About us

THREE GENERATIONS GROWING HIGH QUALITY FOOD FOR YOU AND YOUR FAMILY

Family

THE STANLEY FAMILY HAVE BEEN FARMING THE LAND AT RECTORY FARM SINCE 1954

Thomas Stanley was the first tenant farmer at Rectory Farm until his son Richard and wife Carla took over in 1983. In 2016, their daughter Imogen joined the team: hers will be a familiar face to many of you who visit us in the Farm Shop, Tractor Shack Café and PYO. 

Rectory Farm’s Pick Your Own opened for the first time in 1981, with a modest 1.5 acres of strawberries and half an acre of raspberries. Today the PYO fields take up 45 acres at our main PYO and Farm Shop site, plus a further 60 acres of asparagus fields nearby.

Our core values:

  • Uncompromising local quality produce
  • For families today and tomorrow
  • If we can, we will

We look forward to welcoming you to our farm!

The FARM

We grow approximately 150 acres of potatoes (over 2000 tonnes a year) and 750 acres of wheat, barley, beans and oilseed rape every year. Nearly all Rectory Farm wheat  -1800 tonnes a year – is sold to Warburtons to make bread. We take huge pride in the quality of all our farm produce – whether you’re buying fruit or vegetables directly from us at the Farm Shop or picking up a loaf of Warburtons at your local supermarket.

As well as selling through our own shop, we wholesale our produce to a number of other farm shops, delis and cafes in the region. Whatever we don’t sell locally is sold to large supermarket chains. Please get in touch with us if you are interested in stocking our produce – we are always looking to work with more local businesses. 

Potatoes

As well as selling 5kg, 10kg and 25kg sacks of potatoes in the Farm Shop, we sell our Rectory Farm potatoes locally to lots of other farm shops, butchers, delis, pubs and wholesalers throughout Oxfordshire, Buckinghamshire and beyond.

We really love our potatoes here, and we grow varieties that we trust to produce consistently excellent taste and quality. Jelly and Saxon are our main white potato varieties, and we also grow red Mozart potatoes. 

Our small salad potatoes are sold to supermarkets, and some of the larger potatoes we grow become McDonald’s French fries! In the winter months when the Farm Shop is closed you can buy your potatoes directly from the Farm Yard (across the road from the Farm Shop car park) on weekdays 8am – 4pm. 

Tenant farmers & the land

We rent Rectory Farm from New College, Oxford and the adjacent land at Manor Farm in Forest Hill from Lincoln College, Oxford. We see ourselves as caretakers of this parcel of land for the next generation, and many areas of the farm are in higher level stewardship schemes to protect and promote the wildlife living here. 

We plant trees, grass margins, wildflower mixes and hedgerows, and we have also created many wildlife habitats throughout the farm, these support a range of birds, aquatic creatures, invertebrates and more. The two reservoirs on the farm store and collect all the water over the winter to irrigate our summer crops.

cheese hamper

PYO

The Rectory Farm picking season runs from April - October, starting with asparagus and finishing with pumpkins. 

Our strawberries ripen up at the start of May and finish into September. Check out our PYO page to see what's in season when, and for lots of recipe ideas.

Plan your visit

Enjoy a day out at Rectory Farm picking all your favourite fruit and vegetables to take home and enjoy. Remember to bring your own punnets and carrier bags to help us reduce plastic use.

Visit the shop from March - December to stock up on kitchen essentials and all our ready-picked fruit and vegetables if you’re short on time.

rectory farm cafe

Join us for coffee and locally baked pastries, a pot of tea and a slice of homemade cake or a cool ice-cream topped with a flake. 

We have both indoor seating and outdoor seating (covered and uncovered) and plenty of space for families and groups to gather and catch up over good food and drink.