THE 'DUCHY DAY' WITH THE 25TH DUKE OF CORNWALL! [2/2]
The continuation of Telegraph's exclusive Duchy Day with The Prince of Wales (Duke of Cornwall) :
At its Bath office, William says with approval that the Duchy serves as a “glue” to bring charities, local authorities and government departments together, to make things happen.
There are a few small tasks to do: signing the certificate for the Prince of Wales Award at the upcoming Devon County Show, and taking a new team photo. “Let’s whizz round and say hello,” he decides, nipping into each of the offices to catch up with the staff he already knows and welcome the new starters.
In each one, he asks for feedback – a quick-fire fact-finding mission from the people who get out and about directly with local farmers.
He tells them it is “crucial” they feel they can always ask him questions too. “In kind of modernising and reforming a bit, there’s always going to be some changes,” he says, in relation to an upcoming office move. “We need to make sure it’s gentle and considerate.”
Of an upcoming Dartmoor meeting, which he will attend, he asks Morris to “please give [everyone] proper authority to say what’s really going on. Not being polite because I’m in the room.”
A cork board in the staff room has the orders of service for several recent Duchy tenant funerals; testament to the local relationships that see land stewards greet farmers with a hug as often as a handshake.
“It’s a family feeling,” says Sarah Bird, a land steward who has worked at the Duchy for 18 years. “The tenants care as much about us as we do about them.”
That mantra is at the centre of William’s approach. “The core part of the Duchy works on its people... what it stands for,” he explains. “The key point of the Duchy for me is about social impact. People, places and planet, those are the key things we’re working on.”
The Prince of Wales has inherited an estate with a solid track record of helping its farmers in practical ways. In-house experts assist them with paperwork, navigating the ever-changing legislation and reduced funding in the sector. The Duchy puts on free masterclasses from agricultural experts, and supports farms to branch out (“diversify”) into new ways to remain viable – shepherd’s huts for tourists to stay in, say.
“It’s friendly faces coming up the driveway from the Duchy,” says Heather Webb, the head of future farming.
But Prince William is painfully aware, having spent years talking about mental health and hearing some hard truths from farmers, of how isolating, worrying and pressured the lifestyle can be. “In the past, the farmers have been supported in farming ways, but where’s the holistic approach to their life?” he says now. “That’s what we’re trying to patch in. It’s not just, ‘How are your sheep, how is your cattle going?’ It’s not just that. It’s also, ‘How do we look after you as a community?’”
Tenants rhapsodise over “pie and pint” evenings, regular walks and small parties to get neighbours talking.
William recently became patron of the charity We Are Farming Minds, co-founded by Sam Stables, a 45-year-old farmer who once came close to ending his own life and, with his wife, has applied himself to saving others from a similar rock bottom. It now runs a 24/7 support line, and offers funding for counselling, mental health training, social meet-ups and a minibus to get people there.
The Prince “wanted to make sure that his tenants had the support through a service. He’s a family man and loves the country. They [the Duchy] are incredibly caring, they’ve been incredibly kind to us as a family.”
Stuart Rogers, a fifth-generation farmer whose family became Duchy tenants in 2000, called the focus on well-being “pretty unique, it ’s pretty progressive”.
“Farming has been hit by a lot of different things recently. Funding cuts, regulations... There’s a lot of pressure and lone working. Farmers, we carry a lot of weight. It’s funny how it takes the Duchy to get together and meet up.”
Prince William has appointed a new “family farming ambassador”, Sue Padfield, to be a roving “listening ear”.
“An excuse to drag people off the farm and have a pie and a pint together with no agenda,” as Heather Webb puts it. “As a large landowner, we have convening power.”
The Duchy is hosting more events for young farmers, with advice on facilitating tricky questions about succession and taking over the family firm, a topic with which the Prince is presumably familiar.
It is surprising, even to a royal editor, to learn how much William manages to do without the wider world noticing. He films and sends regular video messages for Duchy-related events – a river conservation meeting this month, a charity boxing night. When a tenant suggested he might be interested in the agricultural festival Groundswell, he duly popped up there.
