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A farm shop and garden center that once hosted iconic children’s TV show Teletubbies is now at the center of a £6.6 million family court dispute.
The village market in Borden, Hampshire, a popular shopping resort, car boot site and TV filming location, is now the subject of a multi-million pound tug-of-war between 86-year-old matriarch Joan Marshall (supported by daughter Sharon) and her two sons, Gary and Dean Marshall.
The £6.6 million site has been run by the Marshall family since 1971 and has been run as a farm shop, going from strength to strength and expanding its operations to include an award-winning butcher’s shop and regular visits from TV crews for location filming.
But when “pioneer founder” Peter Marshall died in January 2017 at the age of 81, families clashed over his future, leaving the company’s future in doubt. Business.
Now the family are locked in a row at the High Court in London, with Joan and Sharon EdwardsThe 62-year-old is suing male members of the family, insisting the partnership running the business should be terminated, the premises sold and the proceeds divided.
but brother Gary, 61, and Dean Marshall, 57, are responsible for the day-to-day running of the farm and shop and are desperate to keep the family business afloat.
The Country Market is the brainchild of farmer Peter Marshall and his wife June, who started the market in the 1970s, selling produce door-to-door in a Morris Traveller.
Peter’s family had farmed in the area since the 1850s and by 1983 he was bringing more farmland into the area and in time Country Market Partners launched a range of different attractions on the site including a car boot sale, a busy restaurant, a garden center and a shopping shop.
Since Peter and June started the farm business, the farm has grown from a small holding of a few acres to a 200-acre farm where crops and plants are harvested for the farm store.
Originally housed in an iconic oak barn until it was razed by fire in 2010, the Country Market has also been the filming location for a range of different TV shows, including South Today, Country Ways, Car Booty and Teletubbies.
Over the years, Peter and Joan’s partnership grew to include their children Gary, Dean and Sharon.
Gary and Dean have been key figures in the rural market for almost 40 years, with Gary joining Peter in 1980 and Peter 12 years later.
London’s High Court heard that after Peter’s death, a dispute arose “regarding the liquidation of the partnership and the payment to Peter’s estate of his share of the partnership”.
There was also disagreement “as to the extent of the land included in the partnership property” and, crucially, as to whether the farm shop partnership had died out on Peter’s death.
The family conflict recently reached the High Court in London, where June Marshall and her daughter Sharon launched a ruling calling for the partnership to be formally wound up and sold.
Brothers Gary and Dean insist the partnership is “ongoing” despite their father’s death.
However, lawyers for Joan and Sharon argued that Peter Marshall’s death effectively terminated the Countryside Market Partnership and that all family members involved were now “under the same obligation to wind up the business and sell it – with no rights to continue trading”.
The court heard that if the company remained unsold, Joan herself would be in financial difficulty as she would need to sell her and Peter’s shares to give her “sufficient funds”.
However, in their written defense, the two brothers denied that their father’s death triggered the dissolution of the partnership and only admitted that they “ceased to be members of the partnership” after their father’s death.
The case, which had racked up legal fees of more than £200,000, ended at a two-day preliminary hearing before Deputy Dean John Linwood, where lawyers argued over whether Gary and Dean Marshall had previously made a binding “admission” accepting that the partnership had been dissolved.
June and Sharon claimed the brothers had explicitly acknowledged in the past that the partnership had ended, highlighting a letter sent by their lawyers in September 2019 which stated “there is no dispute between the parties that the partnership must be wound up and the partnership business sold”, citing the land dispute as the only remaining flashpoint.
But lawyers for the brothers argue that any such confessions are false and that it would be unfair not to allow them to retract them with a trial so imminent and the stakes so high.
Richard Flenley, the brothers’ lawyer, claimed: “If divestment is not allowed it could damage the value of the existing business and everything they have done over the past 30 years to build it.”
Deputy Dean John Linwood ultimately ruled against the brothers, accepting the guilty pleas that had been made and denying them the right to withdraw their pleas before trial.
“I reject the defendant’s application to withdraw the admission,” he said, before concluding: “In the end, I find that the day and a half of hearings cost the parties approximately £210,000. I urge them to make every effort to negotiate an end to this dispute, which I believe is in their best interests, particularly given that costs will add up rapidly from now on.”
The case will be reopened at a later date unless a settlement is reached first.