have stayed at bugging and pallet hotel.
Okay?
We were somewhat distressed by the cockroaches in our bedroom until
we remembered we are cockroaches, then felt very at home, sketchy
phone signal and rubbish wifi.
I'm all for being green and environmentally righteous, et cetera,
et cetera, but not if it means living in the dark Ages, stopped here
overnight on the way to a decaying oak a couple of miles away and ended
up hibernating for the whole winter.
Would Defo recommend dreamland?
Thin walls.
Earwigs next door.
Felt very overheard, dark and dingy.
Had to ask a glowworm to show me the way to my room.
Just checking out when.
Whoa.
Nater jack toed.
Incoming nater jack toed swoon.
Absolute gentleman.
Got a selfie can die.
Happy now.
Room too small, but great.
Buffet breakfast.
Fresh baby.
Wood.
Lice.
The best I've tasted.
Life.
Doesn't work.
Got stuck behind an old snail on the stairs.
I was like, get a R along.
Granddad.
Call me Snail list.
But why?
Stay at a hotel when you've got your own house on your back, right?
A little bit off the beaten track, but decent night life.
Creepy, lousy.
As a door mouse, I was slightly surprised to be sharing a room with a hedgehog.
Thought he might be a bit of a prickly character.
Laugh out loud, winking face emoji, but we rubbed along.
Ouch.
Laugh out loud, winking face emoji very well and have kept in touch.
Ouch again.
Laugh out loud, winking face emoji ever since.
Smiley face emoji.
To whom it may concern, the bar was full of inebriated bees.
I think there had been a big match.
They were extremely intoxicated.
Downing nectar like there was no tomorrow.
Dressed in team colors.
Woover Hampton, Wanderers, wasps, Mrs.
Lace Wing and myself found them very intimidating.
Haven't they got hives to go to?
Amazing Beatles tribute band in the function room.
I am not a stick.
I am a stick insect, so it's very annoying to have a snooze in the bar, only to wake
up and find that someone has tidied me away in the umbrella stand, or is using
me to help them hobble around the gardens.
Also, for your information, I am not a snooker co.
Would you be happy if you came round from an afternoon nap to
discover someone whittling your leg into a Welsh love spoon?
Left my shoes outside my room, and in the morning they'd been
properly cleaned and polished.
Thank you.
A hundred times over.
You made this centipede very happy.
Horrendous.
Brought the kids with us, but next morning they'd been eaten by a ook.
No refund or apology.
Not even a drinks voucher tooth thumbs down.
Booked a standard fallen log, but got upgraded to junior Birch bark's
suite with a view of Megi result.
No parking.
Great buzz.
That's it.
Rupert Isaacson: That's brilliant.
That's brilliant.
Laura Chesterfield: I need to practice that one on all the
voices, but it's so clever.
Rupert Isaacson: You did it.
No, you did it beautifully actually.
Yeah, yeah.
Well done.
Laura Chesterfield: So, yeah, so, you know, building things like, like the hotel
enables us to then still tell stories off the back of it, you know, and, and, and
you know, that poem will be displayed on site in a really creative, beautiful way.
And, and just hopefully helps, you know, give nature a bit of a voice and
for people to empathize with it and connect with it in a different way.
'cause as soon as you give a, a name to something, you connect with it, right?
I mean, if we,
Rupert Isaacson: absolutely,
Laura Chesterfield: there's a wasp flying around in our house.
The kids are screaming, but as soon as you call the, was a name.
Suddenly got a personality and the kids go, oh yeah, no,
we should let Bernard out.
You know, like, go, I'm sure he doesn't wanna hurt me.
And it's just,
Rupert Isaacson: of course the wasp was called Bernard.
Yeah,
Laura Chesterfield: yeah.
It's an all wasp Is that what Youp
Rupert Isaacson: Bernard?
Yeah.
Laura Chesterfield: All was so Bernard the wasp is suddenly not so scary when
he's Bernard the wasp and not just the wasp, you know, the wants to hurt you.
So trying to tell stories where people feel something, where people connect
in a different way is, is kind of, it's super fun and, and hopefully helps
Rupert Isaacson: it, it, it's actually an interesting point that you make
though, because you know, people often say, oh one shouldn't anthropomorphize.
And I've always questioned that.
It's like, well, what else can one do about anthropomorphize?
'cause we are anthropo anthros in a landscape.
I should imagine that my horses equi.
Trope, me and my dog probably canino tropes me or whatever, you know, they,
they, they, they have to, they would have to interpret me right through the
lens of that they would have to project.
And, but isn't that also the magic of our interaction with nature?
And you talk about giving nature a voice.
Of course.
One of the big big achievements I'd say in that regard is that you also
reintroduced the European beaver.
Laura Chesterfield: Yes.
Rupert Isaacson: Can you tell us about that?
How that happened?
Why that happened?
Laura Chesterfield: Yeah,
Rupert Isaacson: that's, that's quite a landmark thing.
Laura Chesterfield: Very, very cool, very special.
And I mean the, the wildlife team that, that we've got at heli again, they're, you
know, they're just brilliant and they're really driven and to doing amazing things.
And, you know, it was a, it was such a big project to, you know, to kind of be
brave enough to do, because it's one of those subjects, as soon as you go out
saying you are reintroducing beavers, everyone's got an opinion, whether
it's an informed one or not, about what that's gonna do to your land, what that's
gonna mean for the environment, what
Rupert Isaacson: also, what's that gonna mean for their land downstream of you.
Yeah,
Laura Chesterfield: absolutely.
Rupert Isaacson: Not to mention all the dirty jokes Yeah.
Has to be
Laura Chesterfield: said.
I mean, they're endless, which is just a gift that keeps
Rupert Isaacson: wet beavers.
Yeah.
Laura Chesterfield: To be honest, it just keeps on giving every team
meeting, every team gathering.
And yeah.
Rupert Isaacson: But why did you do it?
Why, why did you guys decide to do that?
Laura Chesterfield: There are keystone species.
I mean, they are,
Rupert Isaacson: tell us what's a keystone species?
I mean, not everybody knows this term.
Laura Chesterfield: Yeah, sorry.
It's they basically are a species that help the world go around.
You know, if you,
Rupert Isaacson: why, how?
Laura Chesterfield: Because they, I mean, the thing with beavers is that they.
They are one of the biggest architects of nature that there is other than us.
So that you've never seen an animal change a habitat the way that a
beaver does, and the impact of that impacts the whole ecosystem.
So that's really what it means is it's that, you know, it's, it is a species that
without them, the knock on effect of them.
Is like a ripple and it really impacts all of the other species, whether it's
plants, insects, mammals, it, it's, it's, they have such an impact through
being there, but not being there as well.
And I think that, you know, they became less and less common.
Not that not, it wasn't that on recent, you know, it's been quite a recent thing
that they started disappearing from the landscapes and landscapes kept,
you know, have changed ever since.
But when you reintroduce one for us, reintroducing them at GaN onto our
waterways and, and within a habitat within the woodlands, the transformation
of that space has been unbelievable.
You know, and we didn't know,
Rupert Isaacson: what have you seen?
Laura Chesterfield: What have we seen?
So, I mean, they, it was quite funny because Toby, who is our wildlife
coordinator, he built the start of a couple of dams along the sort of
stream where we were putting them.
And within like the first week of, of Mr.
And Mrs.
Beaver moving in, they had completely taken Toby's dam apart
you know, just not good enough
and completely rebuilt it, and then some and triple it in its size.
And suddenly then behind this dam, all the water is collecting.
