Latest news with #JimmyDoherty
Metro
2 days ago
- Metro
The UK's £12 train journey where you can see polar bears from your seat
It's no secret that there are some pretty scenic train routes around the UK, showcasing everything from rugged Scottish countryside to the stunning Cornish coast. But did you know there's also a journey where you can see polar bears roaming about or taking a dip? No, we haven't lost our marbles. There really are polar bears in the UK and there are four that you can catch a glimpse of from behind train windows. To be in with a chance of seeing one, you'll want to head to London Liverpool Street and hop on a Greater Anglia train heading to Norwich. Or, if you're in Norfolk, you'll do the journey in reverse and take the train to London. There are several stops along the way, but it's specifically between Manningtree and Ipswich when you'll want to keep your eyes peeled. That's because the giant carnivores can be found at Jimmy's Farm and Wildlife Park, just a few miles outside of Ipswich. Fuel your wanderlust with our curated newsletter of travel deals, guides and inspiration. Sign up here. Their enclosure backs on to the main train line, giving passengers a prime viewing spot when the furry creatures are out and about. Owned and run by farmer and TV presenter, Jimmy Doherty, the park also doubles as Europe's largest polar bear reserve – although the 50-year-old claims he never planned to have these kinds of animals in his care. In 2022, Orsa Predator Park in Sweden closed and its unsold animals were at risk of being put to sleep, including a polar bear named Ewa. With alopecia and a broken claw, Ewa wasn't able to be released back into the wild, which is when Jimmy stepped in. He borrowed money from the bank to build an enclosure with a saltwater dipping pool plus two other lakes, two dens, a large natural woodland area and a state-of-the-art ventilated house and the bear was shipped from Sweden to Suffolk. Since then, she's been joined by Hope, who had also been at the Orsa Predator Park, as well as two other polar bears, Flocke and Tala who came from the Yorkshire Wildlife Park and are part of the European Endangered Species Programme (EEP). The London to Norwich train line is taken by numerous commuters each day, so for many the Polar Bears will be a familiar site, but for others, they'll be pretty unexpected. In a recent TikTok video @bradleyt_28 proclaimed the bears the 'best part' of the train journey and his clip of them quickly went viral, garnering over 819,000 views and more than 67,000 likes. In the comments people were baffled, with @saffarindia asking: 'What da hell is a polar bear doing in Ipswich, England?' Similarly, @alexlcfc02 posted: 'Why do we have polar bears in 17 degree England?' Others confessed they thought they'd been 'hallucinating' the first time they saw the bears, as @mythshroom7 wrote: 'Okay listen this is my Roman Empire. I told my friends I saw polar bears and nobody believed me for months. When they finally saw them I felt so good you don't understand.' For those curious as to how the Arctic bears manage without the snow and ice, Jimmy's Farm website states that summer temperatures in parts of the tundra reach highs of 26C and most bears 'do not reside on the ice throughout the year'. They add that the temperatures in Hudson Bay (polar bear country) can also get higher than those in Suffolk. More Trending The bears at the farm are able to regulate their temperature by going into the shaded woodland and swimming in the deep pool. In addition to polar bears, Jimmy's Farm is also home to arctic foxes, arctic wolves, brown bears, lemurs, zebra, raccoons, capybara and anteaters, among others. Those tempted to go polar bear spotting can take the London to Norwich train, with prices starting from £12 and the full journey along the line takes roughly an hour and 50 minutes, although their are fast 90 minute trains. This story was first published on July 29, 2025. Do you have a story to share? Get in touch by emailing MetroLifestyleTeam@ MORE: 'Charming' city in Spain is a lesser-known gem with £40 flights and 'hardly any tourists' MORE: I've been to 9 Italian cities, but there's only one I keep going back to MORE: Move over Maldives – this genuine hidden gem is cheaper and closer to UK
Daily Mirror
06-08-2025
- Daily Mirror
Little-known UK wildlife park named among the best in Europe
