The Featherbys
About us…
The Featherby family history is thick with the church and land, stretching back at least 800 years. The first recorded exchange being just that: a Knight Templar leasing a plot of land from an ancestor in 1185.
It is a multi-generational story of stewardship that stretches across the Yorkshire ridings down through the South West.
The past two generations added in a more South East centric dynamic but a close relationship with the church and a rural and coastal life remained. Even now, if we aren’t in Cornwall, we’re usually in Seaview (Isle of Wight) where Beths’ family have had a base across four generations.
In many ways, this move to Cornwall feels like a re-anchoring of something much larger than ourselves
Our story
We met at The Polurrian Hotel in Cornwall when we were 14, discovering we had overlapping social circles back at home in Herts.
Attending nearby boarding schools we built a friendship over many phone calls from dormitory telephones, eventually turning into a relationship when we turned 18; marrying at 23 and having four children in six years from 25.
With John’s parents owning a farm in the picturesque area of Lostwithiel and Fowey, regular time in Cornwall remained consistent throughout.
We lived in Cornwall briefly during our 20s and moving here has always been on the cards but the timing was never quite right, or agreed upon!
Part normal family dynamic
John’s career began in land and property then management consulting, impact investing and movement building in ethical business; at its heart has been a desire to revive the spirit of Britain’s great social and environmental entrepreneurs.
Beth was in yacht broking before raising the children full time once our eldest arrived, eventually qualifying as a Reformer Pilates instructor after many years as a practitioner and fitness enthusiast.
A centre of gravity for us has been our faith and church life: mostly non denominational with a lot of missional overlap. John recently trained as a Spiritual Director at Spiritus Theological College and Beth has always been involved in prayer groups.
Part missional way of being
Woven through our life is also a range of alternative spaces rooted in our Christian faith.
We contribute to a global community of fellowship for senior politicians, in the spirit of trusted friendship and peace making, often for those who cannot easily break bread in public; a prayer led reconciling and rebuilding project amongst civic leaders across The Commonwealth; and a working group of British farmers and land owners exploring how to live out their faith via courageous and exceptional stewardship of land and people.
Moving to Cornwall in many ways, is a drawing together of all these threads into a single narrative.
