Wednesday September 3rd 2025
Annette Noble alongside her daughter Ailsa Noble and Aisle's newborn bay in their horse stable at Peggyslea farm.
Written by Midlothian View Reporter, Liam Eunson
Peggyslea Clydesdale in Penicuik is a mother daughter run animal farm that provides unique animal experience, a beautiful remote bed and breakfast alongside the training and upkeep of award-winning Clydesdale horses.
Running their b&b before opening their farm for animal experiences, daughter Ailsa Noble and mother Annette Noble, now run animal experiences that allow visitors the opportunity to get up close and personal with their award-winning Clydesdale horses alongside various other animals such as, alpacas, pigs, sheep, goats, pony’s and their popular highland cows.
Owned by Annette, Ailsa started up the horse experience just after the 2020 lockdown, despite owning horses and chickens prior to the decision, she saw an opportunity to offer animal lovers an unforgettable experience. Buying more animals, they opened their farms gates for visitors.
Ailsa explained, “I started the horse business straight after covid because I was meant to work at the bed and breakfast and obviously covid came and shut that down, so I went to work at Amazon for nine months. It was the worst thing ever.”
“I was standing there one day and I thought, why am I working here when we’ve got all the animals, let’s open up and see if anyone’s interested to come and see it. It’s just gotten bigger and bigger ever since.”
Ailsa and her mum offer a wide variety of animal experience, mainly revolving around their beloved horses. These experiences include carriage rides, horse riding, long reining (taking the horses for a walk), and allowing a wander around the farm to see other animals alongside experiences such as going into the horses’ enclosures. Their prices range from £18 to the most expensive experience being £84.
Despite some experiences being pricey, they offer an insight into both their animals’ history and offer an immersive session of both looking after the Clydesdales and riding them.
“We do a few different ones (experiences). Our biggest one is like two and a half hours long and is purely horse based. So anyone who is really enthusiastic about horses and the Clydesdales get to just be hands on with the horses. They learn a little about the history of them, long reining, and coming back they will get a carriage ride and a chance to drive themselves”, Ailsa explained.
Alongside this fully immersive experience, Ailsa and Annette offer smaller packages such as simple carriage rides or a meet and greet with the other animals.
“We try to be slightly different from other farms, because on a lot of farms you can look but can’t touch. Whereas we want to try and be as interactive as possible so 90% of the animals here you can touch and be with most of the time.”
Alongside this, Ailsa and Annette compete their Clydesdale horses for six or seven weeks of the year, gaining loads of success across the UK at events like Highland shows, Great Yorkshire, Suffolk and Royal Welsh with Ailsa explaining, “if there is a show, we are there”.
“We’ve managed to get champion turnout at Royal Welsh and reserve champion turnout at Yorkshire this year, we’ve done really well.”
Ailsa and Annette take out a six-horse team at the Highland Show being the only female team for driving a six horse team, asserting their dominance in a mainly male-dominated sport.
“We’re the only female team for driving six. Normally you’ve always got a man up beside you but we’re the only females doing it together so it’s nice to show the men that we can do it.”
“It’s a very, very male-orientated sport that we’re in. It’s quite a novelty to see a woman.”
The shows they compete in consist of driving the horses, taking part in different classes. Sitting on a vehicle drawn by the horses, they will face three trials – dressage, marathon and obstacle driving.
Ailsa explained that the worst thing about competing is that the final score is up to the opinion of one man, who is normally looking at the horse’s apperance, how well they work in a team and how proper they look, making the horses upkeep a crucial objective for winning shows.
With Peggyslea farm being just under 100 acres, Ailsa and Annette host two large events each year, allowing the farm to fill with animal lovers. Hosting an Easter and Christmas event, they theme their farm and animals to the festive holiday, dressing up their animals with one of the Clydesdale horses playing the role of Rudolph each Christmas.
This years Easter event at the farm
Inviting food vans, setting up stalls and bouncy castles, their goal behind the events is to let children interact with animals.
“We had a little mistake last year, a little christmas goat mistake. We were quite lucky but just as the guests left, two hours later, she started giving birth”, Ailsa explained, “I was pregnant at the time so I couldn’t go anywhere near it.”
Ailsa and her husband recently just had their first child, allowing Peggyslea farm and all the animals to be loved by three generations of Noble women.
It was clear that being family-run was important to them, explaining that it adds to the experience that they offer.
Ailsa explained, “The two of us run the bed and breakfast and the horses. It means we get on really well and it’s nice being able to have the wee one with us all the time aswell.”
“I think some people feel like they get a more personal experience as well because since we own it aswell as work here, it’s not a paid member of staff that’s providing it.”
The farm and stable does have one member of staff, a family friend that works closely with Ailsa and Annette.
“We do have a paid member of staff but she works closely with us, she’s kind of like family. She treats all the animals like her own aswell. It’s not like people see just a member of staff who’s going to do a generic tour, every tour is specified to each individual group.”
Offering the experience to only individual groups, alongside the animals being ‘extremely well behaved’, it allows for family’s to come with their children who have special needs.
“Some people come with special needs children. We get a lot of autistic children, which I really enjoy personally because I’ve seen the outcome of it and I’ve seen the parents and kids all enjoy it. They like coming back because they know it’s just them that are taking part in the experience.”
Offering individual experiences allows for a more personal and tailored time with the animals with Ailsa changing what they do with the animals to what the group is interested in or comfortable with.
The future goal for Ailsa and Annette is to grow their business and continue to provide unique experiences. Expanding in the form of buying some donkeys, their goal is to grow their family of animals aswell as continue to train award-winning Clydesdale horses.
Offering the horse experiences between April and October, the other animals are available to see and meet all year round.
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