Jimmy's farm has been awarded as one of the best attractions in Europe according to TripAdvisor - and it may be one you have seen on television before as it's home to some exotic residents A wildlife park in the UK has been named one of the best in Europe after being announced as one of Tripadvisor Travellers' Choice Award 2025 winners. Jimmy's Farm in Wherstead, Ipswitch is a much-loved park in the heart of Suffolk and is home to several exotic animals such as zebras and crocodiles as well as farmyard favourites too. It is also home to the Lost Lands of the Tundra - a home to rescued polar bear Ewa, Arctic Foxes and the UK's largest pack of Arctic wolves. Jimmy's Farm is owned by television presenter and farmer Jimmy Doherty. The farm has been on television since 2004 and now the winning title has put the farm in the 10% attractions based on reviews and ratings from visitors over the last year. It comes after reports of life in a small fishing village with some of UK's best seafood but hardly any tourists. Stevie Sheppard, park director, said: "We're over the moon to receive this award. It's a real reflection of the amazing team we have and the lovely visitors who take the time to share their experience. "Everything we do, from our conservation work to creating special days out for families, and to be recognised by Tripadvisor is just incredible. We're proud to be flying the flag for Suffolk and want to thank everyone who's supported us over the past year." Earlier this year, the park was also awarded Experience of the Year at The Suffolk and Norfolk Tourism Awards, as reported by the Ipswich Star. It has become a centre of excellence for British rare breeds as well as home to camels, primates, tapir and crocodiles amongst other animals. Visitors can hand feed some animals and get even closer with special animal talks and activities too. The Wildlife Park, which has zoo status, takes the same considered approach to conversation with rare and endangered animals staying with us. In 2020, Jimmy shared his life long passion for insects in the Big Bee Rescue on Channel 4, aiming to inspire protection of the nations bee population. He first appeared on television alongside Jamie Oliver in his cooking programmes over two decades ago, and after training to be a pig farmer, he established his own farm and founded the Essex Pig Company, which became the focus of the reality TV documentary, Jimmy's Farm. These days, Jimmy juggles his farming duties with his television career, and this weekend he's in the new Channel 4 show, Jimmy Doherty's Big Bear Rescue. The programme follows Jimmy, 50, at his Suffolk farm and wildlife refuge, where he welcomes some homeless polar bears, a pack of wolves, and two brown bears looking for their forever homes. All of the action is filmed on his sprawling 70-acre family farm. He shares this idyllic setting with his telly producer wife Michaela Furney and their four daughters, not to mention a host of pets.
BBC News
26-07-2025
- Entertainment
- BBC News
Warwickshire's Game Fair set to attract 125,000 visitors
Up to 125,000 people are expected to attend a three-day event at Ragley Hall in Game Fair, which has been running since 1958, features a range of field sports, including shooting and fishing, as well as more than 700 trade Hobson from Ragley Hall said the fair, which includes overnight camping, was one of the estate's biggest events of the also said the show and field sports had "become extremely popular among a newer, younger audience" who want to try new things. The Game Fair, runs between 25 and 27 July and its organisers, Stable Events, said there would be a range of competitions and displays in the main arena, including the Shetland Pony Grand guests at the show this year include broadcaster, farmer and conservationist Jimmy Doherty, mixologist Merlin Griffiths and the former footballer Vinnie Jones. Ragley Hall last hosted The Game Fair in 2023 and rotates between a number of venues, including Blenheim, where it was held last Hobson said the event "celebrates all the traditional things" and also "fits quite nicely with our own values". The 5,600 acre Ragley Hall estate is the home of the 9th Marquess of Hertford and hosts a number of events and festivals throughout the also grows niche crops, farms sheep and keeps game. Follow BBC Coventry & Warwickshire on BBC Sounds, Facebook, X and Instagram.