And then in that water, because it's collecting, you're then
seeing all these shoots coming up at the edge of what is now.
You know, it's not a lake, it's definitely not a lake, but it
is a huge, huge watercourse.
And then, you know, that the knock on effect of that, of having these
species growing is that then there's more bugs that are coming in, and then
they're feeding all of the bats and the owls and the rest of the ecosystem.
And you're suddenly just seeing this landscape that didn't have
much biodiversity, becoming a home for so many creatures where they
all had, you know, something to eat and could live there basically.
So you're restoring habitat and so beavers as a keystone species that are
really, you know, can be responsible for incredible habitat restoration.
And
Rupert Isaacson: now
Laura Chesterfield: that's
Rupert Isaacson: for sure, but given that they became extinct
in the UK in the 16th C, it's.
500 years ago, and some people would probably say, well,
we'd be managing without them.
Why do we need to bring them back?
Now?
I, I, you know, some people might say, okay, it's the whimsical thing.
It's, or it's restoring, you know, nature as it was, it's rewilding,
but why do we need beavers in this d everyone needs a beaver.
But why?
It's funny we said the architect of nature.
It's like, well, several jokes came to mind there, but
Yeah.
Seriously though, when you had to play devil's advocate, why,
given that they've been gone for 500 years and life has gone on.
Laura Chesterfield: Yeah.
Rupert Isaacson: Why, what value, what specific value at
this juncture do they bring?
Laura Chesterfield: Well, I think you have to see it to really understand it.
That's, you know, that's one of the things I think pe people need
to engage with it and see the change in action that they bring.
But I think, you know, looking right now at Cornwall, the flooding
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
Laura Chesterfield: Climate change.
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
Laura Chesterfield: It's, it's happened.
It's happening.
It's continuing to happen.
We are all seeing the impact of that.
Rupert Isaacson: Absolutely.
I'm sitting here and we are experiencing.
Biblical cataclysmic floods.
Laura Chesterfield: Yeah.
Yeah, yeah.
And that is because, you know, habitats are falling apart.
Structures, roots, you know, spaces in the natural world are
not as they should be to cope
with
the level of water that we're having for an example.
So with beavers, you know, they, they're creating these dams.
They are responsible for stopping flooding in certain places, right?
They, they help to collect water that then when you get the extra dry season,
that water is in place and is making that space where that water is more hydrated.
You know, it just has that knock on effect.
So yeah, it's, you know, plus then you've got all these other creatures, all these
pollinators, you know, they're helping to grow the food that, like the whole
ecological system is all interlinked.
You know, this, this isn't made up bullshit that people just
Rupert Isaacson: absolutely,
Laura Chesterfield: you know, like.
It's just
Rupert Isaacson: no ab absolutely real.
Laura Chesterfield: Like it's just real.
Like everything has to work in harmony together.
Rupert Isaacson: Well it's, it is really interesting that the recently,
and I think you guys are real pioneers with this, 'cause I think a couple of
years after you did it, and there were various other introductions around the uk
Laura Chesterfield: Yeah.
Rupert Isaacson: The London the Greater London Council, GLC, is it
still called the GLCI think it is has introduced them into the Lee Valley,
which is one of the watersheds, main watersheds down into London.
Be to control flooding in London.
And then there was recently a big flood containment project in the Czech
Republic that they were funding had been stalled and bureaucrat and red tape.
And then they suddenly realized they didn't have to do it
because the beavers had.
And the beavers have done it for free.
Laura Chesterfield: Yeah.
Rupert Isaacson: So, yeah.
Laura Chesterfield: Yeah.
Nature's
Rupert Isaacson: not, so when you say keystone species, I, I, I think
that people sort of do need to understand, you know, but it's really
interesting though that you guys as a garden, you know, some people say,
well, are you an ornamental gardener?
Are you a sculpture garden?
Are you the jungle?
Or you these wild species of insects and beavers and things,
as you say, you are all of it.
Yeah.
And then you come out of that woodland area, that beautiful old
ancient woodland that you've got there, and then you're into that
rare breeds form that you are, have.
Tell us about that.
Like, and, and why did your dad get into rare breed?
'cause he was a record producer.
He was a, he was a mu, a music producer.
He was living a very different life in London.
Yeah.
How did he get outta that and into nature and wine?
And how was that for you as a kid too?
You know, because you must have had this sort of early London thing.
And I also grew up partly in Central London.
I hated it, frankly, because kids need nature, like they need oxygen.
Laura Chesterfield: Yeah.
Rupert Isaacson: So what, how is it for you to escape that and the, the
transformation you must have seen your family and your dad make mm-hmm.
You know, from that one life to another life and now these rare breeds.
Just, just talk us through that evolution a little bit.
Laura Chesterfield: Okay.
So my dad.
My dad's had many hats in his life.
I think, you know, he's one of those guys that he's curious about everything.
He wants to meet everyone, he wants to learn about everything.
He's got that childish kind of curiosity, I think.
And so he's had a number of hats, a number of different jobs, but I think as a kid,
he was really connected to nature, you know, and he, his fondest memories are of,
you know, same as a lot of people looking under rocks and looking for toads and, you
know, looking for, looking for wildlife and, and sort of hunting that down.
He rode horses, he had dogs, he had animals.
He was out in nature and.
Enabled to be connected to it, I suppose, and, and very aware of how that made
him feel and, and how he wanted that in his life in one way or another.
So he studied archeology.
He also studied you know, he was a deep sea diver at some point in his
life and also a record producer.
So he's sort of done all sorts of different things in his world.
And the rare Breeds thing was.
Moving from London.
I think I was about six when we moved from Brixton, which was a
very different place back then in
Rupert Isaacson: which is about as London as you can get.
Yeah,
Laura Chesterfield: it's proper London.
Yeah.
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
Proper.
It is.
Laura Chesterfield: And was very different in the eighties to what it is now.
Yeah.
Brixton.
Yeah.
It
Rupert Isaacson: was rough.
Laura Chesterfield: It was rough.
It was not place.
I don't have I don't have un fond memories of it, you know, and, and regularly we
were in parks and we were in gardens and we had pets and you know, I think
both my parents were very much sort of.
In tune with the natural world.
And, but we came down and visited a place called Foy when
I must have been about six.
And I think, you know, my parents just fell in love with Cornwall and decided
actually this is where we want our kids to grow up, you know, on the beach crabbing
off of, you know, the key and, you know, fishing and, you know, walking footpaths,
naming wild flowers, all of those sorts of things I have such memories of as a kid.
So yeah, really fortunate that that was the decision that they made.
And they bought this big old farmhouse, moved from Brixton down to
a tiny little village called Goran, which is right on the coast near.
And, you know, we lived at, we lived at a farm but didn't own the farm.
We lived in a farmhouse, we had a little bit of land, and so our childhoods
were just built around, you know, having animals going to the beach.
Growing food, building tree houses, you know, making apple
pies out of blackberries.
We just foraged, you know, it was really picturesque and really very beautiful
and we didn't have a lot of money.
It wasn't based on money whatsoever.
You know, it's, there's a lot of assumptions when you sort of, people
see the success my father has had.
They make assumptions about fin finance and about people's experiences.
And actually we, we never had a lot of money.
And money doesn't motivate us to this day.
You know, it's, it's not about that at all.
And I think growing up we used our imaginations, we played outside, we had
animals, we had bikes, we had the beach.
We, you know, and our, and our parents were very present in that.
And we read a lot.
