Jonathan Garstin, 78, and his wife Vanessa, 77, say they feel “utterly betrayed” after 50 years as National Trust members, and blame a £335,000 access fee on Little Heath Lane for the closure of the Berkhamsted farm tea room they ran

Jonathan Garstin and his wife Vanessa joined the National Trust in the year they married. Half a century on, the couple say they feel “utterly betrayed” by the charity, and blame a £335,000 access fee for the loss of the farm nursery and tea room they ran on the edge of Berkhamsted.

Mr Garstin, 78, and Mrs Garstin, 77, ran Little Heath Farm Nursery and Tearoom on Little Heath Lane at Potten End, Hertfordshire, on behalf of the farm’s retired owners. They are preparing a legal challenge against the Trust and have asked the public to help pay for it, they told The Telegraph on 14 November.

“It’s appalling the way we’ve been treated,” Mr Garstin said. “We agree the National Trust has to raise a lot of money, but not in the way it was done to us. We’ve been members of the Trust for 50 years, as long as we’ve been married, and now we feel utterly betrayed, shocked and appalled at the atrocious methods it used.”

He went on: “Without warning, the Trust imposed a £335,000 charge to access Little Heath Farm across its land, which forced its closure and the loss of the nursery and tea-room business. Our advisers say the methods the Trust used were unlawful.” “Unlawful” is the view of the couple’s advisers, not a finding by any court, and no case has been heard.

Four centuries of access down a country lane

The argument turns on a strip of land running alongside Little Heath Lane. According to The Telegraph, the farm reached the road across it for hundreds of years, and when the National Trust took ownership of the land after the charity was founded in 1895, those informal rights continued. The couple’s own notice to customers says the farm had long-term rights to pass over that land for more than 420 years.

The couple spent six years restoring and running the original farm buildings, which Mr Garstin’s petition dates to about 1830. He told Greatest Hits Radio in May 2025 that they had put “all our retirement money” into the farm when there was a cash shortfall. The Trust says the owners of the site needed access rights across its land to develop five buildings there, which is where a neighbourly arrangement became a formal one.

The couple say the £335,000 figure, once attached to the farm, was enough to spook the owners’ bank, which they say cancelled its refinancing. The nursery’s website notice, posted on 7 April 2025, told customers the business had been “forced to close down from 1st April” because of the fee demanded by the Trust, and set out the condition attached to it: “The fee is only payable if we convert the old shops and store to residential, but it heavily reduced the Farm value.”

According to The Telegraph, the bank took possession of the farm in April 2025, which led to the Garstins’ eviction. The property went to auction in March 2026, offered by Savills with a guide price of £650,000 and marked as sold. The Telegraph put the sale price at £650,000, well below what it described as a £2 million valuation before the dispute.

Mr Garstin also linked the stress to his health, telling the paper: “We have both been made ill by what the Trust put us through. I had a mild stroke at Christmas in 2024, and another one on Christmas Eve in 2025 that caused a 70 per cent loss of sight in my right eye, which hasn’t recovered.” That is his own account of his illness. He added: “We are heading into retirement, and we are frightened for our futures. We had made financial arrangements for these years, but the loss of the farm and all we put in destroyed that. The Trust took it away.”

What the National Trust says

The charity says the fee was agreed by all parties, that payment depended on the site being sold with planning permission or on new homes being occupied, and that it did not affect the existing nursery. It also says it is bound by charity law to get the best return from its assets. A National Trust spokesman said:

“The owners of Little Heath Farm Nursery and Tearoom needed access rights across National Trust land to develop five buildings on the site. As is usual for a substantial change or intensity of land use, and in line with our obligations as a charity to secure best public benefit from property transactions, we agreed an access fee following independent valuation and legal advice. All parties signed up to this fee in summer 2024. It would only become payable if the site was sold with planning permission, or once the new homes were occupied. As such we were very surprised to learn of the business’s sudden closure last year.”

The couple’s own notice also said the fee was payable only if the old shops and store were converted to homes. Their case is that the sum hanging over the site wrecked its value and its finance, and that the way the charge was arrived at was wrong.

It is an uncomfortable row for a charity better known for the gentler side of its work, from the gardens at Sissinghurst, bought by Vita Sackville-West and Harold Nicolson in 1930 and in Trust care today, to the Lake District farms Beatrix Potter left to the Trust and the houses and estates that open their doors for winter visits.

A petition, an MP and a fundraising appeal

Mr Garstin started a Change.org petition on 6 April 2025 under the title “Stop Little Heath Farm Hertfordshire being destroyed by National Trust actions”. It had gathered 6,307 signatures when checked on Sunday 15 November, up from the more than 6,200 counted during the fight to save the business.

Victoria Collins, the Liberal Democrat MP for Berkhamsted, has backed the couple. The nursery’s website says she confirmed her support and was willing to write both to the National Trust and to the Secretary of State for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.

The Garstins have now set up a GoFundMe appeal, seeking an initial £7,000 towards a legal battle for compensation, according to The Telegraph. The couple ran the farm for its retired owners rather than owning it themselves, and the property has since been sold at auction.

What is left is a shuttered nursery and tea room on a Hertfordshire lane, and two people in their late seventies who blame the charity they joined in the year they married for the loss of their retirement plans. The Trust says it was very surprised to learn the business had closed.