August 2021

FUNCTION VENUES
CASE STUDY
Thief Hall
A ‘no rules’ farm wedding venue with
accommodation for 60 guests
When did you start your venue business
and what is its history?
Until the age of 21 I show jumped horses
professionally from my yard in Essex where
I lived with my sister and parents. Having
followed my dream, I knew nothing else but
the horses, having hardly attended school!
In 2001, I was invited to train with the
Barker family in Yorkshire for a few weeks
to train with Paul Barker, an extremely
successful show jumper. The short story is
that I never went home! I gave up the horses,
sending them back to Essex, and married the
farmer of the family, Phillip. Our wedding was
in June 2006 in a marquee on his parents’
farm.
I soon missed the adrenaline of the show
jumping and needed something to get my
teeth into and put in planning permission
to renovate Phillip’s farm buildings. When
residential use was turned down we were
devastated but we did get permission for four
holiday cottages so we set about building
them. Looking back, it was the best thing that
could have happened.
In October 2015 we went on to renovate
the remaining farm buildings and Thief Hall
grew from the four cottages to six cottages,
six glamping pods and a wedding hall, giving
us the opportunity to offer couples the
chance to get married on site and sleep up to
60 of their guests.
Tell us about your location and site
We are extremely lucky where we are based,
with views of the Yorkshire Dales that can’t be
beaten. We are also easily accessible, being
one of the most central locations in the UK.
Jessica Barker went north to
train as a show jumper and
never went home. Instead
she married a farmer and
created a destination wedding
venue from redundant
farm buildings. Sleeping 60
guests in holiday cottages
and Anthropod glamping
pods, the family business is
fully booked until 2024 – no
surprise as couple’s get cart
blanche with the facilities for
a full three days! We talk to
Jessica.
16 WWW.OPENAIRBUSINESS.COM