PROFILE Wantisden Hall Farms
Ancient and modern I
Judith Tooth visits a farm on the Suff olk coast where centuries-old landscapes sit alongside intensive production.
t takes a long while to spot the 30 or so beef cows graz- ing among the ancient trees of Staverton Park. Eight
years since it was fenced as part of a higher-level stewardship agree- ment, the cows have done a good job helping to restore the pasto- ral woodland character of what is the biggest area of oak pollards in Europe. “It was thick as thick with
bracken, but it’s gradually open- ing up,” says Tim Pratt (pictured below), farm manager of Wan- tisden Hall Farms, owned by farming family J H Kemball and Son.
“The cows don’t eat the brack- en, but they stand it down. They are there all year, and due to start calving soon.”
Together with The Thicks – a denser woodland with towering hollies as well as centuries-old oaks – this historic landscape ex- tends to 100ha. Come May, it will be carpeted with bluebells.
Since the farm’s entry into HLS, there are more birds, and
good numbers of butterfl ies and moths, particularly where the wood pasture and woodland give way to wet grassland, now being grazed by sheep. Whole fi elds are in pollen and nectar mixes, and sowing of environmental mixes along margins and in fi eld cor- ners is staggered for fl owering throughout the season.
Demonstration farm
“We’ve been a LEAF demonstra- tion farm for nearly 20 years now,” says Tim, “so we try to encourage people to come here, from local schools and the Women’s Insti- tute to foreign visitors and farm- ing groups from around the coun- try. What they see depends on the time of year, and on what inter- ests them, whether it’s more the environmental side or the inten- sive farming.
“We also get involved with the annual potato planting day at the Suffolk Showground, where hun- dreds of children come to learn how to grow pota- toes and then go back
to their schools to grow their own.” Harvesting or planting takes place almost every week of the year. In all 600ha is under cul- tivation, and a further 800ha is contract-farmed. Tim has been farm manager for 13 years, win- ning Farmers Weekly farm man- ager of the year in 2016, and there are 13 full-time staff, four season- al workers and more at the bus- iest times.
The mild coastal climate, to- gether with light soils and irri- gation, make ideal conditions for growing carrots, onions, parsnips and early potatoes, while heavier land west of the A12 has a more
Marketing group
The farm is one of six members of marketing group 3Ms cooperat- ing to supply potatoes to the ma-
>>
cereal-based rotation, with win- ter wheat and barley, oilseed rape, sugar beet and maize. “We harvest parsnips up until Christmas, and by that time we’ve started planting under polythene for the following July. After Christ- mas we’re lifting sugar beet, and we start planting carrots and on- ion sets. Spuds start going in at the end of February, mostly un- der fl eece for frost protection un- til the end of April or early May.”
Top to bottom: Beef cows graze
among the ancient trees of Staverton Park; Dorset lambs graze spring greens after harvest on land rented out to a local vegetable grower.
APRIL 2019 • ANGLIA FARMER 53
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