Meet the couple who 'couldn't grow anything' on their plant nursery and set up Yorkshire Ice Cream Farm instead

Rebecca said she hadn’t realised that ice cream making, something she had done for many years, had such a long history among her forbears. “When Edward and I came here we originally had in mind a tearoom that also made ice cream.

“I’ve always loved making really good quality ice cream, using local produce as much as I can, and knew that my grandmother, Mary Pyott, had made it in her seaside shops in Bridlington.

“What I didn’t know until more recently was that my great grandfather Jim Pyott had also made all of his own ice cream for his two grocery shops in Wath on Dearne, so it must be in my blood.”

Rebecca said it was chocolate making that came to her first, but it could have been whisky-infused because of her lack of geographical knowledge.

“While I was studying hotel catering and institutional management my placement came up on Sark, but I thought Sark was a Scottish island and I’d even said to the owner, who interviewed me, that he didn’t sound Scottish.

“I think he was a bit concerned that I wouldn’t make it, because he asked me whether I knew how to get there and I said I’d catch the train!

“I worked at Stocks Hotel on Sark, returned to college and then went back to the Channel Island to be a horse-drawn carriage driver. I then set up my chocolate-making business in Guernsey.

“I had a chocolatier from Westminster College in London teach me and four years later I sold Rebecca’s Channel Island Chocolates and came back home and met Edward.

“I tried chocolate making again, this time up here and sold chocolates, toffee and fudge on market stalls but it never worked out the same way. Instead Edward and I were in at the start of the mobile coffee truck revolution and toured the UK attending fairs, shows, race meetings, any special events. When our boys came along we looked for something else.”

Rebecca said today’s Yorkshire Ice Cream Farm dreams seemed to be melting away with their first two attempts at scooping success.

“We bought a house and a farm just up the road from where we are now, thinking it would all work out, that we were bringing something to the village in terms of somewhere to go, but it didn’t work out that way.

“I was born in Everton near Bawtry but we had moved to Hatfield and Hatfield Woodhouse when I was nine years old and my mum and dad had friends who owned what was a nurseries and wanted to retire.

“We bought it, but still had the farm and house as well, which needed selling, so in the first year of having bought the nurseries we ran it that way.

“We were absolutely terrible with plants. Everything we grew just died, it was as though if we just looked at one it would expire. Our heart wasn’t in it, but then we managed to sell the other farm and bought the equipment we needed to open what has grown today as the Yorkshire Ice Cream Farm.”

Local produce is very much at the heart of Rebecca’s ice cream. She sources all of her milk from Elmfield Dairy in Moss who source theirs from dairy farmers in Yorkshire; and has used rhubarb, which they managed to grow and is now used in Rebecca’s frozen yoghurt; and strawberries grown on a farm in Tickhill.

Rebecca said that the pandemic and its various lockdowns changed their mindset over the way in which Yorkshire Ice Cream Farm is now operated.

“All of our then 16 staff went on furlough, but we couldn’t, as we also have caravan storage on our acreage. Edward and I have always grafted and that’s what we did.

“We moved our ice cream freezers to the doors and started selling ice creams to everyone who was going out for a walk as nearly everybody was doing and most people were over the moon that we were open, if only just for our ice cream.

“We had people queuing right around the car park.

“It was a really good community feeling, being able to offer something like that and we made even more new friends who have become regular customers since.

“But the experience of lockdown and furlough allowed us the time to analyse our business properly. We normally run around, sometimes like headless chickens, doing everything we can to make this place work, but it forced us to look at what worked and what didn’t.

“One of the biggest changes we made was to change from having a kitchen producing full lunchtime menus to a really nice, fresh deli and ice cream counter.

“Our customers love it and we have changed what we found was draining our resources to something that works well.

“We moved our ice cream-making into what was the kitchen, where Antonia our head ice cream maker starts at 7am every morning. We’re now all under one roof. We also stopped our wholesale activity that was another drain on our time and money.”

Rebecca said today’s Yorkshire Ice Cream Farm still has variety, but that all are now adding to its attraction.

“We might not be able to grow plants and our animals on the farm are all plastic - cows, sheep and chicken - but we are a place to come to with your family with crazy golf, a play barn, woodland play area, tearoom, deli, boutique and the ice cream parlour.”