Farm & Fell
Five Generations of Farming Pedigree
The Farm
We are a small family farm in the Yorkshire Dales. In the wake of Covid & Brexit, we made the decision to pivot our business from the production of cattle, sheep and pigs in the uplands, to facilitating access to our way of life for everyone.
Camping
Initially in 2020, after the first winter of COVID, we opened 7 acres of farm land to camping in order to provide open space to those families from inner cities such as Greater Manchester, Merseyside, Glasgow & Leeds. We were surprised by the interest of visitors in our way of life and opened up a further 10 acres to support 60 pitches for up to 56 days a year.
In 2024 we expanded our camping operation with the development of hot showers, a small toilet block, pot wash area, food and hot drinks vending machines, undercover seating, and a pop up bar, stage and kitchen.
More information can be found on our camping page.
Farm Experience
We continue to farm (but on a smaller scale), using the farm calendar to introduce our visitors to farming in the uplands of the Yorkshire Dales. All of our cattle & sheep are grass fed and reared in a low intensity traditional farming systems, grazing outside all year around. Our pigs live outside in summer and come in to loose housing in winter. By farming in this way we conserve our heritage in an environmentally sustainable way.
In spring we welcome visitors to help us with lambing. Bottle feeding pet lambs is very popular amongst visitors and provides the opportunity to discuss how sheep are farmed in our uplands.
By May focus switches to calf rearing and our visitors enjoy immersing themselves in all things cattle. By June our focus is switching to sheep shearing with July and August very much focussed on harvesting the crop for winter.
Further details on our farm experience programme can be found at our farm life page.
Care Farming
Since 2014 we've been the home of The Rawthey Project supporting disadvantaged and vulnerable members of the armed forces as they wrestle with psychological illness and the associated symptoms of alcoholism, addiction, homelessness and so much more.....
In 2023 we made the decision to seek planning permission to establish a farm based peer led residential supported living operation for up to 6 adults concurrently, providing the opportunity for adults who need a rapid change of environment for a short period to reset the direction of their lives in a supported and healthy program that makes the most of our fantastic landscape, livestock, nature and way of life.
In 2024 we built out our Care Farming operation to welcome groups of disadvantaged & vulnerable elderly, adults and children for day visits to the farm to enjoy nature, animals and the open space.
From November 2024, we introduced equine assisted therapy to support those with adverse childhood experiences, autism and ADHD. In April 2025 this is to be expanded to support our ongoing work with armed forces veterans battling back from the psychological traumas of their service.
Further details on our care farming programme can be found at our care farming page.
Events
Throughout the year we run a number of events to support the local and wider communities, the most popular is Hells Fells Family Festival, which we have run for 6 years in support of The Rawthey Project. This family festival provides free camping & adventure training for disadvantaged armed forces families that would otherwise struggle to afford a summer holiday followed by a family weekend live music festival.
Further details on our events schedule can be found at our events page.