Berkshire has a good spread of farm shops for a small county, from Cobbs on the edge of Hungerford in West Berkshire to Lockey Farm at Arborfield near Reading and Wokingham, Fernygrove Farm at Hawthorn Hill near Bracknell, Waltham Place at White Waltham near Maidenhead and Windsor Farm Shop at Old Windsor. This guide compares the five by location, what the farm itself grows or rears and what each shop does best, so you can work out which one has the food you need and where it was grown.
As a Londoner, I know it is not realistic for everyone to live on a farm. A farm shop, farmers' market or community garden can be part of a more direct food routine. Start with a reachable stop and a short list, rather than expecting to change everything at once.
Which farm shop or picking farm should you choose?
Berkshire is long and narrow, so the right shop depends on which end you live. Cobbs at Hungerford is the obvious choice in the west, just off the A4. Lockey Farm at Arborfield suits Reading and Wokingham, and is a good pick for families because of its free farm park. Fernygrove Farm at Hawthorn Hill sits between Bracknell, Maidenhead and Windsor and is best for its own pork, bacon and sausages. Waltham Place, near Maidenhead, is the one for organic and biodynamic food grown on the estate, while Windsor Farm Shop in Old Windsor is strongest on meat from the Windsor farms and a well-stocked deli.
Opening patterns vary a great deal. Cobbs and Lockey open seven days a week, Fernygrove is closed on Sundays and Mondays, and Waltham Place opens only on a few days each week, so check before you set off. At every shop, ask which items come from the farm itself and which are bought in from other local producers.
Check the farm’s current crops, opening times and prices before travelling. Picking seasons vary, and a farm shop may sell produce without offering pick-your-own visits.
- Cobbs Farm Shop & Kitchen, Hungerford , A working farm shop beside the A4
- Lockey Farm , A free-range family farm at Arborfield
- Fernygrove Farm Shop & Coffee Shop , Home-reared pork and lamb near Bracknell
- Waltham Place Farm Shop , Organic and biodynamic estate near Maidenhead
- Windsor Farm Shop , Windsor Estate meat in Victorian potting sheds
Cobbs Farm Shop & Kitchen, Hungerford
Map and location
Cobbs Farm Shop, Bath Road, Hungerford, Berkshire, RG17 0SP. View Cobbs Farm Shop & Kitchen, Hungerford on the map.
Contact: 01488 686770.
A 55-acre working farm with seasonal picking
Cobbs has been trading since 2007 and now runs several farm shops across the south of England, of which Hungerford, on the Bath Road just outside the town, is the West Berkshire one. The Great West Way tourism listing describes it as a farm shop on a 55-acre working farm, with seasonal pick-your-own when the crops are ready. In autumn the farm runs a pumpkin patch, which Cobbs says opened on Saturday 17 October this year, so visiting families can pick their own pumpkins in the field.
The shop has a traditional butchery counter staffed by master butchers, a deli, fresh fish, bread, farmhouse cheese, eggs, honey, preserves and dairy ice cream, and says it stocks local, seasonal and British produce wherever possible. Suppliers named on the Cobbs website include Alder Ridge Vineyard, Hobbs House Bakery, Fen Farm Dairy and Hazelwood Game. The café serves homemade food every day, with Sunday roasts, and there is a florist and an indoor play barn for children up to eight.
Visiting and buying
Cobbs’ website gives the farm shop hours as Monday to Friday 9am to 6pm, Saturday 9am to 5pm and Sunday 10am to 4pm, with bank holidays 10am to 4pm. The café opens Monday to Friday 9am to 5pm, Saturday 9am to 4pm and Sunday 10am to 4pm, and booking is recommended, especially for Sunday lunch. It is the most westerly shop in this guide, about ten miles from Newbury. Pick-your-own is seasonal, so check what is in the field before you go, and ask which produce is grown on the farm.
Cobbs Farm Shop & Kitchen, Hungerford: website and opening hours.
Lockey Farm
Map and location
Sindlesham Road, Reading, RG2 9JH. View Lockey Farm on the map.
Contact: 0118 976 1063.
Graham and Caroline Adams’ farm, with its own lamb
Lockey Farm is a family farm at Arborfield, south of Reading on the road towards Wokingham and next to The Bull pub. Graham and Caroline Adams set it up after leaving the family farm to start their own, and they describe it as a traditional, free-range working farm. It supplies its own lamb, and other meat comes from farms within about a 12-mile radius. Visitors can see sheep, goats, alpacas, chickens and geese, and in spring you may see lambs being born. The farm employs around 20 local people.