Daily Mirror
20-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Daily Mirror
Inside Jimmy Doherty's life with famous wife, four daughters pet polar bears and showbiz pals
Jimmy Doherty has been a familiar face on our TV screens for more than 20 years and he is back with a new series this weekend Jimmy Doherty first graced our television screens over two decades ago, featuring in his best mate Jamie Oliver 's cooking programmes. After training to be a pig farmer, he established his own farm and founded the Essex Pig Company, which became the focus of the reality TV documentary, Jimmy's Farm. These days, Jimmy juggles his farming duties with his television career, and this weekend he's in the new Channel 4 show, Jimmy Doherty's Big Bear Rescue. The programme follows Jimmy, 50, at his Suffolk farm and wildlife refuge, where he welcomes some homeless polar bears, a pack of wolves, and two brown bears looking for their forever homes. All of the action is filmed on his sprawling 70-acre family farm. He shares this idyllic setting with his telly producer wife Michaela Furney and their four daughters, not to mention a host of pets. Let's delve into his life, reports Essex Live. Early life Born in Ilford before relocating to Essex at three years old, Jimmy struck up a friendship with a young Jamie Oliver at primary school, and they've remained close ever since. He's always had a passion for animals and wildlife, and from the tender age of 13, he worked in the tropical butterfly house at Mole Hall Wildlife Park in Saffron Walden, helping care for a variety of animals ranging from otters to chimpanzees. Jimmy pursued animal biology at university and served for five years in the Royal Corps of Signals. He later trained as a pig farmer and now owns his own farm and operates The Essex Pig Company. TV star wife and daughters Jimmy Doherty's wife, Michaela Furney, first crossed paths with her future husband while working as a runner on Jamie Oliver's show, Jamie's Kitchen, back in 2002. The shoot led her to the Cumbrian farm where Jimmy was employed at the time. Michaela eventually chose to leave her bustling London career behind to embrace farm life with Jimmy. In a candid chat with MailOnline, she reflected: "One of the biggest things was giving up my career; I was very focused and it was a good lifestyle. But it was my decision: Jim didn't put any pressure on me." Although she stepped away from TV production, Michaela found herself in front of the lens for the documentary series, Jimmy's Farm. Initially resistant to the idea due to the intrusive nature of filming, she confessed: "We're just normal people and the attention can be scary and hurtful," adding, "I was still commuting when they began filming, so at first I thought I wouldn't be involved – that was how Jim persuaded me." She also revealed the emotional toll of being filmed: "They used lots of shots of me crying, but it was just in frustration at all the setbacks, the worst of which were the fights with the council over planning permission [for outbuildings and, retrospectively, the shop]. I don't cry that often – they just seemed to catch it on camera every time I did." The couple tied the knot in August 2009 with a reception held at their farm, and they have since become doting parents to four daughters. Showbiz pals Since their primary school days, Jimmy and Jamie Oliver have remained steadfast mates, presenting television programmes together such as Jamie and Jimmy's Friday Night Feast, whilst pursuing various other joint ventures - and remarkably, they appear never to have had a serious falling-out (save for the occasional spat during TV challenges). It was actually Jimmy who played cupid, introducing Jamie to his future wife Jools when he was just 18. Speaking to MailOnLine, Jimmy recalled: "We went on a double date to the cinema in Cambridge – me, Jamie, Juliette and Sue Stump. He had a Fiesta with big fog lights and an exhaust like a tractor on it. We were going over a hill listening to Bob Marley, Buffalo Soldier. We're all singing, the guy braked in front of us and Jamie smashed into him and knocked his front lights out." Their profound friendship was particularly touching when Jamie dedicated his book, Jamie Cooks Italy, to Jimmy's late father. Jimmy revealed: "There's a picture of him at my brother's wedding on there. Jamie gave me the book and I'm used to my dad being dead, but sorrow is a weird thing. I couldn't control it, I had to go away on my own. Then I came back and said thank you and it started again. But luckily I had an eye infection so I could blame it on that. Pink eyes, weeping." On the farm Jimmy's Suffolk farm, which serves as the backdrop for the ITV series Jimmy and Shivi's Farmhouse Breakfast, is rather extraordinary given its collection of exotic creatures, including polar bears and monkeys - the website actually claims it's Europe's largest polar bear reserve. In a chat with the Express, he shared: "And then you've got the wildlife park where we've got polar bears, we've got monkeys, we've got our anteaters. So we do different activities with them. "One morning we played hide and seek with our monkeys. We hid all their food around and they had to go and find it. And I remember that for the camera system, it took him about 15 minutes trying to get the GoPro in this special box and tighten it all up. It took the monkey about five seconds to undo or and grab the camera, bite it and run off with it. But we've got some brilliant monkey selfies!"
