The family-run business has overcome redevelopment plans, droughts and more
04:49, 21 Dec 2025Updated 09:08, 23 Dec 2025
Simon Maeghan owns and runs Frenchay Christmas Tree Farm in Bristol(Image: Simon Maeghan)
A local family-run business in Bristol is still very much seeing massive numbers of customers each year, despite concerns over the past 12 months or so that the land it sits on and nearby could be redeveloped.
Frenchay Christmas Tree Farm has been running since the first Christmas tree was planted here in 1999 and has spanned generations of the same family working here.
Simon Maeghan, whose father began the business all those years ago, now heads it up with his wife Kate and a team of regular staff, as well as students from the nearby University of the West of England. “Dad’s not involved anymore, apart from driving around and bringing us cups of tea! He’s now 87 and he’s just amazingly supportive,” Simon tells BristolLive on what he calls a quieter day in December.
“I think every city should have a Christmas tree farm,” he says, “because the crop grows quite well in this climate. Not everyone wants to run a Christmas tree farm, though – it’s a lot of work.
“I’m well into my 50s now and when you start planting crops with an eight-year cycle you start to think that in eight years time I’ll be almost at retirement age. You have to be pretty physically fit to do this job as well. It’s not just mentally stressful, but stressful on your joints, your back, everything, which is why I increasingly rely on my staff.”
Last year, a Local Plan by South Gloucestershire Council included a potential development at the Frenchay Christmas Tree Farm on Old Gloucester Road (Simon’s farm), however this has since been confirmed in the updated plan by the authority to have been removed. While the plans caused concern for those in the area, it especially caused Simon to start to think about what the future could hold for his beloved farm.
Simon tells us: “I was listening to an audiobook today and then the chapter I listened to said ‘things come to an end’ – and it’s true, everything does. At some point I’m going to have to stop doing this and that’s just the fact of it. That’s the fact of every business really. And something else usually springs up in its place.
“I feel very uncertain about the future because of what happened last year with those plans. A lot of it was out of my control and it did really throw the cat among the pigeons, for myself, my family and everyone in Frenchay who might be affected by that. And it definitely makes you feel very uncertain about the future.
Frenchay Christmas Tree Farm(Image: Ellie Kendall/BristolLive)
“Decisions get made above your head and that’s all it comes down to. But what I do know a lot about, what I’m an expert in, is Christmas trees. That’s my subject. And I’ve been doing it 26 years now and it’s amazing.
“There are times I can spot a customer coming into the car park and I can guess whether they’re going to want a big tree or a pot tree – and sometimes I’m actually right, and it’s very satisfying!”
Frenchay Christmas Tree Farm shows no signs of losing footfall and seeing a decrease in customers, either. Even during the Covid lockdowns when Simon began offering an ‘early bird’ opening in the October half term which has now continued annually, and in the current financial crises, families and couples, housemates and more, will make the trip to the suburban Christmas Tree Farm to choose their tree for the festive season – you only need to read BristolLive’s recent review to see why.
And Simon says that demand is growing. “Every year we get more and more customers to our farm and we have to manage that demand. One of our main tasks is making sure everyone can get what they want and we don’t clog the roads with too much traffic in the process.
Fields of trees at Frenchay Christmas Tree Farm – decorated trees have been reserved or pre-purchased ready to be picked up at a later date(Image: Ellie Kendall/BristolLive)
“We probably have about 3,000 customers each year. That’s quite a lot of people to manage and most of them will want to come during the same weekends at the start of December or last week in November, in order to have their tree up as long as possible. So I feel like about 80 per cent of my customers come over four days across those two weekends alone. We almost spend most of our time building up to just those two weekends.”
“The payoff definitely comes over those two weeks too. It’s a very focused window. We work very hard. Most people’s income will fall across 12 months, whereas ours falls over pretty much a 10-day period.
“So you can imagine if you had to do your years’ work in 10 days, you’d be absolutely stressed out and I could say – and I hope it doesn’t show to the customers – we’re almost a little bit traumatised come the end and we just want to curl up into a ball on the sofa and watch a nice movie to get over the trauma of it all.
‘I remember watching a Hallmark film years ago and thinking it would be nice if my Christmas tree farm was a bit like that’
“But it’s a fantastic time and it’s great having everyone here. I always wish I could give everybody individual attention but you just can’t do that. I think we hide the trauma quite well and we have a great team of people we employ.”
When it comes to the ratio of people buying pre-cut trees versus wandering the farm and picking a tree straight from the ground, Simon says: “It depends year on year, depending on how many trees I have available. But it’s maybe 60 per cent of people who will choose a pre-cut tree and 40 per cent who will choose one that’s growing in the field.
“I just wish I could grow more trees, because the thing I love is that people can choose their own tree from the field. But there’s only so much space and so many trees, and the more popular we become, the less there will be to go around. So I do wish I could grow more, but that’s just the way it is.”
Frenchay Christmas Tree Farm in the snow(Image: Simon Maeghan)
Running a Christmas tree farm doesn’t come without its fair share of obstacles, even in this modern day and age. Simon explains: “This year was a bad planting year because of the drought. I lost about 50 per cent of my trees.
“That’s fine because I can replant, but the thing is, it’s a six or eight-year cycle, so six or seven years down the line, I will have a shortage of trees. If you go back to 2018 when I was planting, that was a very hot year as well and I lost a whole planting crop that year, so I found myself a bit short of trees this year, annoyingly, but that’s how it goes.”
Simon, who would love to one day write a children’s book about the life cycle of a Christmas tree at the farm, is clearly passionate about the trees he grows in Frenchay. “At this time of year it’s quite nice to curl up and watch a Hallmark film, a bit of guilty viewing in a way. But I remember watching one years ago when I was just starting out and thinking it would be nice if my Christmas tree farm was a bit like that, and would feel like someone had that feeling when they arrived”, he says.
“When you’re caught in the storm of it all, you feel like you’re a million miles away from that sort of relaxed feeling, but to have BristolLive describe Frenchay Christmas Tree Farm like that made me feel like I have kind of arrived a little bit.”