The farm shop has butchery and deli counters run by a master butcher with more than 40 years’ experience, alongside frozen meat, eggs and local beers, ciders and wines. The coffee shop opened in 2012, and there is also a pizzeria. Next to the shop is a free farm park with play equipment, an assault course and a zip line, with donations asked for at the entrance. It makes the farm a good place for a family outing combined with the weekly meat shop.
Visiting and buying
Lockey Farm’s website gives its hours as Monday to Saturday 9am to 5pm and Sunday 10am to 4pm. It says hours may change in bad weather and posts updates on its Facebook page, so check there on a wet day. Entry to the farm park is free. The farm is a short drive from Reading, Wokingham and the M4. Ask at the butchery counter which cuts are the farm’s own lamb and which come from neighbouring farms, and order ahead for larger joints.
Lockey Farm: website and opening hours.
Fernygrove Farm Shop & Coffee Shop
Map and location
Fernygrove Farm Shop & Coffee Shop, Hawthorn Hill, Warfield, Bracknell, Berkshire RG42 6HN. View Fernygrove Farm Shop & Coffee Shop on the map.
Contact: 01344 893457.
A 600-acre family farm rearing pigs and sheep
Fernygrove Farm is run by husband and wife James and Charlotte Quinn at Hawthorn Hill, in the countryside between Bracknell and Maidenhead. The family farms more than 600 acres from Fernygrove Farm and Hornbuckle Farm, a mix of arable land, pigs and sheep. The free-range pigs include the rare-breed Saddleback and Welsh, chosen for flavour, fat cover and good crackling, and the farm’s own meat is sold in the shop. Grass-fed beef hung for at least 28 days, and game from the farm in season, complete the counter.
The shop is first and foremost a butchery, with award-winning sausages, dry-cured bacon and faggots made on site, plus home-cooked hams, sausage rolls, pies and chicken liver pâté. It also sells English cheeses, locally baked bread, seasonal fruit and vegetables and store cupboard basics. The coffee shop serves an all-day breakfast made with the farm’s own sausages and bacon. At Christmas, orders are taken through a separate website.
Visiting and buying
Fernygrove’s website gives the farm shop and butchers’ hours as Tuesday to Saturday 8am to 4pm, and the coffee shop as Tuesday to Saturday 9am to 3pm. Both are closed on Sundays and Mondays, and there are separate hours over Christmas and New Year, posted on the website. Hawthorn Hill is about four miles north of Bracknell and handy from Maidenhead and Windsor. Ask the butchers which cuts are from the farm’s own pigs and sheep, and order ahead for Christmas.
Fernygrove Farm Shop & Coffee Shop: website and opening hours.
Waltham Place Farm Shop
Map and location
Waltham Place, Church Hill, White Waltham, Berkshire SL6 3JH. View Waltham Place Farm Shop on the map.
Contact: 01628 825517.
A 220-acre biodynamic farm with Jersey cows
Waltham Place is an estate at White Waltham, just south-west of Maidenhead, best known for its gardens, which have been organic since 1984 and biodynamic since 2006. The whole 220-acre farm is run on organic and biodynamic lines, and the site shows Soil Association and Demeter certification logos. The farm keeps pigs, sheep, beef cattle and a Jersey dairy herd, and favours slower-growing rare breeds that take longer to mature. Fruit and vegetables are grown on site and sold only when freshly harvested.
The small shop sells raw Jersey milk, free-range organic pork, grass-fed biodynamic lamb, mutton and beef, and seasonal vegetables from the estate. There are also jams and chutneys made in the Waltham Place kitchens, organic apple juice pressed from the farm’s old orchards, and spelt, emmer and black emmer flour. Seeds, plants, copper garden tools and books about the garden are sold too. It is the place to go if you want food that has been grown entirely on one farm.
Visiting and buying
Waltham Place’s website lists two sets of hours, so check before you go. The winter hours are Friday 10am to 4pm and Saturday 10am to 1pm, with Monday and Wednesday open for raw milk collection only. In the main season (from 10 June 2026) the shop opens Wednesday and Friday 10am to 4pm and Saturday 10am to 1pm. Pre-order raw milk and collect it on your chosen day, as the farm cannot store it for you. White Waltham is about three miles from Maidenhead.
Waltham Place Farm Shop: website and opening hours.
Windsor Farm Shop
Map and location
Datchet Road, Old Windsor, Windsor, Berkshire, SL4 2RQ. View Windsor Farm Shop on the map.
Contact: 01753 623800.
