02/04/2025
Regular visitors to Hylands may have noticed that the horses have not been around recently, and sadly we have to announce that this is because we have decided to close our doors and cease trading.
We’ve had an amazing 17 years working at Hylands in partnership with Chelmsford City Council, and we are extremely proud of what we have achieved. What started as a 3 year project with Heritage Lottery funding with us working part-time, turned into a really successful full-time Family Business. We’ve worked with 6 different horses over this time, providing carriage rides for tens of thousands of people, wedding couples, birthday parties and supporting Hylands events such as the Farmers Markets.
In addition we’ve made significant improvements to the Estates woodlands through Coppicing and Thinning, extracting timber with the horses to sell on as local sustainable firewood and products such as planks and beams. We’ve also been lucky to have hundreds of people come to take part in Experience Days and have a go at working with our horses to get a taste for horse-logging and driving.
We are extremely grateful to Chelmsford City Council, and all the Staff, Volunteers and Councillors who have worked with us to keep the project going this long.
Away from Hylands we have also taken the horses to work in dozens of local woodlands and nature reserves, assisting with woodland, grassland, bracken and flood management projects for other Local Authorities, Charities and Private landowners.
However, all good things must come to an end, and for a wide variety of professional and personal reasons we have decided that now is the time to stop. Whilst we have loved almost every minute of what we have done, the stark realities of running a working horse business in the current financial climate is not one to be taken lightly. The workload required to bring enough income in to support both the day-to-day running costs of the horses and business, whilst also earning a wage that reflects the vast number of hours this takes has always been on a knife-edge.
We have already supported Joe (our Shire horse) through his retirement until we sadly lost him last month, and Falcon and Roy are getting to the age where they very much deserve an easier life. We’re really happy to say that they now have this, as they have moved home to live at Foxburrows Farm at Hainault Country Park in Redbridge. We have been working with the staff there on-and-off for a number of years as they have been looking to get their own horses, and it was a really natural progression for Falcon and Roy to have the next stage of their career there with them. They will continue to do some work there with the team, but will have far more time being fussed by both their lovely staff and the public. We couldn’t be more pleased with their new home.
We’ll be working with Chelmsford City Council over the next few months to both wind down our existing activities, but also support them in ensuring that the work that we have done so far is continued as far as possible. It is very much hoped that horses will still be making a regular appearance in the park, both to continue the woodland management but also for events. The Council’s Estate Volunteers are already doing an excellent job in the woods and taking care of many of the projects that we started, and other contractors are being lined up to undertake some of the bigger tasks. It is also hoped that the sustainable Firewood and Timber sales will be able to continue but with a new team. We will update our website as appropriate for any existing customers who want to continue to buy this in due course.
As for us, we are taking on new and exciting jobs and projects, and will also remain around Hylands in other capacities for the foreseeable future so do come and say hi if you see us around!
