Trehill Farm’s Pembrokeshire potatoes

Potatoes grown by Peter and Gina Smithies in Pembrokeshire

The National Trust’s 600-acre Trehill Farm is balanced on the cliffs of the Pembrokeshire coast and grows superb potatoes. Savoured for their sweet and earthy taste, the spuds are award-winning.

We acquired Trehill with Enterprise Neptune funds in the mid-1960s. It's run by Peter and Gina Smithies, whose family have been tenants since 1968.

Potatoes by the sea

The Smithies say it's the sea spray that helps give their early potatoes their distinctive sweet and earthy taste. It's this closeness to the sea that keeps the soil frost-free and allows it to warm up quickly as spring approaches, enabling them to get planting in February and March.

Look at the farm gate as you pass by from mid-May to mid-July and you'll see the result of those labours – delicious, fluffy skinned, sweet-tasting early Trehill potatoes to buy loose in their distinctive Trehill Farm bags.

Peter and Gina Smithies from Trehill Farm, Pembrokeshire
Peter and Gina Smithies at Trehill Farm, Pembrokeshire
Peter and Gina Smithies from Trehill Farm, Pembrokeshire

When and where to find the potatoes

Trehill potatoes, both the main crop and especially the earlies, are very seasonal so you can be sure they're fresh from the earth. Varieties are selected according to taste, texture, appearance, yield and earliness.

Trehill sells its main crop potatoes under the National Trust brand in Asda, the Co-op, Somerfield and NISA stores across the UK. Trehill Farm is farmed under the environmental conditions of the Leaf Marque scheme.

Top of the crops

Peter and Gina Smithies have won the National Trust Fine Farm Produce Award for the last nine years, and in 2015 they also scooped the Producer of the Decade title.