And so when GaN came along, the rare breeds thing was actually about going
to the Royal Cornwall Show and going to the rare breeds Farm Park Tent,
which was hosted by the rare breeds Survival Trust, who are still a
really successful charity, championing those heritage breeds here in the uk.
And we went to that tent and you know, the diversity of seeing all of these
animals that were not what you read about in, you know, in Charlotte's Web, for
example, which was my favorite book, you know, pigs are not all pink, sheep are
not all white and looking like clouds.
And actually to go to this bury tent and see, you know, polka dot pigs and
you know, sheep with horns up to here and you know, all these different breeds
and they were so colorful and so diverse and all had stories attached to them
that it just captured our imaginations.
And pigs have been a bit of a running theme in our family, have just.
Just, we just like them.
I can't say more than that.
We just like pigs.
Pigs are so intelligent.
They're so far.
Yeah.
They're just, oh, adore them.
So, we went about adopting some pigs from Newy Zoo.
And they came to live on our farm with us, Horace and Doris, and they were our pets.
And I used to walk one of the pigs to school with me and then mum would
walk at home 'cause I'd have to go to class and sort of, you know, you
Rupert Isaacson: weren't allowed to Your emotional support
Laura Chesterfield: pig in class.
Yeah, my emotional support pig was not allowed in class.
So, so animals had always kind of been within our family.
And then when, when dad was, you know, part of the restoration at Halligan,
he'd obviously been on a search for a location for the rare, rare breed
farm park that he wanted to start.
He got a bit distracted by heli and, you know, all the stories that I've just told
you that were more kind of people based.
But when I then came to work at Halligan.
They decided that they wanted to start the restoration of the landscape and
the estate more so, you know, they've been very focused on the walled garden,
the ornamental gardens, the jungle up until that point, but actually the
wider estate and, and the, the, the fields and the pasture land and stuff,
those stories hadn't really been told.
And so they wanted to do a focus on the animals and bringing in the native
breeds and, and telling that kind of farm to fork plate in a different way.
So that was the first job I had coming to Halligan, was to finally
start my dad's rare breed farm, which, you know, took 30 years.
But it was, it was an amazing thing because I think,
'cause I already understood.
Animals in the sense of storytelling.
You know, the emotional impact that I personally had from being around animals.
You know, I studied horses at Dutchie College.
I studied yard management.
I loved animals.
I rode horses.
I competed horses.
We had every kind of animal at home growing up, you know, like I
say, pigs in the kitchen, hatching chickens and incubators In my
bedroom, we took on a, you know, orphaned lambs and every poultry.
And so I was very blessed that that was kind of the childhood I had.
And felt very connected to animals.
So I realized when I was then in a professional sense, that actually.
So many, so many people, it's not just kids do not have
that connection with animals.
Maybe because they don't have the opportunity to, you know, they don't,
not everyone grows up on a farm, and if you, especially on holiday in Cornwall,
maybe have come from London or wherever else, you, you don't see sheep and
pigs every day and you don't have that understanding or that empathy or, you
know, so it's another world, isn't it?
So having the berries, farm park had a number of layers attached
to it, I suppose is how I see it.
So you've got the basic layer of engagement with cute animals,
which absolutely works for people on a real basic level of seeing
baby animals running around.
But it enabled us to tell stories of conservation through consumption,
where your food comes from, how you look after animals and livestock, how,
you know, how often people eat meat and where they get their meat from.
Where does their meat grow?
How is that grown in harmony with the environment?
And so.
It is enabled us to just have this wonderful way of telling stories to
different audiences in different ways at different depths and, and mainly to tell
the story of, you know, of the estate, you know, and it is managed by our livestock
and, you know, regenerative grazing, you know, it's quite a recent term.
It's really well known now, but probably 10 years ago, not so much.
And, and we, you know, we were really passionate about trying it
and I think what we've done quite well at Halligan is that we never
said we were the experts in it.
We didn't know what would happen when we did it, whether it be
successful, whether it be too hard, whether it, you know, what, what,
what the outcomes that would be.
But we quite enjoy sharing our trying.
Same as with the reintroduction of beavers.
Let's give it a go.
Let's collectively give this a go, see how it works, share our
successes, share our challenges, and be kind of a platform for sharing.
You know, how, how we might approach problems as a society.
Rupert Isaacson: Tell us, talk me through regenerative grazing.
How does it work?
How do you do it?
Laura Chesterfield: So, regenerative grazing, mob grazing, there's different
sort of terms depending on exactly how you're doing it, what animals
you're, you are using for that.
So we, we've got what's called a flud which is.
A flock and a herd combined.
So your, your sheep and your cattle.
Okay.
And, and they graze together.
And, and what we do is we basically, we, we graze 'em in one area and
then we move them the next day.
Right.
So you're trying to, you're trying to copycat if they were
wild, how wild animals graze.
Yeah.
So wild animals do not just stay in the same bit of grassland until
it's bare and raw and empty of nutrients and mud up to their knees.
They tend to go, you know, they graze a wider area.
They seek the nutrition, they seek the goodness for their bodies.
So we try to.
Imitate that, you know, we are managing that of course, because they're not wild
as in, you know, they are contained.
But by moving them every single day to a new area, you are enabling
the habitat they're in to be grazed in a much more natural way.
So they will in and they will graze the, the level of the grasses
that they want to leaving other grasses, their feet will trample
the soil in a much more natural way.
So rather than overgrazing it and compacting it, they're actually opening
up the soil so that then when it rains, the rain actually goes into the soil,
helps the plants to grow, keeps it, you know, so it's, again, it's about
that harmonious cycle within the natural world, enabling that to happen.
So we can then see the impact of that, you know, and, and how easy that is to manage.
And does that take more resource?
Is there a reason we're not doing this anymore because it takes more staff and
more fencing and more, or is it actually.
Having amazing impacts.
And, and what we've seen is it has great impacts, you know, and that actually,
if you do it correctly, you can, you can rest certain fields and make your
haze, you've got a bit more forest for your animals at different times of year.
And in winter, they, they have been bought in far less into the barns
because we've actually had better pasture land that's remaining healthy.
That's regenerating itself where, you know, we're seeing far more
species of birds and other insects.
And then we're getting, you know, when we are then doing our observations of levels
of how many owls we've got, or we're doing our back counts and, and things like that.
The, the levels are going up.
You know, we have like the Moth Society come in for a night and they'll capture
all the different varieties of moths and, and they're a really good gauge of,
you know, how biodiverse is this space.
There's loads of moths as a really good.
Mm.
Good idea that it's a really healthy space.
So you can see that it's having a great impact on nature.
And I think for us, if you can demonstrate that the meat that maybe
ends up on the menu, that actually the job of those animals has not been
primarily to end up on your plate, their job has been to manage the land,
to do that in a really healthy way for the future, that's sustainable.
Mm-hmm.
A lot more people these days, they wanna get behind that.
They wanna feel like they're investing their money into eating meat that has
been ethically grown, that is having a really great impact on the planet.
So trying to tell those stories but seeing it in motion rather than, again,
a sign or a menu, actually seeing that you know, is really mixed opinions, but
we are really kind of proud of that and, and it opens up those conversations.
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
Tell us about, okay, so you, you also mentioned your horsey side
of life and it's interesting.
That's one, that's the one.
Part of heli that, you know, I'm a horseman, obviously.
Laura Chesterfield: Are
Rupert Isaacson: you, I look around it.
You
Laura Chesterfield: got a horse?
Have you got a horse?
Rupert Isaacson: And you know, I look at heli.
