Facilities for Our Students

Students working at the farm enjoy a variety of leisure activities on site including barbecues, football, basketball, cycling and parties. In addition, we have organized events such as ice-skating and trips to adventure parks, historical sites and even West End shows in London. If you would like more information on working at Little Sharsted Farm please email us.

Students are welcome to work on the farm subject to an EU passport and the correct working visas. This farm offers a great opportunity to work and live in a friendly environment. We can offer work from June until October.

Our students' accommodation comprises a recently renovated barn set in a lovely area of the farm, with decking and a courtyard area for socialising and barbeques. The accommodation consists of single and double rooms, with storage facility for personal belongings. Bathrooms are separated into male and female amenities with individual lockers. 

A fully equipped kitchen is available for use with a large dining room table and chairs. 

The recreation rooms have sofas, tv, dvd, video and internet access. Outdoor activities include football, netball, basketball and volleyball. There are also bicycles freely available to enable students to enjoy our beautiful countryside. Laundry facilities are available on site and we run a weekly shopping trip to the supermarket.

CHERRIES 

Cherries have been grown on our farm for 80 years.

 The first cherry orchards planted in the UK were less than 3 miles from our farm by Henry VIII.

The local area has been famous for its cherries ever since. 

Our soils and local micro- climate are prefect for growing cherries. They enable us to grow the earliest cherries in the UK and we are the first farm to stock the supermarket shelves with British cherries.

We grow approx. 42 Hectares of cherries and pack them for the supermarkets in our new state of the art packhouse.

We grow many different varieties of cherries from the earliest Merchant, Sequoia, Folfer through to the mid-season. Grace Star, Kordia and the Inter Skenna and Regina.

The picking season last for 7-8 weeks from early June through to the middle of July. 

Every cherry is handpicked. The challenge is to decide when each variety of cherry is ripe enough to pick. Each cherry is selected to ensure it is harvested at its optimum time to ensure maximum size, taste and quality. 

Cherries have always been one of the farms favourite fruits and the team have developed a real passion for growing them.

There is nothing better than a freshly picked large dark sweet English cherry. 

APPLES

We farm approx. 40 Hectares of Apples. Over the past few years, we have modernised our orchards and specialize in core varieties, Cox, Gala and Braeburn. 

The fruit is harvested from early September through till October.

PEARS 

We farm 13 Hectares of conference Pears. We have a nice mix of the more traditional orchards with big trees that were planted in 1950s and the more modern, commercial orchards that were planted as recently in 2018. 

These are harvested in early September. 

PACKHOUSE

In 2016 we built a new packhouse dedicated solely to packing our cherry crop.

We have a GP optical grader to sort the cherries, online weighing and automated punnetting machines.

The grader is able to sort for quality, size and colour to get the best cherries for our customers. 

The packhouse is BRC accredited.