We realise that this may come as a shock to many of you and there is no easy way to sweeten the pill; Philleigh Way will be closing its doors for the last time at the end of the year. We opened in May 2013 and since then we have grown from a school which offered a handful of rustic farmhouse cookery courses to one which now hosts over 24 different courses run by 14 expert tutors. The school teaches over a thousand students a year, students who love every minute, as illustrated by our 97% Excellent Trip Advisor rating.
In 2015, at The Great Cornish Food Awards, we were voted The Best Food Experience in Cornwall. We have over 7,000 individual subscribers to our newsletter, over 2,000 Twitter followers, and over 1,250 Facebook page followers. The list of wonderful testimonials we’ve received over the last five years is as long as all our arms put together! The business has always been, and continues to be, financially secure and run by a very professional team. So why then, we hear you ask, is the school closing?
In simple terms, our head tutor George Pascoe has made the very difficult decision to leave the business in pursuit of a new life. George’s personal circumstances changed greatly early in 2017, and since then he has re-evaluated his goals and ambitions. Happily, George met a new lady and they have both decided that they want to move abroad to work, to make some memories before settling down together.
Philleigh Way is, and always has been, very much a family business and without George as lead tutor we feel that we’ll lose a major part of our identity. We’ve given much consideration to the possibility of finding a replacement for him but we’re doubtful that the right person, with the right skillset and ambition is out there. However, we have not given up in the search and should the right individual come along we may reconsider. Behind the scenes there has been expressions of interest from other businesses and we are still open to enquiries. If any of those discussions come off, we would love to see the school continue in some form or another.
For all of our customers who have existing bookings or valid gift vouchers we assure you that we will honour our commitments and all the scheduled courses in 2018 will be going ahead. Indeed, we continue to take bookings for those courses, so if you’ve not been before, or have a gift voucher to redeem, there is still an opportunity to attend a course.
Finally, a huge thank you to our loyal students, feasters, diners, wedding couples, overseas visitors, friends, tutors, suppliers, staff and supporters. After five years it’s been more than just a flash in the pan, we’ve loved every minute, it’s been a blast – thank you all.
James, George and Lindsey
