Meet the Team

Regular visitors to Pennywell will know some of the team here and many of you are very familiar faces to us. As well as the people you meet when you visit the farm, there is a team behind the scenes all year round, all with a common aim – making the visitor experience the best that it can be!

Here’s the low down on a few team members that you may or not have met:

Angus Murray

Favourite Pennywell animal: Duke the Shire horse

Favourite Pennywell ride: Red Rocket

How long have you worked at Pennywell? Being part of the Murray family means I started early. I can remember scooping bags of animal feed after school when I was about 6. I took on my current role 2 years ago.

Job Title: Project and Business Development Manager

Roles and responsibilities: I am always looking at new ways to improve the visitor experience and have worked on projects like the Café extension, refurbishing Noah’s Barn and completely updated all the electrics across site. I’m also the go to person for any computer or internet issues.

I’m am part of the marketing team and am particularly involved in the online and social media side of the business. On busy days I can often be found hosting in the yard next to the activity board.

Most enjoyable part of the job: Hosting and interacting with visitors is the best part of the job. I really enjoy helping people to make the most of their visit to Pennywell, making sure they don’t miss anything.

2019 highlights

Becoming a dad for the first time was my personal highlight. At Pennywell it has been seeing people enjoying the new set up and bouncy castles in Noahs Barn.

Chris Murray

Favourite Pennywell animal: Heavy horses

Favourite Pennywell ride: Big tractor ride

How long have you worked at Pennywell? 32 years

Job Title: Founder and Managing Director

Roles and responsibilities: Responsible ultimately for everything which is why I’m so passionate we get the basics right ALL the time and allow room for personal flair to shine eg Mark, Josh, Amy on activities, Adam, Olivia and many others on pets, Valerie, Suzanne and Angus on phone answering and marketing, Farmer Pete on the big tractor ride etc…..

Most enjoyable part of your job: Helping and encouraging a happy, knowledgeable team and seeing happy content customers …. especially when they keep returning.

2019 highlights: Having successful Operations Manager succession. Acquiring two beautiful heavy horses. Having more customers through the door. Working with such lovely outstanding people, seeing team members, especially the younger ones, grow and flourish in stature knowledge and confidence . Having a profitable year especially when I hear many attractions are struggling. Getting to thirty years of Pennywell, seeing stability and succession coming through.

Suzanne Ganney

Favourite Pennywell animal: Miniature donkeys

Favourite Pennywell ride: Red Rocket

How long have you worked at Pennywell? 13 years

Job Title: Marketing Assistant and Shop Buyer

Roles and responsibilities: I’m usually the first point of contact for people when they telephone or email and I deal with their enquiries. I give admin and marketing support to the marketing team as well as coming up with new marketing ideas.

I also meet with reps and buy for the gift shop, as well as working in the shop one day every fortnight. I help out wherever is needed on busy days.

Most enjoyable part of the job: I work with a great team, have lots of fun and it’s always very varied.

2019 highlights

I came up with the idea of Piggies and Prosecco. With the rest of the marketing team we planned how it would work, what we would offer and I actually came in and arranged the experience on the evening. It was great to see a project through, the evening was amazing and we’re rolling out more dates for 2020.

Ben Hayden

Favourite Pennywell animal: All of them

Favourite Pennywell ride: Red Rocket, although farmer Pete’s talk on the tractor and trailer is pretty good!

How long have you worked at Pennywell? 3 months

Job title: Operations Manager

Roles and Responsibilities: I look after the daily running of the farm. This includes the well-being and training of our amazing Pennywell team as well as the well-being of the visitors we have at Pennywell. I have a fair amount of paperwork behind the scenes to do as well.

Most enjoyable part of my job: The team. It’s a dynamic team from a wide range of backgrounds, yet we will all seem to get on pretty well. Team huddles are a highlight of my day!

2019 highlights: Seeing staff genuinely enjoy engaging with customers and having fun whilst at work!

Valerie Bickford-Beers

Favourite Pennywell animal: Alpacas

Favourite Pennywell ride: Red Rocket

How long have you worked at Pennywell? 16 years

Job title: Marketing Manager

Roles and Responsibilities: Anything to do with the marketing and promotion of the farm. PR, writing press releases, keeping the website up to date, producing flyers and leaflets and anything to do with getting Pennywell better known.

Most enjoyable part of my job: Working with such an awesome team. I genuinely love being around the people I work with, bouncing ideas off each offer and taking new ideas and making them happen together. I share an office with the best colleagues ever and we have a lot of fun.

2019 highlights: Piggy Pilates. Taking this from a vague idea to a news item that went viral online and led to national radio and TV coverage. I also picked up an in-flight magazine on my holidays to find a Piggy Pilates article in there. It’s really rewarding when an idea takes off and aside from the publicity the Pilates has been a huge success, leading to a new personal hobby.

Hannah Pattle

Favourite Pennywell animal: There are just so many !! I love all the animals from Duke our whiteSshire to Ruby rubs who is one of our retired pigs living in our woodlands.

Favourite Pennywell ride: Red Rocket, such awesome fun no matter how old you are !!

How long have you worked at Pennywell? I started in April 2017

Job Title: Duty Manager & Livestock Supervisor

Roles and responsibilities: I do a wide range of jobs on the farm and every day is different. My main responsibility is making sure the animals have a happy, healthy home and all their needs are cared for.

I am also Duty Manager on the farm 2 days a week to make sure the day runs as smooth as butter and the customer experience is everything on the farm and they have a fantastic, fun filled day. I also deal with the pig sales and breeding on the farm for our world famous miniature piglets. They just make such amazing pets!

Most enjoyable part of your job: All of it, honestly! I do not wake up in the morning thinking ‘I have work today’. It’s is a true passion and highlight seeing the animals and customers happy and interacting on the farm.

2019 highlights: I have three. Duke and Duchess, the heavy horses joining us as we were really missing having a gentle giant on the farm. Travelling to France to collect our miniature donkeys to bring them to live with us at Pennywell and last but not least, becoming a Duty Manager as you really see the different families and reasons for visiting, and see how much of an impact we have on their day as a team working together.

Mary-Ann Moseley

Favourite Pennywell animal: Heavy horses

Favourite Pennywell ride: Tractor and Trailer

How long have you worked at Pennywell? 19 years

Job Title: Accounts Team

Roles and responsibilities: Book keeping, banking and all things money!

Most enjoyable part of the job: When everything balances

2019 highlights

New challenges and learning new skills.

Nicola Shaw

Favourite Pennywell animal: Jessica the Pennywell miniature pig

Favourite Pennywell ride: Red Rocket

How long have you worked at Pennywell? 18 months

Job Title: Shop Team

Roles and responsibilities: The day to day running of the shop, serving and welcoming visitors to Pennywell. Cashing up tills, stocking shelves and training other shop team members.

Most enjoyable part of the job:

2019 highlights

Seeing Jessica, my favourite Pennywell piglet go from being a very poorly runt to a thriving, healthy pig.

Tina Deakin

Favourite Pennywell animal: Piglets and goat kids

Favourite Pennywell ride: Red Rocket

How long have you worked at Pennywell? 2 years

Job Title: Shop Team

Roles and responsibilities: wearing a Pennywell smile and greeting the visitors. Stocking the shop, customer service, making tanoy announcements, implementing lost child procedure and anything else shop or customer related.

Most enjoyable part of the job:

2019 highlights

Seeing a litter of Pennywell piglets born. It was at the end of the day and I was able to watch all nine piglets come into the world.