Winter at Hartley Farm

The year is really speeding along now and it won’t be long until we’re all running around in the snow trying to get the last minute Christmas shopping done. Let’s hope that doesn’t happen again!

Last month was a packed month for us at Hartley Farm. We launched our new Full English breakfast, celebrated British Food Fortnight with some of our suppliers and hosted our first ever supper club event. Those who attended seemed to really enjoy themselves and we have been inundated with requests for the next one which is more than we could have hoped for.

Our first supper club in full flow.

Roasties being prepared for our supper club!

Throughout October we are alsoing running our “Build your own Banger” Competition for Sausage week which starts on the first week in November. The winning flavour will be on sale in the butchery and also available on our specials board in the café throughout the week.

Winter veggies are coming through now with everyone’s favourite, the humble sprout, not being far away! From our farm will also be more carrots, parsnips and cabbages. Game will become more available too so speak to our butchery team if you wish to reserve any pheasant, partridge, duck and rabbit. Most importantly our Christmas order form will be available so make sure you get your Christmas orders into the butchery in plenty of time – some items, particularly our homemade range,  maybe limited in supply!

Cold customers at last years Christmas Fayre!

Finally we will be hosting our annual Christmas Fayre at the end of November on the 26^th and 27^th November. We have decided to host this year’s event over the weekend as we hope to have many more producers and festive stalls on show. The days will run from 10-4pm and more details will be on our website under our “Events” page so be sure to check to keep up to date!

All the best

Tom

Autumn Arrives at Hartley Farm

As September starts to arrive I always look forward to more autumnal scenes in the countryside and the seasonal food available suddenly turns heartier. Salads and soft fruits give way to roots and with it summer spreads turn to stews and casseroles.

Wrapping hay bales.

The twelfth of August marks the “Glorious Twelfth” when Grouse comes into season. Duck, Partridge and Pheasant follow on from the start of September for the first two and a month later for the latter. Local game will be available from our counter as usual but be sure to order with Ed to avoid disappointment!

To help us make the best use of all this wonderful seasonal produce on our doorstep we have managed to convince our newest member of the Hartley Farm team to join us. Our new chef, Ollie, has been working with us for some time from a kitchen in the Cotswolds and some of you may have met him at our Christmas Fayre a couple of years ago. He brings with him a tremendous wealth of experience, knowledge and passion for working with food and as our farm continues to grow and produce more and more food the opportunity to join us here and put to best use all our home grown produce must have been too mouth watering!

Already we have seen steak & ales pies, vegetable terrines and baked egg custard tarts all with made with produce from Hartley Farm.

From the 17th September to 2nd October we will be celebrating British Food Fortnight in the shop. Details of how you can get involved and events at the farm will be on our website and also available in our newsletter. You can be sure that plenty of brilliant British grub will be the headline throughout the fortnight!

We look forward to seeing you all soon

All the best

Tom

Eighty Years in Winsley

For those of you who don't know, I (Tom) am lucky enough to be a fifth generation of Bowles' who have all farmed and worked in Winsley. At first it would appear we don't get out much but when I was faced with the oppurtunity to help run our family farm steeped in history in the beautiful Wiltshire countryside and help take it to future generations i'm sure you'll agree it wasn't a hard decision. Recently my grandfather, Bert Bowles, was asked to write a history of his life so far in our village of Winsley and below is what he came up with... 

I was born in 1931 and like my father and grandfather I have

 Herbert George with his children (1940)

lived all of my life here in Winsley. My Grandfather, Abel, was a farmer at Parsonage Farm on the road to Conkwell, but his business was a victim of the farming recession in the mid 1800’s. He then lived in Conkwell, working as a farm hand and raising his family of eight children. My father, Herbert, (pictured right) started work in 1890, aged eleven, on a farm at Claverton on the A36. His walk to work took him through Warleigh and across the river on a ferry at Ferry Lane. The journey was considered so long that he was allowed home every other week end!
 

His business career started in 1900 when he became the Landlord of the Seven Stars here in the village. In those days the village was a busy mining community and his trade was dependant on the thirsty miners and the many small farms from the surrounding hamlets of Conkwell, Ashley, Haugh and Turleigh. The busy mine at Murhill was the main employer, and when you visit the mine entrance you can easily imagine the hive of industry, and still see the route of the rail track that took the stone down onto the canal. Apparently, the track was a loop, whereby the weight of the full trucks going down pulled the empty ones back up and the only energy required was to operate the breaking system. Once on the canal the stone went all over the country, and just off Oxford Circus in London, you can find Winsley Street which I understand is named after the village from which the stone to build the area was sourced.
As a child, I was told many stories of those days. My father brewed his own beer at the pub and sold his Best Ale for a halfpenny per pint, and the ordinary for a farthing. Apparently the village policemen would do his rounds at 10;30pm  each evening and a pint of best always left on the stone mounting block on the road side, to ensure there were no misunderstandings about closing times!

The local farmers would milk their cows in the morning, load the milk onto their horse carts and rendezvous at a milk collection point in the village. From there it was taken to the milk factory at Staverton. For most farmers, the only source of fresh water was at Turleigh Trows, so they would then continue on there to refill their milk churns with water, before returning to the farm for a day’s work. However, for some characters a brief stop in the ‘Stars’ was too tempting! There they would discuss the issues of the day and the arguments would become more passionate as each pint went down. The journey home was navigated by the horse and I was told it was not uncommon to find the farmer asleep under a hedge or stone wall around the lanes, while the horse grazed the grass verges.