The Guardian
20-07-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
TV tonight: Jacob Elordi and Ciarán Hinds are outstanding in a stirring war epic
9.15pm, BBC One Jacob Elordi and Ciarán Hinds are outstanding as the younger and older Dorrigo Evans, a war hero turned surgeon, in this haunting second world war drama. Based on Richard Flanagan's Booker prize-winning novel, the Australian epic tells Dorrigo's story over three timelines: a promising student who is engaged to be married into a well-to-do family; a Japanese prisoner of war who witnesses unimaginable horrors while building the Burma railway; and a retired traumatised man who is grappling with his past – including an intense and illicit love affair with his uncle's wife Amy (Odessa Young) – while doing publicity for his memoir. A stirring watch. Hollie Richardson 8pm, ITV1 Lauren Lyle returns as the young Scottish cop with the gumption to unravel ice-cold historic cases. This time round it's a doozy: the unsolved kidnapping of an oil heiress and her baby at the height of the miners' strike. ('Scotland's John Paul Getty,' mutters her boss.) Pirie and her team must piece together what really happened outside a Fife chip shop 40 years earlier. Graeme Virtue 8pm, Channel 4 Jimmy Doherty already has zebras, meerkats and capybaras at his wildlife park in rural Suffolk. But brown bears? That's a different matter. After launching a huge appeal to fund the building of a new home for Diego from Sweden, Jimmy also needs to find him a suitable flatmate – and what if they don't get along? Ellen E Jones 8pm, BBC Four Nicholas McCarthy was born without his right hand and he is the world's only professional one-handed concert pianist. He's making his Proms debut with Ravel's atmospheric Piano Concerto for the Left Hand (which pianist Paul Wittgenstein commissioned after losing his right arm in the second world war). HR 9pm, Channel 4 Elisabeth Moss (with an English accent) leads this espionage thriller written by Steven Knight. She plays MI6 spy Imogen, who is recruited by the CIA to go undercover and find out whether French woman Adilah El Idrissi (Yumna Marwan) is an Isis operative. Will Imogen be able to learn the truth and stop a terrorist attack? HR 10.20pm, ITV1 Kate Kniveton is a former MP who was abused by her husband, ex-Conservative minister Andrew Griffiths, for more than a decade. She has since campaigned for a ban on domestic abusers from seeing their children. In this candid documentary, Kniveton shares her story, listens to others' and shows the work she's doing. HR The Amateur, out now, Disney+ Rami Malek lends his disquieting intensity to this surprisingly enjoyable spy thriller. He plays a mild-mannered CIA cryptographer sent on a bloodthirsty revenge quest after his wife is killed in a terrorist attack. What's fascinating about this film is that, had the lead been any other actor, it would have devolved into generic pulp. But Malek, in the hands of director James Hawes, really leans into the character's psychopathy. He has a dead-eyed stare throughout, the sort you'd usually expect to find on a film's antagonist. Sure, this is a globe-trotting Bourne-style romp, but you're never allowed to forget the ethical iffiness of, say, blowing someone up inside a swimming pool. Stuart Heritage All-Ireland Senior Hurling: Cork v Tipperary, 3pm, BBC Two The championship final at Croke Park, Dublin.