Oh, it'd be nice to have some horses here.
And of course, for a while you did have, you know, a couple of shires draft horses.
But tell us about your horsey life and how do you feel, you
know, you went and studied it too.
You didn't just do it recreationally.
Talk us through that and, and how do you feel that's impacted your,
your particularly I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm quite intrigued by what horses
teach people in terms of leadership.
And I, because, you know, I've grown up around very, very, very horsey
women, so I've never understood why anyone ever had a problem with like.
Women bosses or women leadership or whatever, because I just always grew
up with these incredibly strong women who were natural leaders who were
always in these leadership positions and you just deferred to them because
they had the expertise and they cut your head off if you didn't.
So, I'd like to hear a little bit about this from your point of view, because this
was also part of forming your worldview that's ended up with the halligan thing.
Laura Chesterfield: Mm.
Rupert Isaacson: Tell us your whole story.
Laura Chesterfield: No, it's really that, that's my management
style is chopping the's heads off.
Yeah,
Rupert Isaacson: that's you all the way.
That's right.
Laura Chesterfield: Me every day.
Rupert Isaacson: Well, you give them a chance at first before you
Laura Chesterfield: Yeah, no, I think it's really interesting, isn't it?
Like I talk, I talk a lot to people about relationships with nature,
you know, and, and how to, you know, there's, there's a, there's ongoing
conversation everywhere I go, you know, how do we get people into nature?
How do we get people to spend more time in nature for their wellbeing,
for, you know, for, to feel better and.
People try and turn it into something that's all about retreats and
that you've gotta basically have a bank balance to be well or to
be healthy or, or whatever else.
Yeah, actually I just think that's bollocks.
I just think wellbeing is for everybody.
Mm-hmm.
And having a relationship with nature is something people
have gotta find themselves.
So, you know, trying to wellbeing as an outcome rather
than a, an advertised thing.
So GaN is very much about, you know, that's the outcome and that's my viewpoint
as well, is that you just feel better.
You come to Halligan, you go and have a walk around, you have a play,
you eat something nice, you see something amazing, you switch off.
The outcome is that you feel better.
We don't advertise it that way because that kind of removes it.
But I think
I I hear you.
Yeah.
You know what I mean?
So, but for me, with horses that was.
I've always had a relationship with animals, felt very attuned and
comfortable and confident around animals.
And I think that's, you know, something I certainly inherit from my dad.
And my relationship with nature was mainly about going out, hacking on my pony before
the days of having a mobile phone where you were going out safely on your pony and
someone knew where you were, was actually getting on my pony and off we went.
And, you know, whether we were going off across a beach or up across a woodland
or in a farmer's field or up a track.
And that feeling of adventure on my pony of where are we, what's our story today?
You know, where are we going?
And, and he was my trustee guide, you know, and I'd probably like a
lot of horsey people share all of my world worldly secrets with my pony.
And he never told a soul.
And, and, and, and it's true.
It's like, it, it's therapy, isn't it?
But it's, it's, it's one of those things where.
When you're younger, you don't necessarily understand the science of it in the
way that you so eloquently talk about, but I think I just knew every time
I went horse riding, I felt good.
I, I'd come away and I would feel great and I'd feel great mentally.
I'd feel good physically, and, and I'd have had fun, you know, there
was recreation involved a bit.
And that was my relationship with nature because then when I was out on
my hacks on the, on the horse, I would notice the seasons changing, you know?
Because if you got horses, as you know, as opposed, probably most
of your audience are very aware.
Every season you're out there.
Twice a day, you're out there
Rupert Isaacson: and
Laura Chesterfield: you love it, whatever's going on.
So you notice when you're an outside person like that, you notice the seasons
change and you really notice those intricate details of, I said to my husband
this morning, we were walking the dog.
I was like, look, all of the snow drops are out.
You know?
And you notice those moments in the year that kind of give joy or
give those anchoring moments of, okay, spring is coming, it's okay.
You know, we are, we're not stuck in this winter of storms forever.
And I think horse riding gave me that of noticing.
Birds, berries, wildlife, newborn lambs in the fields, far more cars 'cause the
tourists were here, so it must be summer.
You know, so you notice everything from that, from that bird's eye view.
And so for me, I mean, that's where my relationship with nature started probably,
but with horses was from that point.
And, you know, I was very lucky that I, I was bought a pony by my dad when I was 15,
you know, and I'd spent six years having to prove to him that I would go out in
all weathers before he would buy me one.
And so going at the local stables and the local farmer and mucking out their horses
and, you know, proving that I was an all weather girl and that this was for me.
And got bought my pony Tyson when I was 15 and, and he was four.
And it was love at first sight.
And he was a pain in the ass.
You know, he was a Welsh section D.
He was beautiful.
He knew it, he was wild, but he was kind of heart, but he was strong.
And I think, you know, you, as soon as you start that new relationship, you,
you get some respect for one another.
And you have to find that, that place don't you?
Of I know how to keep you safe and I know you are gonna keep me safe, but I also
know how to read if you are not okay.
And you might read if I'm not okay and you know, you are waiting for me to come and
give you your hay on a day where the snow.
And equally, I'm waiting for you to keep me safe when you, you know, we
go somewhere and something spooks you and you're gonna look after me.
And that growing, that relationship was.
The most important thing, and you know, other than my, you know, children, the
most important relationship I've ever had, and, you know, the day that I
had to actually have him put to sleep 23 years later was still goes down
in history as absolutely, without a doubt, the worst day of my entire life.
And that's because he represented to me, you know, that relationship.
But.
He represented hobbies, he represented fitness, he represented like my mental
health and how I kept my mental health good was riding, hacking, grooming, being
in a stable with him, all of those things.
So it wasn't just losing your pet or your rec, you know,
just go and get another one.
And I was like, no, can't do it.
Never do it.
But that, you know, that definitely that respectful relationship.
Trying to come back to one part of your question about leadership was, was that
you gotta work with people, you know, you've gotta use your strengths alongside
other people's strengths, and you've also gotta be really confident when it's hard.
You know, sometimes your horse needs to be told and needs to learn, and
needs, needs to be led, and needs to, to be taught things equally.
You've gotta be open to listening and hearing what's.
Being told from the other perspective?
I suppose so
Rupert Isaacson: right.
I I, I'm a great believer too that, you know, we talk about nature a lot
and one of the, but one of the things which has removed people from nature
and now I think affect how people relate to nature is that nature is dangerous.
Mm.
It's supposed to be.
Right.
And we are, because there is an ecosystem.
Those things eat other things.
And we of course are not top of the tree.
We are mid-level predators.
There are things out there that eat us only when we get together
with this larynx and strategized together, do we become top predator.
And obviously we've been a bit too successful at that.
But it means to, I, I often feel that when people now want to reconnect with
nature, there's one really important element that they miss, which is danger.
You have to have risk because we're hunter-gatherers.
We are designed to deal with this all the time.
And of course, with horses.
The risk is inherent.
Laura Chesterfield: Mm-hmm.
Rupert Isaacson: As you may know, if you've been following my work,
we are also horsey folk here.
And we have been training horses for many, many years in the manner of
the old classical dressage masters.
This is something which is often very confusing for people.
We shine a light on that murky, difficult stuff and make it crystal clear.
If you'd like to learn to train your horse in the manner of the old masters and
really have fun and joy for you and your equine, go to our website, heliosharmony.
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to the Piaf, where the horse is dancing on the spot in hand on the ground.
And then from there, you can develop out to anywhere you want to.
Heliosharmony.
com to unlock the secrets of the old masters.
