When it began life in 1984 as a Youth Training Scheme (YTS) project, there was a real sense of optimism in the air at Hartcliffe Community Park Farm.

As the urban farm marks its 25th anniversary, there have been lots of changes – some good, some bad – but Rocky Pearce, the man in charge, tries to keep cheerful.

"We've had our good times and our bad times," he says. "I look back on the darkest days when we've had vandalism, arson and even the killing and dismemberment of our animals by thugs, but I also look back on the happy times – lambing season in particular is always nice."

As general manager, Rocky is the only employee on the site.

Like similar city farms in Windmill Hill and St Werburgh's, the farm relies heavily on the good will of local residents. Hartcliffe Community Park Farm has a 60-strong team of volunteers all playing their part.

When Rocky started at the farm in the mid-1980s, he says the place was vibrant.

"We had a lot more money in those days," he says. "Back then we had all kinds of animals – even long-horned cattle. But gradually, over the years, the funding has gone down and down.

"These days we get £27,000 each year from the city council, but we have to find up to £15,000 on top of that to keep the farm going.

"That's a lot of fundraising throughout the year.

"Times are tough for everyone," he adds, with a shrug.

"But we even have to be careful these days to make sure we're not wasting the animals' feed by giving them too much.

"For example, we have quails living on the floor of the canaries' cage, because they will pick up the food that the canaries drop. We have to find these kinds of ways of keeping afloat financially."

Times may be tougher than they once were, but the 50-acre farm, off Lampton Avenue, in Hartcliffe, still has a range of animals – including sheep, pigs, ducks, chickens and calves – and on some days as many as 60 local residents visit the urban farm.

"We can get quite busy during the summer months, when the children are off school," Rocky says.

"But even at the quieter times, we're here providing opportunities for local schoolchildren to learn about farming, and for older students to spend time here on work experience placements."

Mark Veale, 21, of Brislington, has worked at the farm one day a week for the past two years as part of his BTEC course in Animal Management at Norton Radstock College.

"I've really enjoyed coming here and learning about the animals," he says, as he feeds one of the farm's handsome Tamworth pigs.

"By working with the animals at first hand, you pick up things that you would never get from the text books."

Ideally, Mark says, he would like to work in the farming industry. But he says there are no available positions on the farms surrounding the city, and he is clinging firmly to his part-time job, stacking shelves in Tesco.

However, the work he has put in at the farm over the past couple of years is very much in the spirit in which the farm was started.

"This whole thing was built by the young lads of Hartcliffe," says Charlie Tucker, 79, who has worked as a volunteer at the farm since the beginning.

"This was fields when we first came in," he adds. "Then we slowly built the buildings and the barn. But the YTS youngsters did the hard work."

After just a few years, the YTS project pulled out of the farm, and it was converted into a community project – a charity with its own board of trustees, partly funded by the city council.

"We do our best to keep the farm going as well as possible on our limited funding," says Rocky. "But it's tough.

"I can't tell you how soul-destroying it is when you work hard to try to maintain a pleasant resource like this for the community, only to regularly suffer break-ins and vandalism.

"We have been broken into five times since February, and each time we've had our canaries stolen.

"On other occasions we've had windows smashed and graffiti daubed on the walls. Back in 1993, after our volunteers had spent weeks bringing in the hay, we suffered an apparent arson attack on our barn, and we lost the whole thing – as well as all the hay we'd been growing for months.

"It's hard to keep your chin up at times like that – and all credit to our volunteers who always seem to be able to rally themselves to start again.

"I get a pay cheque each month, so I have to carry on, but they don't get paid for doing this."

The most sinister incidents have involved the senseless killing and mutilation of the farm animals.

"A couple of years ago we had a spate of brutal killings," he says.

"We'd come in each morning and find lambs killed and their heads removed. It doesn't get much more brutal than that.

"It makes you seriously wonder about the mentality of these people.

"On another occasion I opened the farm up in the morning, and found one of our favourite old pigs was missing. I knew she had been killed, because I was able to follow the trail of blood around the farm. But she had clearly been taken away for her meat.

"You can expect to lose the occasional chicken to a fox, but when it's people coming in and killing the animals, it can be very upsetting."

Remarkably, Rocky remains cheerful about the future of the farm.

"You have to focus on the good times," he says. "I always look forward to the lambing season, and it's always great when you see schoolchildren here enjoying their time and learning about the farm animals.

"That's what you have to cling to."

● Hartcliffe Community Park Farm is open Monday to Friday, 9am to 5pm, and 9am to 4pm at the weekends. Admission is free.