Founded by the Duke of Edinburgh in 2001
Windsor Farm Shop sits on the edge of the Windsor Estate at Old Windsor. It was founded in 2001 by the Duke of Edinburgh and is housed in converted potting sheds dating from the reign of Queen Victoria, with two newer buildings alongside. Beef, pork and seasonal game sold here are traditionally reared at Windsor Farms, lamb comes from Bagshot Park, and the grapes for the shop’s English sparkling wine are grown at Windsor Great Park Vineyard. Windsor Farms ham is cooked for the deli.
The butchery, a member of National Craft Butchers, makes its own sausages and also stocks Sutton Hoo chicken. The deli has home-cooked hams, Toppings pies, Somerset charcuterie and more than 18 British artisan cheeses cut to order. Bread arrives daily from artisan bakers, and the Mobile Fish Company visits on Thursdays from 11am to 2pm. The café next door serves breakfasts, lunches, homemade cakes and coffee.
Visiting and buying
The Royal Borough’s tourism website, windsor.gov.uk, gives 2026 hours of Monday to Saturday 9am to 4.30pm and Sunday 10am to 4pm, and notes that these are provisional, so confirm with the shop or on its own website before a special trip. Christmas orders must be placed in store by 16 December, or by 4 December for cutting pies. Old Windsor is about two miles south-east of Windsor town centre. Ask at the counter which meat is from the Windsor farms.
Windsor Farm Shop: website and opening hours.
Knowing a farm shop you can return to is also one of the most practical ways to be ready for disruption. Read The Be Ready Campaign: A UK Guide to Stocking Your Home With Healthy, Local Food, and use the Be Ready Map to find more local food across the UK.
Plan your farm visit, produce, quantities and picking dates
Choose one or two farms or farm shops that fit your route. Write down what you want, how much you need and what you will do with it when you get home. If one crop is unavailable, decide whether to choose a different farm, change the meal or return another day.
- Confirm the crop, public opening and any booking requirement.
- Ask whether you can pick yourself or buy already picked.
- Check the price unit, payment method and containers.
- Ask about access, parking and the correct visitor entrance.
Farm shop and fruit-picking questions
Where can I buy local food in Berkshire?
Good Berkshire farm shops include Cobbs at Hungerford in the west, Lockey Farm at Arborfield near Reading and Wokingham, Fernygrove Farm at Hawthorn Hill near Bracknell, Waltham Place at White Waltham near Maidenhead, and Windsor Farm Shop at Old Windsor. Each rears or grows some of what it sells.
Are all these farms in the same town?
No. Berkshire covers a wide area, and this guide spreads its choices across the county. Each farm section gives its location so you can compare the journey before you set off.
Can I pick at every farm or market?
No. Farm shops and markets may sell ready-picked food without opening fields to visitors. Ask the individual business about picking access, the crop and any booking requirement.
Plan your farm shopping with My Shopping List and Harvest Checker
Open My Shopping List to record produce, quantities and estimated costs. Mark items as bought when you collect them and keep the plan for your next trip.
Use Harvest Checker after a grower gives you a picking window. Enter those dates and compare them with your visit date. The tool uses your entries; it does not fetch live availability from farms.
My Shopping List
Keep the produce you actually need in one place before you set off.
Use My Shopping ListHarvest Checker
Compare your visit with dates confirmed by the grower. This does not check live stock.
Use Harvest CheckerUse the tools with your My Ideal World account. Guest and free-account limits apply; paid members have unlimited tool access.
Explore more farm shops and picking farms in My Ideal World. Browse the Farm Shops app below or beside this article, then check the grower’s current crop and opening before visiting.
Sources
- Cobbs Farm Shop & Kitchen, Hungerford , Cobbs Farm Shops
- Cobbs Farm Shop & Kitchen, Hungerford , Cobbs Farm Shops (home page)
- Cobbs Farm Shop & Kitchen, Hungerford , Great West Way
- Lockey Farm , Lockey Farm
- Lockey Farm , Lockey Farm (the farm)
- Fernygrove Farm Shop & Coffee Shop , Fernygrove Farm
- Fernygrove Farm Shop & Coffee Shop , Fernygrove Farm (farm shop and butchers)
- Fernygrove Farm Shop & Coffee Shop , Fernygrove Farm (contact)
- Waltham Place Farm Shop , Waltham Place
- Windsor Farm Shop , Windsor Great Park
- Windsor Farm Shop , Visit Windsor (windsor.gov.uk)
Research reviewed 25 October 2026. Farm and visitor sources support the descriptions above. Historical information is identified where relevant; no firsthand visit, current stock check or certification is claimed.