The danger is there all the time.
Talk to me about that, a little bit, about your, your relationship
with the natural world.
Danger, courage.
Yeah.
This and how this forms the human mind, but the, the horse, the
very specific, the way horses interact with nature themselves.
'cause they're pre species, you know, so they spook, but they're
also way what a car weighs.
So if they spook on us, that's not great for, you know, J Ex.
Just explore this a little bit.
I'd be interested to know your thoughts.
Laura Chesterfield: It's an interesting one, isn't it?
I think I, most people I know that, you know, do.
Connect with nature through a sport, shall we say.
Mm-hmm.
It's usually because there is that danger, isn't it?
So if I was, I was listening yesterday to this amazing female surfer that has just
surfed the, the, is it the biggest wave of all time, or the biggest wave this year?
Or, or, you know, so it was on in the background.
I was watching her and, you know, she was talking about that emotional
relationship and that respect of fear and danger and that actually that's
what makes her feel part of nature and makes her feel alive the most.
Mm-hmm.
I think, you know, there's, people talk about that a lot, don't they?
That, that, that element of risk is, it makes you feel alive because that, I
guess, you know, being hunter-gatherers, we would've way back when lived in a
cave, had to deal with the elements, had to deal with risk far less risk
managed than in today's day and age.
So I guess, you know, it makes us feel more human, doesn't it?
But,
mm-hmm.
I think horses.
Is that there is that element of danger, and it is exci, it is exciting, but you've
gotta know how to manage it, haven't you?
It's not for everybody.
It's not for everybody at all.
But horses have got it.
They've got it nailed, haven't they?
They're kind of, they're, they're in harmony with what they've got
very clear boundaries, I think, of what's okay for them and what's not.
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
Laura Chesterfield: And, and you can learn a lot from that.
Definitely.
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
I feel that there's a, there's an element, you know, people talk a
lot about awe these days, a WE.
Laura Chesterfield: Mm-hmm.
Rupert Isaacson: And this being a really necessary component to happiness.
Laura Chesterfield: Yeah.
Rupert Isaacson: To feel in the presence of, you know, you have that down in
Cornwall in spades because the ocean is there, the landscape is there.
You are often feeling dwarfed by the awesome immensity of, you know, of nature.
But I feel that horses, in a weird way, embody that.
Laura Chesterfield: Mm.
Rupert Isaacson: You know what I mean?
Laura Chesterfield: Yeah.
It's, it's a, wow.
It's all those wow moments, isn't it?
And I think it's, it's sense.
But you were talking there and I was just thinking it is that sensory thing,
isn't it, of for some people they won't want to do things that you might class
as dangerous, but sensory extremes.
Mm.
Are.
So if I think about like my mom, she would love to go for a walk on a stormy day.
Not maybe the dangerous, dangerous storms that we've had recently, but that
feeling of sensory wind in your face.
Yeah.
Pushing you backwards, going to the beach, seeing the huge
waves, feeling nature's force.
Mm-hmm.
That, that in itself is really, you know, is, is that Wow.
And that feeling connected to it.
And part of what you then love is maybe going home and having a
different sensory experience of snuggling up in the snuggle by a fire.
And I think as humans we see all of those sensory things, don't we mm-hmm.
Get alive at different points and, but yeah.
Horses as powerful creatures, definitely they represent that kind of courage
to be open to all of that, I suppose, and to, to seek it a little bit, you
know, to go into the, to ride into risk rather than to shelter away maybe.
Rupert Isaacson: They'll carry you through.
They carry you.
You know, I was, I was looking at, we, we, we have this little YouTube channel
that we do around horses in mythology.
And I was doing one on slight near the other day, you know, slight near being
Odin's horse, the eight legged horse.
And there's a point at which, you know, people will often say, oh,
that horse, you, you could ride to hell and back on that horse.
And of course, in the, in the legend of slight near, that's exactly what they do.
They, they ride to hell to try and recover the soul of a, of a God called Boulder.
He actually jumps the fence into hell.
So there's a good jumper too, and they ride out.
But I was just thinking as a metaphor, we, we horses transform us, don't they?
Because they carry us through the landscape.
They carry us into danger, but through the other side of danger if we don't
get killed in the way, you know?
Yeah.
But with that ever present risk, and then this need for balance, right.
Laura Chesterfield: Yep.
Rupert Isaacson: You know, you, 'cause strength doesn't
really come into it with horses.
They're obviously so ridiculously strong.
The whole thing comes to down to balance, emotional as well as physical.
Again, what are your thoughts on this?
Because you, you, you went and studied, you were going to go into this, you
were gonna go into the equine industry.
Mm.
You know, so this obviously really grabbed you at a certain point and
then you didn't, why, why didn't you?
But what do you feel you took from it anyway into your career?
Yeah,
Laura Chesterfield: I was just, when you were first talking, I was
actually thinking about it like, it's the year of the horse, isn't it?
This year is,
Rupert Isaacson: yeah, it is.
Yeah.
Laura Chesterfield: From year of the fire horse year of the
snake to the year of the horse.
And some of the words you were using actually, I think were, the things I've
read about for this year of kind of that courage and balance actually being
kind of those, those words attached to this year, which feels feels good.
But yeah, I studied horses because I.
I wanted to learn more.
I think that was what it started off as.
I was interested.
I was curious.
Like I knew I loved it recreationally as a child.
And then when I was at a point of being 17 and you're able to choose what you
do at college and, you know, my, my dad was happy for me to study horses.
My mom was like, you have to do something proper as well.
You know, and, and so, so we kind of found a balance of I'll do horses, but
I'll do business management as well.
And, you know, that that worked actually really well together.
But for me it was that curiosity.
I just wanted to be an expert in it because I loved it, you know?
And I do think doing things now, I'm 20 years older than
that, doing things you love.
If you can do something you love, do it because you're bound to be better at it.
You'll want to learn, you'll want to do it, you'll want to fill your time with it.
And I, I do have an element of, regret's the wrong word, because I've had a
great career so far, and, and, but there's something to be said for when
you had sort of different points in your career and you think, what do I love?
What am I good at?
What am I interested in that, you know, horses for me has always come back
as a, you know, something that just makes me feel good in every single way.
But I think at the point after I'd studied horses, I probably at that moment couldn't
see down in Cornwall a career path that felt obvious to me at that point.
I, I didn't, I wasn't the best jockey.
I was a good rider, but compared to some of the other jockeys that
maybe already had sponsorships and, and, and rode for yards and,
and trainers, I didn't feel like.
I necessarily was that route, and I didn't, I liked teaching and did
some teaching qualifications and liked it, but I wasn't sure that
I was ready to settle to do that.
Mm.
Because I still loved my riding.
So I loved the yard management side of it.
I loved all of that, but I think I just couldn't see a pathway from
there as to where I would get a job without moving away or, or without,
you know, not being financially in a situation that would sustain me.
You know, it was at that point.
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah, it's an ill paid industry, that's
Laura Chesterfield: for sure.
It's ill paid industry.
It's not supported.
And so I just, but I also, when I finished my qualifications,
I was a much better rider.
I'd taken my horse to college with me, so he was a much better horse.
And I also, I, I loved, I loved the business study side of stuff.
I, I, I really liked sort of learning that side of things, but
I, it, I then went into the world.
I went traveling for a while, but I then went and studied to be a counselor and
I went into sort of the world of therapy and trauma therapy and, and just kind
of explored other interests that I had.
I've always been someone with, as most people are, lots of
things I'm interested in.
