James Martin's Islands to Highlands TV Series
Andrew Mackay • 8 April 2020
Episode 12. Lake District
We were asked by Lake District Farmers (LDF) if we minded being on a new ITV series being produced and presented by TV Chef James Martin. The show's main theme was to show case the best in British farm produce, so we were overjoyed to be part of the programme. James and his production team descended on us on a typical Lake District day: a mix of wind, rain, and, if you looked closely enough, sunshine. We were expecting a quick tour, a bit of filming and then on to the next event. Once James had toured the farm he was keen to do a little more and decided that his would cook in our back field with views up the valley. All was going well, Robin had been interviewed by James and had been introduced to the animals. I helped move all their filming and cooking equipment into the field on the back of the quad while James's cooking assistants prepped the food in our kitchen. I new rain was due and the cloud to the south stated to thicken and threaten rain; however, despite my weather warning, he wanted to wait for Clare Smyth from Core Restaurant who was on her way from having completed a filming segment in Ullswater at the Sharrow Bay Hotel. Unknown to us Clare had been given a farm tour by Robin and was in the kitchen chatting with Robin and James's cooking assistants. James couldn't wait any longer and started the shows cooking segment, a vegetarian risotto, in the now increasingly heavy rain. It was fun to watch and to give James and his team credit they carried on and produced an epic piece while being watch by our Ryeland sheep.
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Great to host Lake District Farmers visit last week. Chefs from Restaurant Associates shown around our farm by Robin. Liked by danaustin87 and 49 others benharman83 Incredible conservation work by @robin.mackayhh with Berkshire pigs, huge respect. Thanks to @lake_district_farmers for continued commitment to ethically sourced native rare breeds 👌🏻 1 w robin.mackayhh It was really great to show you all around our little piece of heaven 😆❤️ 1 w Reply lake_district_farmers A pleasure to have you with us 🙌 1 w 1 like Reply bobbie_lee123 What an incredible trip! 1 w Reply
Last year we bought two mountain bikes from Halfords and fitted a Bafang motor to each bike. We loved the freedom these new bikes gave us and we spent some amazing days on the mountain tracks around the Duddon Valley and Grizedale Forest. This got us thinking that perhaps our holiday guests might like the opportunity to ditch their cars and get out onto an E bike and enjoy the fresh air and scenery. So rather than buy a bike and fit a motor we decided to buy a purpose built Mountain bike each with a spare battery to increase the bikes range. See our bike hire page for pricing and details.
Exciting addition to our popular holiday accommodation here at High Hurst. The project was completed in Jul 2020 and was available from August last year. The building was formerly used as the Farm Office and before that it had been a workshop, hence the name. We opened up the garden area in December and look forward to welcoming guests to the Duddon Valley.
We received a call from Lake District Farmers (LDF); not in itself unusual, but this was a little different. Phil, LDF's head of Marketing, had published a great article about the work they do in selling produce from a number of farmers across Cumbria including ourselves. It seems we were the last to know and Cumbria Life liked the article so much that they put me and Robin on the Front cover. The photo shoot had been from a marketing campaign by LDF on the launch of their new website selling high quality produce direct to members of the public rather than just 3* Restaurants in London. We were chuffed to bits, to say the least. It was also great to see our friend Anthony Hartley in the magazine showing off his wonderful Herdwick Sheep. Thanks to the team at LDF and Cumbria Life for the surprise of the Century!
Sammy is our newest addition. He is an eight and a half month old pedigree registered Gloucestershire Old Spot boar. He is incredibly friendly with excellent lineage and we are hoping that he will be father to a lot of new piglets in the years to come. At the moment Sammy has some growing to do as he is currently too small to mate with our girls unless he uses a step ladder - which I don't think would work too well. So in the mean time he is busy exploring, playing and rolling in the mud in his lovely new field.
We re-homed Shadow and Midnight from a local cat shelter. They were born wild and remain wild - feral. They have never had any human contact and are therefore very nervous around humans preferring to keep themselves to themselves. They have been living with us for the past two weeks. During that time we have been able to get quite close to Shadow, close enough to take this photo. Midnight however remains totally uninterested and spends most of her time in the rafters looking down on us while we prepare the animal feed. They have a warm dry bed, food and water. They love watching the world go by from their chosen perch on top of the hay and straw. The hope is that they will turn into good farm cats.
Bramble's piglets decided they wanted to be born at the even more unsociable hour of 02.00 on the 8th October. Bramble wasn't too sure what was happening as this is her first litter but as soon as the first piglet was born, she jumped up, examined it then lay down happily to bring the rest of her new family into the world. We were very busy looking after the eight new arrivals. The piglets were all tiny bundles of black velvet with tiny white noses, feet and tips of tails. They all latched onto Mum and we were able to leave them to it at 07.30 - just in time to check and feed all the other animals. As you can see here the piglets are very inquisitive, this little one is only 4 hours old and already wanting to know what is going on around her.
Thelma's piglets decided to enter the world at midnight on the 23rd August when most self respecting pigs would be fast asleep. They all decided to put in an appearance within about a minute of each other which kept Robin incredibly busy wiping noses, drying piglets, putting iodine on umbilical cords and making sure they all had a teat. Because 14 piglets is a lot for any Mum to feed, we gave the piglets additional milk and feed to give them a bit of a boost and to make sure Thelma didn't get stressed or become ill. Here is a photo taken 5 minutes after they went outside into the nursery field. Thelma found her wallow, hurled herself into it, the piglets thought that was the signal for dinner and went straight in after her! The result - 14 very muddy, happy piglets who looked like they had competed in a mud wrestling competition!
What a busy and exciting couple of weeks we have had. At 05.10 on the 2nd July, Louise had her first litter of pedigree birth notified piglets. There are two girls and nine boys, all very happy, healthy and growing like weeds. We are very happy to say that when weaned, the two girls are going to a smallholding in Scotland and when they are old enough they will breed and help to increase the numbers of this very rare Princess Ann line. This photo shows the piglets last Saturday at 2 weeks old having a good run around and play in the paddock. These piglets were approximately 4 inches tall when this photo was taken! In two weeks time, Louise will be taking her piglets out into their new field for the first time to start exploring even more interesting new areas.
Sophie and her piglets are now weaned. Sophie walked out of the nursery field without a backwards glace. She happily followed the feed bucket three times round the field with a few detours of her own dropped in for good measure. She went by Bramble and Pepper's field where they had a good chat before she moved on. She is now in her own area where she can eat her food in peace without having to compete with nine small hungry piglets! The piglets spent the whole time with their noses stuck in the troughs eating as much food as they could. They didn't notice that their Mum had gone walk about and continued to play happily in and around their sty. They are very happy in the warm spring sunshine and have even ventured into the wallow. When I went to feed them yesterday lunchtime they were all caked in mud, running round the nursery field and squealing in delight! A truly heart warming sight.