RUNNING a country store and a working farm is quite a challenge, but Tim Barton, owner of Wadswick Country Store near Corsham, has recently shown that anything is possible if you put your mind to it.

Tim runs Wadswick alongside his wife, Carolyn, and his children, Joanna and Alex. The business is now in the running for the national Best Rural Diversification Project title.

Tim said: “My father bought the farm back in 1968, and I started working on it not too long after that. It would be lovely to win the national award but we’ll be very proud regardless of the result.“We started diversifying by selling homegrown potatoes and we’ve just grown and grown. We began to specialise in the equestrian market in the early 1990s and over the last 30 years have developed a business selling country clothing, gifts, accessories, pet and animal feed and bedding, and which has a gunroom.

“We now have an indoor shooting simulator and a new café and restaurant specialising in locally-sourced ingredients. We even have an airfield with 14 private hangars.”

David Kinnersley, head of agribusiness at award sponsors property consultants Fisher German, presented Wadswick with its regional award when it won the South West regional final of the Rural Business Awards.

He said: “Wadswick is a brilliant example of the possibilities of diversification and what it can do to diversify a farm’s income.”

The Rural Business Awards finals will be held at The Monastery in Manchester on