Meet Andrew Reid, the lawyer behind one of the most popular farms in London

THERE can’t be many top lawyers who are adept at milking cows by hand and even fewer who are happy to do it while wearing an expensive suit and silk tie. 

But Andrew Reid is no ordinary commercial solicitor. He doubles as the proprietor of Belmont Children’s Farm, a proper working farm in Mill Hill, north London, which bills itself as “a hidden natural sanctuary within London’s sprawling landscape”. Just eight miles from central London it welcomes 50,000 visitors every year. 

While Reid spends his mornings working at the farm, at lunchtime he heads for his office in Mayfair and so the only concession he makes to the more rudimentary aspects of life at Belmont is to wear a stout pair of walking boots rather than a shiny pair of Oxfords. 

In an era when one in three cityreared children has never heard a cow moo, Reid is on a mission to put kids in touch with the natural world and educate them about the food chain. 

“I had this idea that there are very, very few places [in London] where children can go to see farm animals and get a connection to where food comes from,” he says. “That was the purpose of this place. They tour the farm and we talk to them about each of the animals. We’ve got different breeds of sheep. You’ve got Herdwicks to your right, Shetlands to your left. And then there are alpacas, ducks, turkeys, reindeer – 30 different animal varieties in all.” 

The visitors’ experience is not confined to peering at animals in pens. “Children come in, they can walk a sheep, they can walk an alpaca, they can stroke guinea pigs and rabbits. 

We do pig racing, ferret racing, sheep racing even. We try to let them interface with live animals not computer screens.” 

It has proved a winning combination with residents and schools. As one mother says: “There’s nowhere like this in London really. It’s totally unique. Children can come and just be children and get back to grassroots. Countryside kids have this all the time. They run out their back door and they’re in the fields but city kids don’t have that.” 

Belmont is much more than a petting zoo. It has a commercial flock of 200 ewes as well as half a dozen pigs and it breeds chickens and ducks. “We do what we call London Lamb here and make our own pork sausages,” says Reid. 

“Most of it goes to the markets but we’re hoping to introduce them to restaurants in London. My whole thing is that London could produce its own food in the areas it’s got if there was open encouragement.” 

Belmont employs 19 people, many of them with degrees in relevant agricultural subjects, and is a magnet for weekend volunteers keen to escape the tensions of housing estates. 

The farm also hosts two charity days each year, one for the Starlight Foundation for terminally ill children and the other for the Children’s Country Holiday Fund. 

The former attracts 500 kids, while the latter takes the form of a tea party for 130 and members of the fire brigade and police force turn out to educate and entertain the children.

If Reid had his way Belmont would be a much bigger and more sophisticated enterprise but his ambitions have been stifled by the council planning department. Visitor numbers slump when it rains and he proposed building a covered facility but the council would only allow the project to go ahead if opening times were restricted to 8am to 5pm. Reid claims this makes the scheme financially unworkable and so the two sides are at an impasse. 

“I was following what I thought was an inspirational idea that Cameron had. The Big Society,” says Reid, in reference to the initiative to expand the role of communities and volunteers in improving society. “I wrote to him about all the problems I was having saying you should appoint someone to help people who have got Big Society ideas and I never got a response. I hadn’t actually realised that Cameron has abandoned the Big Society in a deal with [Lib Dem leader Nick] Clegg. Why, I don’t know.” 

Reid is no novice when it comes to the machinations of government. Apart from his run-in with Barnet council he has served as deputy chairman of Hendon Conservatives and provided office space for free to Boris Johnson’s last mayoral campaign.

ALTHOUGH he remains a Boris fan – “I saw him as good for London and an inspirational person who could unify people” – his party affiliation has changed. After mulling over the future faced by his nine-year-old daughter he decided that the threat posed by the creation of a European superstate run by establishment dynasties had become the most important battleground. 

“I was so fed up here one day I asked Alicia [his assistant] to ring up Mr Farage [the leader of Ukip] and say I’d like to meet him. Two hours later I got a phone call from him. Then we had a series of meetings and I thought Nigel had some excellent, common-sense ideas.” 

Reid was so impressed that he offered Farage a floor of his office building in Brook’s Mews, just behind Claridge’s hotel in Mayfair, for use as his central London headquarters. He also offered his considerable administrative and organisational skills and serves as Ukip’s deputy treasurer. 

Meanwhile, he has plenty to keep him busy back at base. Belmont occupies only part of Reid’s 180-acre property at Mill Hill, which also accommodates his 17th century home – complete with a pond popular with swans – and gallops for his racehorse training business. 

Reid has just 12 horses in training but in the past had many more and has twice trained 32 winners in a year. His greatest achievement came when he won the 2005 All-Weather Derby at Lingfield with Eccentric, a feat that helped him win the Lingfield trainer’s title that year. 

But as he feeds an apple to Treacle the Jersey cow, bottle feeds his black-faced lambs and coos over the rabbits in the petting shed it’s clear where his heart really lies. 

• Belmont Children’s Farm is at The Ridgeway (next to Sheepwash Pond), Mill Hill, London NW7 1QT. It is open seven days a week all year round. Mon-Fri 8am-6pm, Sat and Sun 9am-6pm. Entrance fees: adults £6, children £4. Tel: 020 7318 4421. www.belmontfarm.co.uk