A stay-at-home farmer, who contested the terms of a trust, having worked on her parents’ farm for 25 years, has seen her initial £1.3million award slashed to £500,000, after senior judges ruled the original compensation was too high.

Eirian Davies, 47, from Carmarthenshire, tended the cows on her parents’ farm in Whitland, Carmathenshire. Whilst her sisters were allowed out to have fun at the local Young Farmers Club, young Eirian “stayed at home with a muck fork.”

Eirian claims she put up with years of hard work, in return for meagre wages because her parents had allegedly promised her the lion’s share of the family business. However, when a trust was set up, she was shocked to find that the estate’s proceeds would be shared between all three sisters equally.

The case initially went to court last year and it was ruled that Eirian was entitled to a £1.3million share of the farm. However, her parents refused to accept the ruling and now an Appeal Court in London has ruled that the original sum was too generous and has reduced the compensation entitlement to £500,000.

The court heard that matters came to a head, after an argument in the milk parlour in 2012, when Mr and Mrs Davies tried, but failed, to evict their daughter from the farmhouse.

Eirian sued her parents, claiming they promised her the majority of the 182-acre dairy farm, where she had spent 25 years looking after the herd.

She told the court that, as a teenager, she missed out on going to Young Farmers’ Club dances with her two sisters because she had to “stay home with a muck fork”.

The legal costs associated with the protracted legal wrangle is expected to come to a high six-figure sum, further depleting the family fortune.