LAKE District Farmers ( LDF ) work with more than fifty Cumbrian farmers in producing some of the finest , tastiest meat money can buy . High Hurst Farm , probably the smallest farm they work with , has an inspiring story behind it .

Robin and Andrew Mackay run High Hurst Farm , a self-sustaining smallholding in the picturesque Duddon Valley , one of the hidden gems of the Lake District . High Hurst Farm being under 50 acres is classed as a smallholding but is much more .

Andrew and Robin were totally new to farming when they returned to their native Cumbria back in 2013 . It was something they had always planned to do , both having a love of animals , particularly Robin .

In 2013 Andrew was approaching retirement after 33 years in the RAF . Robin , having followed Andrew to his various postings , has been amongst other things a ballet dancer , trained as a chef ( so she knows good meat when she sees and tastes it ) and her final position was PA to an eminent professor at the University of Oxford .

The move back to Cumbria was finally somewhere they chose rather than being sent . As Andrew ’ s retirement date was 2019 , the plan was to acquire a smallholding and make it self-sustaining by the time he retired , or should I say Robin was to make it self sustaining !

No small task , starting right from scratch . Robin epitomises many successful women farmers I have met . “ You just have to keep going and stay focussed .” The job Robin has done is nothing short of amazing .

To start with High Hurst Farm was at a price that Robin and Andrew could afford , however that affordable price was for a reason . The whole property and outbuildings were run down , close on dilapidated and the land was in an equally poor state , walls , fences , soil all in a poor state . So , there was

an inordinate amount of work to be done just to get to back to square one . Although Andrew was still in the service , he was home at the weekends to help out and see the progress .

Once the farmhouse and the main buildings were restored , Robin was able to work on the land . During the initial restoration Robin was also preparing for the farm for animals . She did a huge amount of research , her time at Oxford being not to dissimilar and her time as a chef meant she knew where she wanted to go in producing good meat . As well as her research , she had a huge amount of help and advice from many mentors . Two of the most notable were Phil Dawson , who is a local smallholder specialising in pigs - his grandfather and father before him also rearing pigs so a wealth of knowledge has been passed down ; the second key mentor was Anthony

Hartley , who again is a local farmer with 2500 Herdwicks and is very involved with the Herdwick Society . He taught Robin an awful lot and despite the size of his flock , was happy to drop everything to help Robin with one sheep . Indeed , their oldest sheep nearly perished during the birth of her first ever lamb . However , thanks to Anthony ’ s intervention she survived , and her lamb has grown into one of Robin ’ s strongest ewes and had a good number of her own lambs .

The farm started in a very small way with just six hens , then four sheep . One of the funny things that Robin remembers from the early stages is that she often went to farms looking for one breed / type of animal and invariably came back with another . One of Andrew ’ s weekly rituals on returning home at weekends was to inquire “ What have you bought now ?”

So , after the hens and sheep were established , their first foray into the world of pigs started with the purchase of two Gloucestershire Old Spot sows - Thelma and Louise . It was in the early stages of building up the animal stock that they soon realised via Robin ’ s

research and talking to people that there was a real plight around certain old-fashioned heritage breeds and indeed numbers were so low that some of our native heritage breeds could well disappear . The decision was therefore made to focus on rare breeds and to try to help raise their numbers and re-establish them .

Clearly for this to happen great care in breeding was going to be the order of the day , correct environment , peak health , and high-quality feed . The farm was already well placed for this as Robin had set the whole farm up to allow the animals to exist in a happy , carefree , natural outdoors environment , where they are also free to express their natural behaviours , but with adequate shelter when the heavy Cumbrian weather is present - which is often . Indeed , when I was there it was a very typical misty , driven rainy day .

Pigs , more so than many , are very susceptible to disease transmitted from humans , so to that end right from the start Robin has had a strict hygiene

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