So horses, I think, I just felt like.
That can just go back to being a hobby that I love, you know, that's
for me to do outside of work.
I've seen work as a kind of something you do to get paid, and I'll go and do that.
You know, I'll find a profession and I'll find a job and I'll
keep horses as my thing for my.
Fun, my wellbeing, my outside of work thing, which there was a lot
to be said for that at the time.
'cause I had my horse for many years after that.
You know, I had him throughout, you know, before I met my husband, when
I met my husband, when I got married, when I had kids, you know, he traveled
with me through all those stages of my life and enabled that hobby to remain.
And I've actually seen so many, you know, so many other people as
they grow up suddenly lose their hobbies because they're too busy
with family life or with their jobs.
And so it was a real blessing to actually have that as a hobby that kept
me fit, kept me having time to myself, kept me having something really fun.
So there was a lot to be said for it, but I, yeah, I do wonder what if
perhaps at times, but it's definitely something you can come back to as well.
So,
Rupert Isaacson: well, a hundred percent.
I mean, you know, it's interesting for me, I didn't, I didn't expect
to have a professional life as a horseman really at all.
And you know, as a journalist I was a, you know, I was always
passionate with horses, but.
It was obviously, as you know, only when my son became verbal on
the back of a horse with me, and then my life just went p that way.
Yeah.
And then with realizing that the key was to collect the horse, so therefore
dressage, so now I'm a dressage trainer and, you know, but also in parallel
with all the other, with the writing, with the journalism, with all the other
stuff, and of course the healing thing.
So I have a, I have a strong suspicion that it's going to come back into
your life and it's gonna come back into your life professionally.
I might even have a few little ideas up my sleeve about this that I might
want to discuss with you later because but interestingly, I think you, you
going off and learning, particularly equine management, probably really
prepared you to run Halligan because, you know, Halligan is so multifaceted.
As you say, you've got the gardens, you've got the horticulture, you've
got the, the estate management, you've got the livestock, you've got the
art, you've got the tourism interface, you've got all of this, you've got the,
the food production and the kitchens.
You know, horses are so multifaceted in that way too.
Laura Chesterfield: Yeah.
Rupert Isaacson: I suspect that that really did prepare you well, but now
you are on the cusp of another change.
So you, you are now flying free from literally in the last two weeks
Yeah.
Rupert Isaacson: From the secret garden of your childhood and Yeah.
Running that place and it's, so this must be quite an interesting feeling.
Yeah.
What's, what's ahead now?
What are you, what are you going into?
What, what's the plan?
Laura Chesterfield: So.
Gosh.
Yeah, no, it's a real time of transition and, but I really welcome that, you
know, I did 10 year career before Heli, 10 years at Heli with it being my work.
And I think, you know, I'm really ready for it to go back
to being the place that I love.
You know, that my church, if you, I talked about earlier, you know, for
me and my family to just go there for that, that, that feeling great
and it being a safe space again.
Mm-hmm.
It's just the right time and it's important to know
when it's the right time.
So it's,
Rupert Isaacson: but what are you gonna go and do now?
What
Laura Chesterfield: am I gonna do now?
So, so I mean, there's a lot of, there's a lot of plans and there's a lot of
what ifs, which is the excitement.
And I think, you know, for me leaving what I've done so far is set up my consultancy
business, which is called Le Lova Studios.
Which
Rupert Isaacson: Lova Studios?
Laura Chesterfield: Lova Studios.
Rupert Isaacson: That sounds like a Cornish word.
Laura Chesterfield: It is so it means in your happy place.
And I really believe that, you know, connecting people to place and to
nature that they age your happiness.
You know, they make you happy.
They make, they really, your wellbeing if you want, is
enhanced through those things.
And all the things I've learned that we've talked about in this
conversation about how you.
Connect people to a place through stories, through experiences, through events.
I, I'm gonna help other people to do that.
I think it's, it's what I've seen is a real gap in, in a number of venues,
whether it be gardens, whether it be hotels, whether, you know, what businesses
in general that if they stole, told their stories differently, they would connect
to their audience better and in a more sustainable way that actually adds value,
emotional connection, and real meaning.
And I think that what my hope is that my consultancy is gonna, you know,
take that to lots of places to really explore, explore that storytelling
and to give real depth to businesses and how they talk about themselves.
Because if you, if you run a business where your marketing doesn't match up
to the experience on the ground, and people come and they don't feel anything.
You're not gonna keep attracting people, you're not gonna have that word
of mouth, you're not gonna have that
sure
emotional connection that we've talked about that then goes on for generations.
And I think, you know, being able to help people explore
that is gonna be a real joy.
So I've got some projects that I'm working on at the moment through that, which is.
It's just really exciting.
You know, it's, it's really nice to help people feel brave enough to do that.
Sometimes telling these stories of place, you know, stories of heart and
meaning and people can be quite scary.
You know, some people don't wanna go there or they don't dunno how to go
or which medium to use to go there.
They might just do it through boards like we talked about, or,
or they might do it through events that don't make you feel anything.
And actually I think, you know, if you open people up to that, that
depth, then you know, we can create businesses that have much more feeling.
Within them.
And happier people.
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
I mean, Halligan, you've done nothing but create story sort of over the
years, whether it's these pieces of sculpture that then people end up
writing poems and whole books around.
There's whole books about the mud made, you know?
Yeah.
Or, but I guess the whole thing comes out of story, doesn't it?
Which is the story of finding the garden and then the story of those gardeners
going to war and not coming back, writing their names in the, in the thunder box.
And
Laura Chesterfield: it's how you tell those stories, you know?
It's,
Rupert Isaacson: yes.
Laura Chesterfield: You know, it's, I've grown up in those, in those places, but
it's how you choose to tell those stories.
It could have been, in terms of publicly a very different story that was told.
If you pick different words and a different dialogue and a different
narrative, people wouldn't have connected to it, you know?
I truly believe that.
So it's, it's about how you tell your stories and what narrative is
running through that, that people can see themselves in or connect to, or.
Or feel like, God, that's really interesting.
That's making me curious.
That's making me really kind of want, want a bit of that in my life.
So it, it is how you tell stories and, you know, I've been very fortunate
to grow up at Heli again, but also at Eden and, you know, these are two
of the places that doing storytelling brilliantly in a way that people feel a
part of and people can feel inspired by.
So, my hope is to,
Rupert Isaacson: yeah, people.
By the way, just quickly aside, a lot of the viewers, listeners, the Los
Hard Gardens of Allergan is, is, is one project, the Eden Project is another
one, which the Laura's family has been.
You just need to go Google the Eden project and you'll
get knocked on your ass.
It's, it, the scale of it is, is extraordinary.
Also ecological.
But where do you think, do you think this, you're, you're a very good storyteller
and you understand how to present story.
When we were putting together our project which became walks
of a curious nature, you know?
Yeah.
Which is interacting with nature in the mind.
At Halligan, it was you who came up with that name.
And I remember thinking
that's a certain instinct that people have.
And obviously your father has this as well.
Yeah.
But do you feel that you learned storytelling at a certain point?
Do you feel it's just instinctive because you, you, you guys are masterful at.
Bringing the story of your projects across, I think in
a way that is quite unusual.
We know, you know, one always knows a lot of people who do amazing
work, and you think, oh, they could only just get it out there more.
Yeah.
They get the recognition.
But as you say that the story somehow isn't getting out there.
Hmm.
Do do you feel you are, did you study it in any way?
Do you feel you just acquired it at your mother's, with your mother's milk?
