The "Newchurch National"

Sunday, 25th February 2001

A report on the Group's first visit to support the Newchurch Guinea Pigs

Debbie Sparkes and I left a cold and snowbound Norwich at 8.30am for the long haul to South-East Staffordshire, home of the notorious Hall's and their evil guinea pig breeding establishment!

The rural village of Newchurch, located midway along the A515 highway between Ashbourne and Lichfield in the heart of central England, conceals one of Europe's largest wholesale breeders of pathogen free guinea pigs for the vivisection industry.

The site at Newchurch Farm, easily recognisable by its landmark grain silo is home to Christopher and Margaret Hall and has become the epicentre of many well organised and determined animal rights demos over the last few years.

After four hours travelling, we eventually reached the sixty to seventy strong crowd at the 'National Demo' taking place outside the 'farm' around 1pm, having found the main A515 road conveniently blocked by the local 'plod' for half a mile either side of the notorious premises!

However, not to be outdone by this minor hiccup, we made a quick phone call to the campaign organisers in Worcester, who willingly gave us directions to approach the site via a network of country lanes, where we were able to safely park our vehicle and proceed to the demo on foot.

We arrived to witness a noisy demo, not just outside the Hall's main entrance, but also all along the A515 road to the village church! As always, the local constabulary were conspicuous by their sheer presence and feelings ran high when one demonstrator was arrested and 'banged up' in a police van on an unknown charge!

We were carefully steered away from the immediate vicinity of the church, when it was realised that a service was shortly to be held there! It was quite obvious that every effort was being made to conceal the demo from the public eye! However, despite the law's strong arm tactics aimed at belittling our determined actions, the day went extremely well for us, with the Hall's being left in no doubt at all what we thought of their evil operation!

The return journey was made in good spirits and we arrived back in our home city around 9.30pm, feeling very satisfied with our very first venture to Newchurch Farm!

As an aside, I have volunteered to be a local contact for this important campaign, so please feel free to contact me if you wish to know more or would like to attend future demos there.

Patrick Burnside. .....................................................home ...... ..........Our 2nd visit report