Chalk has created our landscape and shapes our farm. Dig down anywhere and we find solid chalk. Grass and trees love it.

Each of our fields is surrounded by narrow strips of semi ancient woodland made up of mature oak and ash trees standing tall over an understory of hazel and field maple. Bluebells and ramsons (wild garlic) are everywhere.

On the north boundary of the farm runs Sound Bottom. This is the ancient road from Bath to London and it runs alongside a 7 acre piece of chalk down land that has never been ploughed. This is a hugely precious resource, over 150 plants have been recorded on it and in the early summer cowslips, orchids and scabious are abundant.

Elsewhere we use our airy south facing aspect for the cows to graze on long established grass leys that the cows love. Drainage is good because of the chalk. We have planted modern grasses and clovers that produce the silage and hay we use in the winter.

We don’t plough or spray and our pastures benefit from a diverse living soil, connected to our trees via extraordinary mychorhizal networks. By paddock or “mob” grazing we keep a vibrant fast growing paddock. In early summer we make silage and hay to feed our herd in winter. The woods shelter the herd from the wind in any direction.