DAIRY farming in the North York Moors isn ’ t what it used to be . There was once a time when the Esk Valley was home to dozens upon dozens of dairy farmers with thousands of milking cows .

The Saltersgate area , a little away from the Esk Valley region , has lost more than just dairy farmers in the past thirty years , it has also lost two of its most iconic landmarks – the ‘ golf balls ’ at RAF Fylingdales and the Saltersgate Inn .

The early warning system golf balls have been gone since 1992 when the end of the Cold War saw them replaced by much less spectacular pyramid shapes and the inn was finally demolished in 2018 after being in a decrepit state for a decade or two .

Trevor Hodgson moved from Grosmont to Marfit Head Farm , Saltersgate occupying land behind the major layby opposite the Hole of Horcum in 1985 .

During his 37 years farming away from the Esk Valley and Grosmont he has seen several dairy herds disappear in Saltersgate , just like the golf balls and the pub , but he didn ’ t start with milkers at Marfit Head .

“ For a number of years I ran a sheep and beef unit here , as well as rearing replacements for the dairy herd at Fairhead in Grosmont which was then farmed by my dad Terry and my brother David . My great grandad Joe had bought Fairhead in 1912 .

“ In 1998 we all looked at the job and made the decision that we had to try something else to make the whole farm enterprise more viable and in 2000 we went milking cows at both farms with 180 at Fairhead and initially 60 here . The sheep went . We ’ d had Mules and Mashams and we installed a new milking parlour and made a new slurry pit .

“ We finally broke off separately from David in 2010 . David had struggled to get farm staff and the winter of 2010 had been bad weatherwise . The council couldn ’ t afford to replace the salt required to clear the road so he said ‘ someone else can

put milk in the tea , I ’ ve had enough .’

“ I ’ d married Angela in 1994 and we ’ d had three kids by the time we broke away from David , which set our minds on what we should do . We were next to the main road and so access to the rest of the world was easier for us than for David .

“ I ’ d bred some of the dairy cows that had been David ’ s so we took them on . I ’ d upped our number to 240 by 2010

and with David ’ s cows we took the herd to 420 . We also put in a 60-point Dairymaster rotary parlour , built a newer , larger slurry lagoon and put up another shed for young stock .

Trevor had begun switching his herd from almost wholly black and whites with the inclusion of firstly Jerseys and then Norwegian Reds in the early part of the noughties .

“ I ’ m part of a grassland group and we used to go around other farms in other areas such as Stafford and Cumbria . We were already crossing with Jerseys and I found the Norwegian Reds through seeing what others were doing .

“ The herd is now Friesian-cross- Jersey and Norwegian Red and goes out normally from March to November . Our herd average is 6000 litres giving 4.6 to