Shortly after Queen Elizabeth II’s death, the King hosted a previously unreported private gathering at St James’s Palace for tenants, appearing tearful as he told them how some of his happiest times had been sitting at their kitchen tables. Prince William, by his side, paid tribute to his father and promised guests he was excited about his future with them.
It has not always been smooth sailing. At the end of last year, after this day out was first agreed, the Duchy of Cornwall and the Duchy of Lancaster (now the King’s estate) were made the focus of a Channel 4 Dispatches documentary.
There is some defensiveness about it from tenants. “Load of twaddle,” snorts one farmer I ask about it. The suggestion that the Duke or the Duchy don’t care about tenants is “really frustrating, it couldn’t be further from the truth”, says Stuart Rogers. “It’s one of the best things that could have happened to us. Would we still be dairy farming if we hadn’t been bought by the Duchy? Probably not. There’s no better landlord.”
Within the Duchy of Cornwall team, though, there is a willingness to confront it head on. Bax points out some technicalities: the financial status of the Duchy is enshrined in an Act of Parliament; it is obliged to let property at a full and fair annual rent; there are legal safeguards including that the Duke is not about to sell off the capital assets.
That said, there has been some reflection. “The Duchy needs to use that moment as an opportunity to step back and reflect on how we communicate. I don’t think we’ve communicated our mission and particularly all the brilliant work we do very well, to be honest. And as a result I think we are largely misunderstood – or have been by the public at large – in terms of why we exist and our purpose.
“And as a result there’s this extraordinary disconnect between the Dispatches view of the world and the view of the world of people who do work with the Duchy, who almost uniformly see us as a force for good in the world.”
He concludes, “What do we learn from it? The biggest thing we learn is to talk about the brilliant work we do.”
Lunch, on Duchy days, is taken on the go – a selection of neat sandwiches and wraps for the team, with a chocolate brownie for the road. As we walk along the quiet winding road through the picturesque Newton St Loe – in the middle of the road, because there is no traffic – Matthew Morris’s wife and mother-in-law pop out of a cottage to say hello to William, who stops to pass the time of day.
The final visit is to Grow for Life, a therapeutic gardening charity that aims to help anyone with low confidence, anxiety, depression or feelings of isolation by getting their hands dirty and developing their green fingers.
Among the catmint, alliums, phacelia and forget-me-nots, as bees buzz around them, volunteers are beavering away and doing a good job of pretending they aren’t sneaking a glance at their royal visitor. “Hard at work!” William calls over, keen – with four decades of royal visits under his belt – not to miss anyone out. “I hope you get a cup of tea too.”
The agenda includes digging a bed for runner beans, planting out sweet peas and admiring the first nectarines of the year. Eleanor Carr, horticultural therapy lead, describes how the site was just brambles not long ago, and tells the Prince about the charity’s sessions bringing secondary school boys in to learn by doing. “Do you see a change in them, a difference?” William wants to know. “Is it confidence and calmness?”
The project’s work, he says, is “very professional”: “Chelsea Flower Show, here we come!”
In the orchard, where he is given a bottle of apple juice to take home, one of the gardeners shows the Prince a picture his young daughter has drawn of him on a postcard. “She’s given me more hair, so I love her for that,” says William. He tends to make at least one self-deprecating joke about his hairline with every public appearance.
As he leaves, he asks Duchy staff whether he can arrange to donate damson trees to add to the orchard. By coincidence, volunteers had been talking about getting some just that morning.
There are thank yous and handshakes all round, a wave out of the Land Rover Defender window, and the Duchy day is over.
The Prince will take the train home with his private secretary and small security detail, ready to catch up with Prince George, Princess Charlotte and Prince Louis after school.
George will one day inherit the Duchy, with his father acting as guardian if he is under 18, and will have ideas of his own.
For now, the Prince’s message is quite simple really.
“I’m trying to make sure I’m prioritising stuff that’s going to make people’s lives, living in those areas, better. This is what we’re going to do to make people’s lives in Cornwall better. That, I feel as Duke of Cornwall, is something I should be doing. It’s about responsibility, it’s about leadership, and doing what’s right on the social issues of our time.”
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/royal-family/2025/05/30/prince-william-exclusive-duchy-cornwall-bring-real-change/
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