About Thief Hall

Until the age of 21, Jess show-jumped horses professionally from her family owned yard where she lived with her parents and sister. She knew nothing else but horses and had hardly attended school. In 2001, she was invited to train with the Barker family here in Yorkshire for a few weeks, to ride, learn and train with Paul Barker, an extremely successful show jumping rider. During her time in Yorkshire, she came to learn from the famous show jumping family and even gained her HGV licence too. This is where  she also met Phillip, Paul’s brother and the farmer of the Barker family.

Jess stayed in Yorkshire for 8 months before heading back home to Finchingfield. However, after harvest was complete that year and only 4 weeks had passed with the new couple apart, Phillip realised he had met the love of his life and drove the 4 plus hours down to Essex to bring Jess back to Yorkshire. It’s the rule, every true love story needs a knight in shining armour – however, there was no white stallion or Black Bess on this occasion!  This is a love story about a Yorkshire farmer after all so it was an old battered peugeot with its front doors tied together with billy band (yes across the front passengers legs) and the cassette tape stuck in the radio on repeat playing “Oh Micky your so fine by Toni Basil” again and again, so the choice was silence or this earworm on repeat!  A very down to earth mode of transport and when you get to know Phillip absolutely no surprise at all!  

After proposing at Blackpool Pleasure Beach on the Big Dipper (yes on the Big Dipper itself) because Phillip couldn’t see himself on one knee in front of a crowd so found a way around that spectacle and as he got the ring out and they were racing down the huge rollercoaster with Jess screaming “Don’t you DARE drop that ring!”. It obviously worked out okay in the end and they were happily married only 7 months later – June 2006 in a marquee wedding on his parent’s farm (where our couples go for woodland pictures today).

 Jess soon missed the adrenaline of show jumping and needed something to get her teeth into, so she looked for her next project….

Together, Jess and Phillip put in for planning permission to renovate Phillip’s farm buildings on Thief Hole Lane to build their own home. When this planning application was turned down for residential use, Jess was devastated. Little did she know at the time, this was the best thing that could have ever happened. Despite the council turning down residential planning permission, they did approve planning permission for holiday cottages. 

And so began the building of Thief Hall.

In true Barker style they didn’t do things by halves, and during the first building project of the first four cottages, Jess and Phillip’s daughter, Clara was born in 2007.  By the time they were ready to open the holiday cottages, they were moving house themselves and Jess was also pregnant with their son James. They opened Thief Hall Holiday Cottages in July 2009 and Jess now had enough to keep her out of trouble. Looking after Clara, James, a new business to run, even still show jumping and not to mention supporting Phillip with his farming accounts and even driving the odd tractor.  The magic of a real life fairytale!

Clearly this wasn’t enough and life evolved with the cottages, family and extra jobs, as Jess became the Recruitment Director for Premier Cottages and joined the chaos of adding a network marketing company into her life, she found no time for the horses and had to give up her love of show jumping for her new life in business. At least her adrenaline itch was now being well and truly scratched! Premier Cottages & the network marketing taught her so much and there have been a lot of ups and downs between, including health worries, writing a book and so much more. In October 2015, Thief Hole Cottages grew into the Thief Hall you know today with the remaining farm buildings being developed into this wedding venue with four cottages turning into six.  The marriage license was applied for, giving the opportunity to couples wanting to get married on site in their very own wedding village!  

Together it has been a journey that has been the best thing that could have happened for Thief Hall as a business and as a result has created everything we all offer to you today….

Giving our incredible couples the chance to create their very own Happily Ever After.