I mean, how,
Laura Chesterfield: I don't, I, I don't know.
I mean, you just, you're born and you're just, you, aren't you?
I mean, it's just, yeah.
I think it's in, it's in, you know, it's, it's in my blood I guess a little bit.
It, it must be, but, but I also think growing up in a house where.
We were always reading books, we were always telling jokes.
We were always telling stories and trying to make each other laugh.
We were always
mm-hmm.
Doing things, you know, and, and, and whether that was, you know, like I
said earlier, going off and catching crabs or going off and stomping the,
the footpath, you know, it wasn't about having money to go and do things.
It was just, I think spending time communicating a lot.
Yeah.
And, you know, my dad and my mom filled the house with friends, you
know, they were really social people and so we heard a lot of tales
and a lot, you know, nights where.
As kids, we were welcome round the table with the adults, you know, to listen
to stories, to communicate with adults, to, to see lots of various people, you
know, that were in different worlds.
So my dad was surrounded by musicians people in theater you know, some really
sort of creative, creative people.
So there was always laughter and music and theatrics.
And we were always going to the cinema.
We were always going to, you know, to watch the theater.
We grew up near Kneehigh Theater, who are a local theater here that
have just done amazing things.
They're renowned for just telling incredible stories and, and,
and in amazing ways, you know, just imagination gone wild.
And, and so I think that inspiration has always been around me of.
Telling tales and, you know, and like I talked about earlier with
The Secret Garden, I mean, I grew up reading Matilda over and over again,
secret Garden over and over again, Charlotte's Web over and over again.
And, and I think all kids, a lot of kids love telling stories
over and over again, don't they?
Yes.
They know that it's what, you know, it's a, a memory of having a 2-year-old
that wants the same book every night.
There's a reason, there's a reason why they wanna watch the same
episode of Pepper Pig over again.
People like recalling, they like joining in and all knowing the
words and all, and that, that sort of like togetherness of story and
Rupert Isaacson: it's basically learning the craft of storytelling,
isn't it, when you're a kid that revisiting the same story
Laura Chesterfield: Yeah.
Rupert Isaacson: In more depth, in more detail.
Yep.
Laura Chesterfield: Yeah.
And I hope that, so I think, you know, for, for me, I just
go with what feels good and I.
I love seeing people having a great time.
Like there's nothing better than creating something that holds meaning
for other people because it just, holding meaning for yourself means nothing.
Rupert Isaacson: Absolutely.
And my God, have you guys done that in spades with, with heli and, and with Eden?
I mean, I think one of the things that strikes everybody there is that it's the
de, it's the democratic nature of it.
It's the big house with the big garden, but the big garden out in its own
universe, which is now feels like it.
It's so weird when you're in Halligan, you do feel like it's your own, it
feels personal and I know that's every person's experience who goes there.
There's not a single person I've ever spoken to, whether they work there,
whether even your dad who, you know, sort of conceived it, it, it's, I think
that there's generations of people now who've kind of grown up there and
their kids have grown up there and there's this feeling that it is theirs.
Yeah.
And you guys are really good at.
Letting people feel that.
Whereas, you know, if you go to a big formal garden, like I was just in Alhambra
the Alazar, sorry in Seve the other day, and you know, they're beautiful
gardens, but they're not your gardens.
You know what I mean?
They's say you can visit them, you can pay some money to visit,
but they're not your gardens.
Yeah.
Halligan is so much more intimate than that.
People just wonder and get lost and as you say,
Laura Chesterfield: yeah.
Rupert Isaacson: Become wrapped in story.
But the way in which you guys do it, you know, I've, I've gone around your gift
shop and it's said, oh my gosh, there's another book on some aspect of Elgan,
and now here you are reading the poems.
Laura Chesterfield: Yeah.
You
Rupert Isaacson: know, that's an instinct that I think a lot of people don't have
is this constantly asking how can we, how can we tell and retell the story?
How can we look for different aspects of what we do and tell those stories?
Laura Chesterfield: Yeah.
Rupert Isaacson: So I imagine you're going to be very successful with this.
Laura Chesterfield: Hey, I hope, I hope so.
People are very generous and, and I think it's for me, someone, someone said to me
a while ago that was, you know, really, really kind, they came and looked around
the gardens with me and they were like, wow, where did, where did you train
to know how to curate these things?
Like, what course did you do?
And this, and I just looked at them like, you know, that doesn't exist.
Right.
And like, maybe it should.
I mean, that would be great.
But I just said to him,
Rupert Isaacson: maybe you should teach it.
Laura Chesterfield: No, it, it, it's an, it is an do you what?
It's, for me, it's, it's being, it's not being an expert in most things,
but being interested in everything.
Rupert Isaacson: Sure.
Curious
Laura Chesterfield: is actually
Rupert Isaacson: in curious nature.
Laura Chesterfield: Yeah.
Hence the always of a curious nature.
And I think my strength is that I.
I'm not afraid to tell people I know nothing about that.
But you've just told me how amazing tardy grades are, or you've just told
me what's actually happening under the soil and now it's like an itch
that I've got a scratch because why doesn't everybody know about this?
Like, you know, in terms of why doesn't Joe blogs know about this?
I know that there's people studying things that will know about these
things, but actually, why don't people know about all of these things?
And I think that's where I get a lot of my, my oomph from is
that I don't know those things.
And then when I get a glimpse of them, I go, how am I gonna tell everyone?
And I think my weird, happy ideas come out about, you know, how are we
gonna tell this story in a way that my neighbors, my kids, my friends,
yes.
Would get, you know, you don't have to be an academic, you
don't have to be at university.
This should just be wow.
You know, how do you spread the wow.
Rupert Isaacson: What, what your family have done is, is, is you,
you create a world of enchantment.
You know, I'm, I'm also thinking for example, about the night garden that
you do at Halligan, which, although I know it half kills you to do it.
It's, it's this, for those who dunno, it, it's it's through the, the Christmas
period and and the lead up to it at night, they open up the gardens
in these grand illuminations in, in a very similar way to their way.
There were these illuminated gardens in London two, 300 years ago, and
it's incredibly beautiful and it's, it's exquisitely done and people
come from Mars mar around and it's amazing and it's full and people
are just marveling and enchanted.
It's an enchantment secret garden isn't about enchantment.
It seems that the key is you guys know how to be enchanted.
Laura Chesterfield: Yeah.
Rupert Isaacson: Which then allows you to communicate that enchantment, but
you guys are actively looking for it.
And maybe that is the key that you can go out and teach people and show
people a little bit like when you were exploring on your, on your wealth
section D you are going into Cornwall, which is a land of enchantment, you
know, allowing this enchanting horse to take you through the land of
enchantment, including the dangers.
Mm-hmm.
But you,
you then can bring the story back and I think a lot of us actually could,
I've actually quite often looked at what you guys do at how think, oh God,
I could use a bit of mentorship here in, even though I'm a storyteller,
even though I'm a writer, it's like, I see the way you guys do it.
Yeah.
Best
Laura Chesterfield: storyteller.
Oh my gosh.
Rupert Isaacson: They're like, damn, these guys are good.
I could, yeah.
But there's things that you come up with that don't occur to me to do.
You know, particularly telling the specific as like.
For example, if I were to take a leaf out of your book in Horse Boy, it
would be looking at specific stories of particular kids and families
that have had particular outcomes or something magical within horses in
the shamanic aspect of it, that's, and creating books and stories around that.
And of course part of it's just bandwidth.
One only has a certain amount of time, but I've looked at how you guys
take all these different aspects of Heli and Eden and tell those stories.
