PRINCESS Anne made her first royal visit for over 10 years to a charity that helps inner city children learn about countryside living.

Her Royal Highness the Princess Royal is patron of Farms for City Children and she made her first visit to Wick Court, in Arlingham – one of three farms in the charity – since she officially opened it in 1997.

The charity, which also has farms based in Dartmoor and Pembrokeshire, takes groups of school children from urban areas and gives them a taste of life on a working farm, including planting vegetables, collecting eggs and mucking out stables.

One of the founding members of the charity, children’s author Michael Morpurgo, said 11 years may seem like a funny anniversary to celebrate but that in that time 10,000 children had visited the farm, which is set around a 15th century manor house on the River Severn.

"Princess Anne has been a supporter of this charity for many, many years and she has always said to us we must push forward and not rest on our laurels and this was excellent advice.

"It is more important now that ever that children are put into touch with the countryside around them."

At the same time the princess got the first glimpse of a special sculpture of a Gloucester Old Spot pig made by Uley ceramic sculptor Karen Hilliard, with the help of children from 14 schools around the country.

Miss Hilliard, an independent artist and a director at Prema Arts Centre in Uley, said: "Princess Anne was very interested in how I made the sculpture and the processes that went into it, she is a fan of pigs and particularly Old Spots herself so I think she liked it."

Miss Hilliard created the sculpture from bricks, provided free of charge from Almondsbury brick suppliers Ibstock. The clay is sculpted when wet then dried and fired before being put back together brick by brick.

The Princess Royal was shown the stables, vegetable gardens and cookery classrooms where children from Harewood Junior School in Tuffley were enjoying a week’s visit to the farm.

Courtney Dunn, age 10, spoke to the princess in the stables.

"She seemed really nice just like a normal person, not what I thought a royal person would be like," said Courtney.

Daniel Crowther, age 10, presented the princess with a basket of eggs that the children had collected and said the princess told him she prefers hers boiled instead of scrambled.

Daniel said: "I have really had fun at the farm this week, the other day we rounded up the chickens and I held one which was good."

Heather Tarplee, farm schools manager at Wick Court, said the visit had been a great success.

"It was just as we had hoped, an informal walk around the farm on a normal working day. Lots has changed since the princess open it in 1997. There have been huge improvements.

"She was very interested to see how well the vegetable garden was going and we had a litter of Gloucester Old Spot piglets arrive just in time for her visit."