How Lady Bamford built her Organic Empire

If you want to know the secret of a happy marriage,” Lord Bamford tells me, “It’s both having your own work and interests keeping you busy.” Sage advice, given that Lord and Lady Bamford are due to celebrate an impressive milestone 50th anniversary this year. And when it comes to drive, passion and businesses, Lady Bamford has plenty of handmade plates spinning. As she wisely notes, “I’m passionate about it, so it’s not a job to me.”

The ‘it’ encompasses Daylesford Organic farmshop and multiple cafés, Bamford skincare and clothing, a wellness club, her growing number of pubs and restaurants, several charity projects, publishing (her third title, Daylesford Living: Inspired by Nature, was released in July, and she also edits Seed magazine) not to mention a shared venture with her husband – the stunning Château Léoube vineyard in Provence.

The latter is an organic, small batch ‘winemaker’s wine’ with vines right by the sea, a low-key spot in the South of France – and is now available on an exclusive hire basis for others looking to celebrate special occasions in typically barefoot luxe style. “I had my grandson’s christening there. The local choir sang Imagine [by John Lennon],” explains Bamford, who like fellow winemaker Romain Ott is a fan of drinking rosé –preferably Secret de Léoube – all year round. 

We meet the day of Michelin-starred chef Tom Aikens’ guest supper club at The Wild Rabbit in Kingham in the Cotswolds – the first of the now-expanding Bamford pub empire. Aikens and Carole, as he familiarly calls her, are old pals. The pair first met 20 years ago when Aikens worked for the family, initially as a private chef, but latterly helping with the establishment of the Daylesford Organic we know and love today. He still credits her as the one to instil in him the importance of sourcing quality ingredients.

The pair share a mutual work ethic, as well as a passion for seasonality and sustainability. “Many ladies in Carole’s position would do nothing with their time, but she was so passionate [about organic farming] at a time when nobody knew anything about it,” shares Aikens. It’s an admirable quality and one she’s passing down to the next generations. “I’m very proud of my grandson, he wanted some golf clubs, and I said, ‘Come and work in my shop, and you can buy your own!’ So now he’s got his uniform and he’s cleaning tables.”

Cleaning, not-so-funnily, is what led Lady Bamford to found Bamford in 2004, having already established Daylesford Organic in 2002. I’m surprised and saddened to learn she suffered – and thankfully recovered – from Guillain-Barré syndrome. “It’s terribly frightening,” she says. “I was paralysed and couldn’t walk for three months. I always go back to Ayurveda and was told to get all the toxins out of my system.”

She applied the “you are what you eat” philosophy further, to you are what you put on your skin and spray in your home. The result was certified, natural, animal test-free cleaning products (which are now carried in the Daylesford line), which grew into Bamford natural skincare and clothing.

Geranium was the first scent. “When I was growing up, Floris had a rose geranium scent, and you’d put just two drops in the bath and the fragrance would fill the house,” she reminisces. “When I began gardening around the age of 35, I started buying geranium plants and taking cuttings; and now I have a huge collection. It’s very nostalgic for me, it takes me back to being a teenager.” But it’s her work through the Lady Bamford Charitable Trust (LBCT) in India that she’s deservingly most proud of, which supports 5,000 women teaching them skills and providing a livelihood amongst many other things. LBCT  aims to roll out in 106 villages by 2025. She humbly says, “I’m very privileged to be able to do it [help] and I know that.”

Closer to home, Lady Bamford works through the NSPCC with communities in Staffordshire, where the family has a home, and both Daylesford and Bamford raise donations to support The Branch Trust in Chipping Norton, as well as giving to food waste charities The Felix Project and Too Good to Go. It’s not about putting the bottom line first for the Bamfords. “The other thing – besides my children and grandchildren – that I’m most proud of is acquiring B Corp status [which both Daylesford and Bamford have achieved]. I put the planet first, people second and profit third.”

Famously, Jeremy Clarkson made little money from the actual farming of his 1,000 acres at nearby Diddly Squat. What advice would she give to her fellow farmer, who has just opened The Farmer’s Dog pub near Burford? “I wouldn’t give him any advice,” she jokes. “Listen, I think Jeremy is a legend [with] what he’s done for British farming. Although I’m always arguing with him because he’s still putting chemicals on his land. But his programme is hilarious – I laugh out loud until my tummy aches, it’s brilliant.”

She is, of course, being modest when it comes to not having any advice to impart. All her Cotswolds pubs – the aforementioned Rabbit, The Fox at Oddington and The Bell at Charlbury – are perennially busy. And she is very much the tastemaker when it comes to their signature style. “I like buildings to speak to me. I always go back to their history and  
I try to retain a little bit of what a property used to be.  

“I love using all the natural elements that give a sense of place – the Cotswolds stone, wood from our estate, colours inspired by nature – I’ve even done a cobb building made with straw on the farm. It’s about respecting a building and traditional crafts- people like thatchers and drystone wallers because I’m fearful that they will get wiped out if we don’t look after them.” Inspiration can come anywhere from travels in India and Italy – “I never get to the bottom of India, it’s a place that always surprises you, and Italy is my second love” – to a recent visit to the new Diptyque store on London’s Bond Street: “I love that there is a recycling and refilling facility there.”

Another favourite pastime when in town is, not surprisingly, seeking out excellent foodie markets. Refreshingly though, we’re not talking the Saturday staples of Duke of York Square in Chelsea or Orange Square on Pimlico Road, but the likes of Hackney and Borough Market. Not places, she concedes, that she normally visits unless there is a heritage tomato to be found. Although Lady Bamford spends two nights a week in London, Gloucestershire is very much home. “It’s a piece of heaven and a haven in this crazy world we live in. I wake up and look out of the window and see my Gloucester cattle lying under the trees, and I can hear the sheep baaing in the background. After yoga at 6.45 am, I just listen to the birdsong. You don’t hear that in London. There is nothing I like more than doing my morning meditation with my chickens coming through the door.”

It sounds like far more simple pleasures than the glamorous Glossy Posse as detailed by Plum Sykes in her recent satire Wives Like Us, which affectionately references Daylesford. Although having hosted Sykes for a book talk at the farm, one assumes Lady Bamford is in on the joke. The other literary references she makes during our chat – Hemingway and Graham Greene – suggest she devours a broad range of reading material.

She describes herself as a curious person, and I’m similarly curious to know if there’s anything readers would be surprised to learn about the Queen B of the Cotswolds. “I’m a perfectionist, but underneath all that, I’m very relaxed, and I’m quite fun! I don’t think people realise that when they hear ‘Lady Bamford’, but actually, I will have a jam sandwich in the kitchen with somebody in front of the Aga quite as happily as something like tonight [the aforementioned dinner with Tom Aikens].” 

But relaxing will have to wait because, this autumn, she is launching a homeware line dedicated to mushrooms including table linens, glassware, crockery and a new mushroom candle. A new range of 15 Daylesford wines, including English Sparkling white and rosé and an English Pinot Gris, along with organic wine from specially selected winemakers in France and Italy, are also in the pipeline.

Lady Bamford’s energy and optimism – “at my age, 78, I think it’s a joy to be alive, and I want people to feel positive” – is contagious. Her parting advice? “Think of all the wonderful things that have happened to you in life and all the things you have to be grateful for. It really is possible to turn your mind around. And get outside in nature.” It’s a simple philosophy, but one that has certainly yielded a pretty extraordinary journey for her so far, you’ll no doubt agree.