Kiln Farm
Nidderdale llamas
– a triumph of hard
work over adversity
» » KILN FARM NEAR PATELEY
Bridge is home to the Benson
family: James and Suzanne
and sons William, Ben and
Callum. A working farm with
a 70 head suckler herd and a
flock of 60 sheep, somewhat
more unusually, it is also home
to the “Nidderdale Llamas”
an amazing herd of 29 llamas
and nine alpacas - all of whom
have distinct personalities!
We sent Ian Wilkinson off to
discover more.
The whole business is an
absolute triumph of hard
work over great adversity
and challenge. James is from
a dairy farming background
and has a real passion for his
animals. Suzanne is a printer’s
daughter but always kept
horses as a girl. The two met
when Suzanne was 18, when
she moved from Harrogate to
Darley to be with James where
he was born. They spent the
first seven years living in a
caravan on his parent’s farm.
James had a milk round as
well as other farm work while
Suzanne worked for the local
authority. They kept a few
pet lambs and sheep of their
own, building up the sheep
flock to 350 to help with their
finances. They had their first
son, William while still living
in the caravan. Things were
still tough financially and so
enterprising Suzanne bought,
renovated and sold a house
in Harrogate - and on the
back of that success did a few
more. This was purely to help
increase the family’s income
without any great plan in mind.
But the couple’s real dream
was to have their own farm
one day.
As sometimes happens, by
chance Kiln Farm came on
the market: hugely overgrown
and run down, there was
clearly a huge amount of work
needed. Just as they were
beginning to see the light of
day James (who until then
had never been ill in his life)
developed a serious abscess
and in the February , finally
his lungs collapsed and he
was admitted to hospital.
To add to the pressures,
Suzanne was pregnant with
Callum. Workaholic James
32 Autumn 2017 www.farmers-mart.co.uk
became more and more
demoralised being in
hospital, he had had
sepses everywhere
and lost an incredible
10 stone - and not
surprisingly, was starting
to lose the will to go on. So
he discharged himself on
Christmas Eve 2002. It was the
best thing he could have done,
being back at home, seeing
the green fields once again
and then Callum being born
gave him the will to
fight on. The whole
family rallied
round: William
was a tower
of strength -
really helping
out on the farm,
and supporting
Suzanne.
Suzanne went back to
work in June 2003. She and
James went to a horse sale
and when a llama came into
the ring James suddenly said:
“Shall we buy it?”Suzanne
agreed and so they bought
Larry the llama - Suzanne
bought a book to learn about
raising a llama. They then
found two llamas for sale
in Derbyshire, which they
acquired, making three – but
they didn’t realise one was
pregnant so now they had
four!
Initially they just bred the
llamas which calved every 18
months. James was now much
stronger and began building
up both the sucklers and the
sheep. Suzanne joined the
British Camelid Society to learn
more about llamas – then she
came across
a trekking
centre in
Stainton Dale
and thought “Could
we do trekking?”
They started to halter them
but found it very difficult;
Suzanne subsequently
learned that you need to start
when they are very young so
the trekking side went on the
back burner at that time. Just
to add to their challenges –
as if they hadn’t had enough
- James became ill again in
2007.
Suzanne still was
determined to make the
trekking side happen, and as
at that time there were none
in Yorkshire,