Hill Top Farm

They keep a flock of 250 Swaledale sheep and a herd of pedigree Belted Galloway cattle across 1100 acres of limestone upland, with most of the land sitting 1200 to 1800 feet up. The cattle live outside all year round and eat only grass, with no grain based feeding at any point, maturing slowly and finishing at 26 to 40 months. The farm is an approved supplier of the Pasture Fed Livestock Association and holds to its standards.

Two Sites of Special Scientific Interest sit on the land, and the cattle graze as part of conservation schemes run with the National Trust, the Yorkshire Dales National Park Authority and the RSPB, alongside a traditional hay meadow restored with the Yorkshire Dales Millennium Trust. The beef is sold under the farm's name through Town End Farm Shop in Airton, two and a half miles away, where Chris Wildman is the butcher, and it won a National Trust Fine Farm Produce Award in 2014. Raw fleece is sold every summer, the bulk of the Bluefaced Leicester clip going to Laura's Loom in Sedbergh and the rest privately to hand spinners, weavers and dyers. There is no shop at the farm gate yet, and the farm says it hopes to sell meat directly to guests and the wider public in future, so ring or email about beef and fleece.