Just after the First World War, my father realised his ambition and left the pub to start farming at Church

Bert's brand new Massey Harris Combine, 1956.

Farm. My early childhood memories were of life on the farm during the Second World War. I remember the anti- aircraft guns and searchlights in the fields on the road to Conkwell, the air raid warning sirens from the Winsley Hospital (now Avon Park) and the prisoners of war working on the farm. There was a great community spirit despite the difficult times and I remember the whole village school being sent onto the farm at harvest time to help comb the fields for an ear of wheat or potato that was missed by the farmhands. The scarcity of food was on eveyone’s minds, and I remember when a pig was ready for slaughter, the whole village seemed to know about it and it became a community event on the farm. Everyone helped with the process in return for their rare pork supper. The village centre was the Church, Pub and School (now the Social Club) and many trades were based at the Manor, from where the local Blacksmith and Farrier worked. The Hospital site was also a large local employer as the nation struggled with the ravages of Tuberculosis. The fields between the road and the hospital were markets gardens and always full of gardeners producing food for the patents and many local people worked on the site as gardeners and maintenance staff.

The village started to grow rapidly in late 1940,s when the area from King Alfred’s Way through to Dane Rise was built. Its now hard to imagine that the small road which leads to the Church Yard was then the main road to Conkwell and the access for lorries delivering to the farms. The building of the Tyning Road area in the early 70’s and then the bypass completion in the 80’s means the Village is now much bigger than the one I grew up in. In those days a strange face was a talking point and a car passing through was the event of the day. However, as my grandson Tom now builds his business in the community I can’t help thinking that ideas like ‘localism’ and ‘carbon friendly’ are only new words to describe the old ideas. Perhaps we are just going round in circles?

Richard's Spring Rant!

As a farmer all my life I've seen many changes and challenges in the industry throughout the years. Now in it's latest state our farm produces solely for the shop. Through this blog Tom allows me to keep everyone updated with the bigger picture and generally get things of my chest.... So to my first topic!

DEFRA has recently published figures showing that we now only produce 59% of the food we consume. Not since 1968 have we been so dependant on food imports. NFU president Peter Kendal recently argued that the Government must change its policies to encourage more self sufficiency.  Over the past decade governments have repeatedly insisted that: ‘ food security is based on an international trade’. In other words it’s cheaper imported – but for how much longer? With political instability in Africa and fuel apparently heading for £2.00 a litre, surely shipping perishable food around the world could soon be a very expensive and possibly unreliable pass time, and things can change very quickly! 

Our tractor fighting last winter's snow!

 Here we try to maximise the food we produce but in a sustainable way. We have recently signed up to the Bradford on Avon Community Area 2050 Carbon Neutral Declaration, so work on reducing our carbon footprint in underway. Our new Case Tractor has an innovative new engine which will run on used vegetable oils which we can produce on the farm.  However, the biggest area for carbon reductions would be investment in renewable energy.  As nearly all of our produce is now stored / prepared here on the farm for the farm shop, we use a lot of refrigeration with electricity consumption to match. Our options range from a wind turbine to Solar PV panels or Bio- mass digesters, but it’s a very big investment and will no doubt be the subject of future rants. 

We would welcome your thoughts too.

All the best

Richard    

The First One!

After trying my hand at a bit of twittering and trying to develop a different approach to facebook to try and get the Hartley Farm word out there, I thought the next most sensible thing would be to start a blog. So here I am.

2011 is almost a quarter done, a scary thought indeed. At the start of the year I managed to attend a conference with my fiancee Tamara which dealt with farm retailing and its future. It was a brilliant opportunity to meet and talk with people who are going through the same processes as us. The most resounding theme of the few days was that we, as farmers and farm retailers, have a real opportunity to offer so much more than the multiple retailers and if we don't do that well, then they will learn fast and do it better! The thought of Mr Sainsbury's, Tesco or Waitrose peeling off the Hartley Farm Shop sign from our doors and fixing up an imposing, garish, neon sign in its place was more than enough encouragement for us to have a really good think about what we should be doing.

So off we set back to the wonderful Wiltshire countryside, both inspired and daunted by the task in hand.

Since then we have had a real look at our farm and have thought, talked and decided upon our future. 2011 hopes to be a great year for us. We have two years of mapping through our future bit by bit and this year we see much of our efforts come to fruition.

Firstly, our on-farm allotments have been setup and the plots are already starting to take root. The allotment project was taken on and setup entirely by my father Richard, after many, many requests. It certainly puts the flag in the ground about what we intend Hartley Farm to be about: linking food, farming and the community.

We were also approached mid-way through 2010 by an enthusiastic market gardener who was desperate for space to grow her own produce commercially. Kate had lots of experience in growing fruit and veg organically and we jumped at the opportunity to have her enthusiasm and experience here at the farm. Within a few weeks we will start to see the fruits (one too many puns I know) of the market garden and I for one am extremely excited about this partnership.

Apart from our new and improved market garden we have much more to reveal but I can't use up all my enthusiasm on my first post!

So as Spring rolls along I will try to keep on track by revealing more and more about us here on the farm so watch this space!

Tom