Jill MedingerMeet Ruth Cox and her crew of animals for personalized celebrations at their farm in France.
As a child, Ruth Cox was obsessed with horses. “I’d ride the local farmer’s cow and when I was allowed my own goat, I trained her to pull me around in my grandma’s wheel-chair,” she remembers.
She went on to study equines and agriculture in college, before working at several Thoroughbred stud farms, as well as Twemlows, the first equine artificial insemination center in the U.K. She taught riding for disabled students, and then set off on a series of travels, working with camels and Marwari horses in India, and teaching English and coordinating equine and animal-based summer camps in Thailand. After seven years in Thailand, she and a group of young bohemian misfits she met on a beach rode across Mongolia (an adventure she captured in her 2022 book, Exodus. Click here.)
In short, Ruth has some equine experience.
“We ended up in rural France because I am passionate about educating children in nature,” she recounts. “I wanted to create a forest school and to own some land where we could raise our son in a homestead-type environment. We traveled as a family in a van for a year to find the right country and the perfect piece of land.”
Ten years later, when their son had outgrown his Shetland pony, Ruth got to thinking of fun ways to give the pony and their other animals a job and to make them more accessible to the public.
“I had been bringing along my young shire for use on the land and wanted to get her out to see the world,” she says. “The name Hire a Shire came to me before the actual idea of being at weddings!” she said. Launching during COVID, the business had a difficult start, but things have begun to pick back up. “I like to keep the number of events modest and manageable so that it stays enjoyable for us all. I do mainly weddings, but I’m always open to all ideas.”
“The horses are a great icebreaker,” Ruth continues. “Everyone loves to meet them and ask questions, and guests will often share their horse stories with me. A lovely older gentleman at one wedding was immediately drawn to Rosie, the Shire, and recounted his years working with the Brewery Shires in London as a boy. The bride later emailed me to say how special that moment had been for him. Those are the moments I love, sparking wonder and also dear memories in others through the horses.” In the future, Ruth says she hopes to take them into retirement homes or to visit city kids.
The team, Ted the cob, Rosie the Shire, Chippie the Shettie, and Aphrodite the donkey are all either rescues or personal project ponies. A new Clydesdale-cross named Joseph is currently learning the ropes there as well. Rosie also works at their off-the-grid farm: weeding, harrowing, ridging, and lifting potatoes with a traditional potato rake. The farm, a fully renovated 200-year-old French cottage, has hot water and heating run entirely off of their own small wood and solar panels. They grow their own vegetables using composted manure and waste hay as mulch. They raise chickens and a few pigs that are kept free range in the sweet chestnut woodland before dispatch. “We use all parts of the pig and use canning and curing techniques to store meat as well as freezing,” she continues.
The family’s next project is to develop their small lavender farm, Puy Jaillant Family Farm, into a venue hosting “eco-friendly, horsey, festival-vibe” weddings in the lavender fields surrounded by their lovely animals, set to begin next year.
To read the digital version of this article, click here, and to view the entire July/August Wedding issue.