I could see, I think that is something that people need help with.
So I will certainly be recommending to people that they hire a
bit of Laura Chesterfield.
And I think you and I should actually have some of these conversations
because I, I really do admire.
How you guys communicate the stories, because it also
enhances people's experience.
It means that when they, they go from Halligan and they go home, they
take a bit of halligan with them.
Laura Chesterfield: Yeah,
Rupert Isaacson: yeah,
Laura Chesterfield: yeah, absolutely.
I think it's it's allowing yourself to be quite childish still.
You know,
Rupert Isaacson: and
Laura Chesterfield: I'm a real Ella from corporate, you know, I, I
rubella away from it at speed and.
Some people, you know, you get the commentary of, oh, you know, it's not very
professional or, or there's not enough process and spreadsheets and rah rah rah.
And actually, you know, it's just about people being people and telling stories
and actually being creative and letting that fire, and letting that kind of
bouncing off the right people to tell stories like kids would, you know?
And, and actually you can let too much process and corporate and adulting
of what you are meant to do if you're a professional or what you're meant
to do if you're running a business.
Really cloud and dissolve that ability to be silly, that ability
to, to dream, that ability to
Rupert Isaacson: playfulness.
Yeah.
Laura Chesterfield: Think, think big.
Be playful.
And you know, those things get lost along the way.
And, and I think trying to keep that fresh in people's minds and giving
that permission of be bloody silly.
Tell, I mean, you yourself Yes.
Love a part joke.
Rupert, don't you?
Like, you, you, I,
Rupert Isaacson: my entire life is a far joke.
You know,
Laura Chesterfield: it's just like,
Rupert Isaacson: I'm a far joke.
Laura Chesterfield: You're a far joke.
But it's that stuffiness and I think that, you know, yeah.
And businesses that allow stuffiness to fill the spaces could lose their way.
And, and I think, you know, we've been very fortunate to employ great
people and to have great visitors.
Rupert Isaacson: Well, yeah.
One of the things which you, you, you guys prove is that playfulness
does not destroy structure.
You, you, it's not one or the other.
Laura Chesterfield: Mm-hmm.
Rupert Isaacson: The structures and mechanisms.
Even though they're so flexible and so multifaceted and parallel at a place
like Halligan, it's very structured.
That place has to run.
It's got a huge staff, you know, it's got fragile ecosystems and plants.
It's got the whole business side of it.
You guys do it without it being in your face onerous.
Laura Chesterfield: Yeah.
Rupert Isaacson: The best structures I always feel are invisible, right?
Laura Chesterfield: Yeah.
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah, that's the, that's the true sign of a masterful
structure is when you're not aware of it.
Laura Chesterfield: It's, it's teamwork, you know, and I
think that's what we're lucky.
We've got lots of team members.
We all get stuck in and we all do a bit of, you know, you might one minute be in
the car park, car parking, and the next minute rounding up pigs that have escaped
and the next minute all going to a, you know, a, an a glow worm release and the
next minute all on the jumpy pillow in the play area, and then the next minute
dealing with storms and climate change.
And I think it's, again, it's about having that ecosystem.
All in one place that it's quite special people to be there and to love that,
you know, and to find the joy in it.
And then you, you get the best outta people and get great things.
But yeah, of course there's structure underneath it that, that, you know,
there has to be some of that of course, but not that to lead the way.
Lead.
Rupert Isaacson: Absolutely.
No, absolutely.
It's what we all, I think, I think what you've put your finger on
is actually what fulfillment is.
Fulfillment is being able to fulfill, to see through, to bring to
fruition one's projects, but not in a way that exhaust kills the soul.
Laura Chesterfield: Yeah.
The outcomes for us are never about, you know, the bottom line and the profit.
Of course, you've gotta make a business and there, there are people that
are looking at that of course, but.
Rupert Isaacson: And yet you have made it very successful.
Laura Chesterfield: Yeah.
But the, the, you, you sustain your success by people being aligned
with you, you know, so positive outcomes are about people going, wow.
Oh my god, mommy, did you see this?
Yeah.
Like, that's a positive outcome for us.
It's not just about the pennies in the pot.
Right.
That doesn't inspire anybody.
Well, it shouldn't.
And, and I think again, it, it, it is having a team that get off on seeing
those reactions, you know, that really like the, the, the scale of how we
review a project is not just built on, you know, those, those set things.
It is about how does it feel?
How does it,
Rupert Isaacson: yeah.
Laura Chesterfield: What, what, what, what does it do for somebody?
Rupert Isaacson: And yet you are, your family is the, and listeners, you should
go and listen to the early podcast we did in 2023 with Laura's father,
Tim, Tim Smit, you, your brothers.
Your dad, your mom, you are one of the great British entrepreneurial families.
You actually, I know you guys don't think of yourselves that way.
And I think that's the one of the beauties of it, you know, is, is but
you are, I mean, you guys have made incredibly successful businesses
out of enchantment and good causes.
No, but you were never in it for the money.
Never.
Laura Chesterfield: No,
Rupert Isaacson: no.
Laura Chesterfield: We just wanted a pig farm
Rupert Isaacson: and you got one
Laura Chesterfield: with all 11 rare breeds a pig.
Like that was the dream.
Yeah.
It's still a dream, you know, it's it, yeah.
If you, you, if you lead with heart and heart and joy
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
Laura Chesterfield: You end up with heart and joy.
That's, you know,
Rupert Isaacson: so listen, we're, we're absolutely, I couldn't agree more.
If you lead with heart and joy, you get heart and joy wise words.
As we approach now, the.
Our mark, I think there will be people who are listening who might actually
appreciate some mentorship from you.
You are now available for hire.
So lo, it's LoRa, LoRa Studios, right?
Lova
Laura Chesterfield: yeah,
Rupert Isaacson: sorry.
Laura Chesterfield: Lova.
LOWE.
Rupert Isaacson: Lova with a V.
Laura Chesterfield: Yeah.
Rupert Isaacson: Those people listening, I cannot recommend enough
getting, if you are in a business or needing to put ideas together, Laura
and the family that she comes out of that is, is pretty breathtaking.
Go and have a look at Halligan Online, had Lost Gardens of Halligan.
Go and have a look at the Eden Project and now how, if they do
want to reach out for you mm-hmm.
For mentorship, and I think I might be actually how do we contact you?
Give us the, the plugs.
Laura Chesterfield: Okay.
So, I mean, really, really only just sort of launching.
So, so it's very exciting.
So Lober Studios dot com is the website.
That's the best place to get a hold of me currently.
And maybe we can put some details on the bottom of the podcast of, of, of how
Rupert Isaacson: we will We'll, we'll, we'll make sure that's in there.
Low enva studios.com.
Laura Chesterfield: Yeah.
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah, if you've got products you want to have a story told
Laura Chesterfield: Yeah.
These
Rupert Isaacson: guys know how to do it in spades.
Laura Chesterfield: Yeah.
Rupert Isaacson: I'm gonna look forward with Beta breath
to see how you do with this.
Thank and there's some projects I think I'd like to bring you in on.
Perfect.
So we should talk about that.
Laura Chesterfield: Very happy.
Okay.
Yeah.
Thank you.
Rupert Isaacson: All right, my friend.
Well, thank you so much.
And perhaps we'll have you back on in a.
Year or so when you've, yeah.
Got some interesting projects under your belt.
Tell us what you did.
Laura Chesterfield: Yeah, for sure.
That would be wonderful.
Thank you.
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