July 2013

The Garden club members spent an interesting and informative visit to South Yeo Farm West.  Diane gave us a comprehensive tour; we saw all the rare breeds, got to inspect the veg garden as well as admiring the various restoration projects going on around the farm.

The afternoon was finished off with a return visit to Madewell in Hatherleigh were we cooled down with ice creams and cream teas.

South Yeo Farm West, Northlew and tea afterwards at Made Well (4pm approx)

South Yeo Farm West is in Devon, a few miles from Dartmoor, just outside the village of Northlew in The Culm.  The farm has over 100 acres of permanent pasture, with a well-preserved medieval field system, the curving, irregular field boundaries based on early medieval strip cultivation. There is an ancient woodland of about 5 acres (a County Wildlife Site), small areas of oak copse, and a mill leat fed by the River Lew running the length of the northern boundary. A traditional cider orchard still exists on the farm,  visible on maps from the 1880s.

It is run by Debbie Kingsley and Andrew Hubbard.

Their farm is the home of the Yeoman herd of pedigree Berkshire pigs, the Kington flock of pedigree Welsh Mountain Badger Face sheep, the South Yeo flock of pedigree Whiteface Dartmoor sheep and the South Yeo suckler herd of pedigree Red Ruby Devon cattle.  They rear native, traditional and rare breed livestock, and in addition to the pigs, sheep and cattle They keep Aylesbury and Black Indian Runner ducks, Black Orpington large fowl chickens and rare Pilgrim geese. For six months of the year they rear a small number of Norfolk Black turkeys, and have been known to keep Boer goats.