Our Story

Ben Hudson-Johansen transporting Christmas trees
Charlie Brown’s Christmas Tree Farm (known to many as Totnes Christmas Tree farm) has a unique history. The farm is family run, and has been passed down through several generations.
Many years ago, my great grandfather Ben Hudson-Johanson, embarked on a journey. Ben moved from Denmark to Black Isle in Scotland during the 1880’s, taking with him his love of nature and plants. Once Ben had settled in his new home, he grew anything and everything on his new land – until he stumbled across Christmas Trees. Ben had noticed that Christmas trees grew extraordinarily well in the Scottish climate, and with Christmas trees still being a luxury at the time, the trees commanded a good price. Ben continued to expand the farm throughout his years, maintaining and harvesting trees by himself well into his 90’s until he was no longer fit to do so.

Since then, the family has moved throughout the UK. The name may have been changed through marriages, but we’ve kept the spirit the same. We continue to grow Christmas trees up to Ben’s high standard, growing, caring for and harvesting our trees ourselves. Recently we moved farms, moving our Christmas trees to Blagdon, starting an exciting new chapter in a tale that has been passed through generations of our family.

In the next few years, tens of thousands of our very own Christmas trees will be planted, cared for and sold across the Blagdon site’s 80 acres, using the same high standard for maintaining our trees that Ben had envisioned. Each Spring in the new year, after our trees are harvested, we plant new trees to fill the gaps left by those harvested during the previous winter. Throughout the year – right up until winter – the team and I will be out on the farm, caring for our trees, pruning the trees by hand to produce the most naturally beautiful trees possible, ready to be harvested and sold in November and December.

– Charlie Brown