The Farmers Mart Jun/Jul 2015 - Issue 40 | Page 44

Farm Name
Staups
Lea Farm

Staups Lea Farm:
hard graft & frugality
achieve the dream
»»Ian Wilkinson met up
with Jonathan Stansfield and
his wife, Sally Jones in their
stunning farmhouse high on
the hillside between Hebden
Bridge and Todmorden. But
in 2005 it was just a grassy
hillside…
The fact that Staups Lea Farm
is now here as a fully working
farm is an achievement to be
proud of, considering that in
2005 it was just another grassy
hillside and nothing more.

So how has this remarkable
pair achieved so much?
Jonathan has always had a
passion for farming knowing
that one day he wanted his
own farm and knew exactly
where he wanted it to be. As
a child his mother lent him
the money to buy two cows
which eventually rose to 12, all
kept in one shed. Even though
he always wanted to farm he
knew there wasn’t enough in it
at the time, not without a farm

44 Jun/Jul 2015 www.farmers-mart.co.uk

to inherit anyway, so he turned
his hand to wagon driving
and a milk round. Jonathan
then went on to develop
a successful agricultural
contracting business, handling
round baling, silage, muck
spreading, fencing, walling
and road construction; more
recently he has travelled
far and wide providing
infrastructure for wind turbines
and other engineering
projects.

It was a chance meeting with
Sally 11 years ago that really
started the ball rolling here.
Initially, Jonathan went to help
her fence in some of her piglets
as she was already operating
a small meat business, mainly

‘in 2005 it was
just another
grassy hillside &
nothing more’