The Farmers Mart Dec/Jan 2015 - Issue 37 | Page 16

marsh top farm

The Holmes family

TURNING A HOBBY INTO A SUCCESSFUL
BUSINESS AT MARSH TOP FARM
Ian Wilkinson met the enthusiastic and hardworking Holmes
family who own and manage Marsh Top Farm and Farm
Shop at appropriately-named Oxenhope, near Halifax.
The enterprise actually
began as a hobby in 2003,
when a friend who was
relocating to sunny Cyprus
offered Richard and Gretta
Holmes four Highland
cows. They still have two of
the originals, including the
black one pictured here. At
the time, Richard was an
award-winning dry stone
waller and also taught
his craft at local colleges.
Gretta had started a small
plant nursery.

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Dec/Jan 2015 FarmersMart

But once they had the cows,
their interest and zest for
farming got under way and
it wasn’t long before what
started as a hobby became a
family business which today
employs the whole family.
They now have a herd of 40
Highlands, five Dexters and 10
Belted Galloways. They prefer
native breeds because they
produce much better meat
and they always hang them for
28 days. Richard is looking to
cross the Galloway and the

Highland to produce a bigger
and more docile animal - as the
family had some very amusing
episodes early on rounding up
the nervous Galloways - often
just seeing a white flash as
they shot past!
In addition to the cattle,
they also have sheep, lambs
and pasture-reared pigs from
a range of native breeds
including Saddleback,
Gloucester Old Spot and
Large White. As well as
her busy involvement in the

farm, Gretta has managed
to find time for the further
development of the plant
nursery.

‘employs the
whole family’
In 2012, the then owners
of the Farm Shop, Chris and
Steve, who at the time were
butchering Richard’s meat for
farmers’ markets, offered the
shop business to Richard. The

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