Our smallholding

Location

We’re situated in the heart of the Chiltern Hills, in Speen, Buckinghamshire – a 10 minute drive from High Wycombe. We’re within the Chilterns National Landscape (formally Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty) and we manage around 40 acres – mainly permanent pasture with 6 acres of ancient beech woodland.

We focused on long term areas first – putting in perimeter stock fencing, planting a new mixed fruit orchard, and planting trees to create silvopasture systems. We’ve worked with Defra’s Farming in Protected Landscapes (FiPL) scheme which has helped subsidise some of the initial costs for fencing, trees and hedgerows.

Chickens

We have three flocks of chickens who provide us with eggs for our subscription product sales. The chickens are all pasture-raised, spending all their daylight time outside.

The largest flock is based in and around the egg mobile – a mobile unit that’s built on an old caravan trailer. It allows us to move the hens on to fresh pasture with the lanes of the orchard every few days.

The second flock is a breeding flock which includes our handsome rooster. They’re housed in the chickmobile.

The third flock are the juvenile chickens, between around 3 weeks up to 4 months. They’re protected from red kites and crows within a chicken wire enclosed run.

The hens are protected against predators (mainly foxes, badgers) with electric poultry net fencing.

All the housing have automatic doors that close after dusk and open automatically in the morning. This saves a lot of effort and allows them to put themselves to bed. The hens use the housing for two purposes only – laying eggs in the next boxes, and roosting at night. The rest of the time they spend outside foraging.

Orchard

The orchard was planted in 2025 and extended in 2026. We planted a mix of cherries, apples, pears and plums – with the following varieties:

Cherry: Stella, Merton Bigarreau, Morello;
Apple: Bramley, Worcester Pearmian, Blenheim Orange, Grenadier, Cox’s Orange Pippin, King of the Pippins;
Pear: Glou Morceau, Beurre Hardy, Winter Nellis;
Plum: Marjories Seedling, Farleigh Damson, Victoria.

The design we used placed the trees roughly on contour, in lanes around 10 metres wide so we can run the egg mobile through them. We’re very happy with the curved lanes – the trees feel like they’re randomly spaced unless you’re actually within one of the lanes looking along the curve.

The soil here is a mix of flint and clay. It’s really hard to dig, so we had to use an excavator to dig the holes. The turf was first removed, the hole dug, then the turf placed back in the bottom of the hole upside down. The topsoil on the turf is then available for the roots to get stuck into. Before backfilling we add a cup of Mycorrhizal fungi to help colonise the roots, then backfill, adding a bag or two of compost to improve the soil.

We want to graze sheep in and amongst the trees, so it’s important to provide protection. Sheep (and deer) will strip the bark from young trees or use them as scratching posts – either way the tree will die. So the trees are protected using cactus tree guards – spiked galvanised mesh tree protectors that prevent the sheep from getting to the young shoots.

We mulch heavily around the trees using hay, woodchip or waste wool. This suppresses weeds and grass, and reduces moisture loss through evaporation. It makes a massive difference compare to leaving bare soil or grass. The mulch also rots down over time and adds nutrients to the soil.

Although the trees are situated near the top of the hill, there’s a cap of clay in this are so the ground does tend to hold water. The trees have done well so far (despite two extremely hot and dry summers) with very few losses. We’re hoping the tree roots will help with drainage in the winter too.

Apiary

We manage around a dozen beehives on site.

Hedgerows

A new hedgerow was planted in 2026. It’s compliant with the Defra BN11 spec with two staggered rows of whips planted between two lines of stock fencing. The fencing protects the whips from browsing by deer and sheep.

Planting took place in cold, muddy conditions in the middle of winter when the plants are dormant. We had volunteer planting parties from local schools and scout groups – and were supported by Chiltern Rangers volunteer days.

Sheep

Our sheep and predominently Zwartbles or Zwartble crosses with some Charollais and Hampshire Down mixed in.

We mange the sheep at low stocking densities using a system of adaptive grazing. This involves rotating the sheep across different pastures, limiting their range with temporary electric fencing. Once they’ve grazed a section down hard, we move them to the next. This approach benefits both the sheep and the pastures which have plenty of time to recover undisturbed before they are grazed again.

We don’t use any herbicides so they have a natural diet of grass, herbs and forage. We manually pull persistent weeds like thistle and dock in the summer, before the seed sets to keep them in check.

Around November time we’ll introduce the ram to the breeding ewes. The ram wears a ‘raddle’ with a coloured marker pad so we can see which ewes were served when. This helps us predict the timings for lambing in the spring.

During winter, when the ewes are pregnant, we supplement their diet with hay and concentrates (pellets), as the available grass is limited. We also ensure they have both mineral licks and high energy licks available to keep them in good condition. This is especially important for ewes carrying twins and triplets.

The gestation period is about 145 days so that means lambing starts around the end of March early April. This is an intensive time with not much sleep – but it’s also very rewarding. The young lambs are just a joy to watch! Where the ewe has triplets, one will sometimes get rejected, so we’ll take them and either try and re-assign them to another ewe with a single, or alternatively bottle-feed them by hand.

In the summer we wean the lambs, separating from their mothers. The ewes then get a few months of rest and relaxation to get their condition back before the cycle starts again.

Woodland

Our private, ancient beech woodland offers a peaceful, secluded setting . With a mix of mature trees, dense undergrowth, and natural clearings, the area provides both shelter and open space for hands-on learning. Rich in native wildlife, it’s a perfect environment to reconnect with nature and immerse in the rhythms of the wild.

We have some stands of Hazel which we have started coppicing. Coppicing involves cutting the tree stems down – almost to ground level. New shoots will then sprout from the stump left behind. These shoots are cut when they reach the desired size for weaving, splitting, use as poles, or firewood.

Wildlife

We’ve been building and extending wildlife habitats by reducing the frequency of hedge cutting, building dead hedges, installing owl boxes, creating wildlife corridors, allowing our grassland to seed naturally, and avoiding use of any herbicides or pesticides.

We have a rich variety of wildlife including foxes, badgers, red kites, barn owls, tawny owls, roe deer and muntjac deer.