Blue Peter comes to Langley Chase and Langley Chase is Wiltshire Independent Food Producer of the Year 2009!!

Langley Chase has been having such an exciting time that there has been no time for posting!! Time to make amends.

We are proud and thrilled to have won the Wiltshire Independent Food Producer of the Year 2009 and thank you all so much for putting us forward for the nomination. We received the award at a most prestigious and delightful evening at the beautiful Wilton House in Salisbury, Wiltshire. We are also grateful to Wiltshire Life Magazine http://www.wiltshirelife.co.uk/awards.shtmlwho run the awards and to Smith & Williamson Accountants in Salisbury who sponsored our category award.http://www.smith.williamson.co.uk/salisbury. The magazine has yet to publish the evening and we will post the photos when we get them.

We have been playing host to BBC Blue Peter who came here just before Easter and Joel, the presenter of Blue Peter, came to help with the lambing and with the jobs about the lambing barn. We all had a great time, the weather was sunny and lovely and little lambs were everywhere. We had a rejected lamb, born that morning that Joel arrived and he took over the care of it and named it Joleene! A girl of course!! Blue Peter programme is going to follow her career over the year, maybe years! I am pleased to say that Joleene was happily re-united with her young and forgetful mother who finally took on the task of rearing her lamb. So all is well!

The BBC Blue Peter Programme at Langley Chase goes out on Tuesday 28th April at 4.35 p.m. Be sure to catch it!!

Lambing has finished now and we have over two hundred leaping and bouncing lambs. When I checked them again this evening a whole crowd of them were racing together around the edge of the field in a black swathe with the mothers looking on and calling to them. The sunshine will gradually change the colour of their fleece from black to chocolate brown, to mid brown and then eventually to the deep coffee colour of the Manx Loaghtan.

We now have Manx Loaghtan Salami, delicious with plum chutney, also our Year Lamb is ready now so let us know if you would like to order anything. Give me a ring any time or email us on post@langleychase.co.uk.

New Product, lambing about to start, thank you for norminations.

The past few weeks have flown by and we have been very busy preparing orders for lamb and mutton and our smoked lamb - and we have produced A NEW PRODUCT!!

MANX LOAGHTAN SALAMI IN RED WINE, it is so exciting. It is the perfect present as it lasts for nine months and can hang in your kitchen looking decorative and be eaten at the same time. Are there any salami devotees out there??


We have lots of whole and half lamb ready, along with diced mutton and mutton joints, also smoked lamb and Manx Loaghtan salami.


Our April delivery will be on Wednesday 22nd April and collection on the farm will be Saturday 25th, so if you would like an April delivery or collection now is the time to let us know what you would like to order. Give me a ring anytime for any information or send me an email.


We are gearing up for lambing and everything is in place, even the water buckets in every pen! The weather is settled and we are ready for anything now.


We have been nominated for Best Independent Food Producer sponsored by Wiltshire Life Magazine and we are very grateful to our customers for the nomination so very many thanks for putting us forward for the award.

Just wanted to wish you a very Happy New Year and to thank you for your custom and interest in our Manx Loaghtan lamb and mutton in 2008. It is very much appreciated.

The big news is that we are on The Food Programme on Radio 4 Sunday 11th and today at 4.0 p.m. featuring the flock and the high quality of our lamb and mutton.

You can listen to it by going to the link on the BBC website http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00ghqw8

It will be available for the next seven days to 'Listen Again'

The big freeze is now thawing. It has been beautiful with white, shimmering trees and the pond completely frozen.

It has been so freezing and cold but wonderful once you are out there – I have grown muscles just trying to break the ice on the water troughs and pushing the wheelbarrow with the hay in over fields with frozen mole hills!! A real obstacle course as the wheelbarrow hits the frozen mole hill and then the hay flies out!

I am sorting batches of lambs again now that the weather is getting better so let me know if you would like to order anything. Our prices are still at the 2008 price and will be increased in the Spring. Any orders taken before end of Febuary will remain at the 2008 price.

There has been talk in the media about organic farming considering cutting down on the standards of feed due to the high cost of organic feed. If this was so the products would not be registered organic and would not be able to be registered with an organic body.

I want to confirm that we are totally and completely committed to organic standards and adhere to the rigorous organic standards of the Soil Association. We feed totally 100% organic feed, it is expensive but it is worth every penny.

We are now thinking about lambing which is in March but plans are being laid now and preparations being made.

Christmas is coming!

23.11.08
The Autumn colours are so beautiful with the golden leaves on the oaks in the fields and the yellow of the hedgerows which are alive with birds bustling about. Squirrels have been much in evidence busy gathering apples and berries.

It has been a busy time here as usual, and most exciting as we have recorded a programme for the Food Programme with Sheila Dillon. I have always been an avid listener of the Food Programme and its presenter so we are really delighted to be on a programme featuring our organic Manx Loaghtan lamb and mutton, which I think goes out in January.

We have been busy having lamb and mutton delivered throughout the country and our last delivery goes out in the second week of December as everything gets so unpredictable nearer to Christmas. That means that our final orders need to be in with us within the next week to allow time for the traditional hanging of the lamb and mutton. We have a wonderful supply of the most beautiful honey coloured sheepskins in single and quad rugs, they make an attractive Christmas present, as does half a lamb of course!

The weather has made it difficult to get to some of the fields with the landrover and trailer so I am hoping for some dry weather to help save time. No luck so far, even had sleet today.

Langley Chase Goes to the Big Food Fair!

The Bristol Organic Food Fair at the beginning of the month was well attended and great fun catching up with customers and old friends as well as meeting new customers. Our new smoked lamb went well and had a lot of attention and interest.

It is not easy producing a registered organic product so it has been great to have it well received.

I have been back to Berry Bros and Rudd in St. James’s for another evening giving a talk and our Manx Loaghtan lamb was splendidly showcased with amazingly delicious courses produced by their chef, Stuart. Our lamb was paired this time with wonderful fine Riojas .Canapés of smoked lamb with beetroot, mini mutton and mint burgers and mini apple parsley sage and thyme sausages were followed by courses of Navarin of mutton, Liver and bacon, roasted leg and roasted shoulder, roasted rack and then sweetbread cannelloni! How about that!!

After all the wet weather it has been very helpful to have some days now of sunshine which enables us to get on the fields and move sheep and hurdles about without cutting up the ground and to catch up with jobs.

It is now the time for marketing the lambs which have done so well on all the grass which has been growing and growing. The mutton is also looking very good and has finished well on all the grass. I hope that this dry spell continues so that we can get to the fields easily with the trailer.

Blue Tongue

14th August 2008

It has been a very busy time since I last posted the blog and lots of events have been going on - we have vaccinated against Blue Tongue which is an historical event in our flock and that went smoothly and efficiently.

We have been marketing lambs and have had our farm shop open on Fridays which has been fun and up until now the weather has been good!

I gave a talk at Berry Bros and Rudd in London where we do food partnerships with our lamb and mutton being showcased in five courses perfectly cooked and presented by the chef and the courses are accompanied by tastings of fabulous wines. A most interesting and delicious evening!

We had another Masterclass here which was really good with very interested people who really wanted to know as much as possible, the weather wasn’t that good but it didn’t dampen our enthusiasm.

We have had school visits where we have studied the Journey of Flour – we ground wheat in a grain mill, turned it into flour and then made dough and then I had loaves of bread which I had baked the day before which everyone then devoured! http://www.browfarmwheatproducts.co.uk/grain_mill.htm The children then did Pond Dipping and the weather was lovely and sunny.

At the end of July we had a location photoshoot here for Country House Magazine http://www.countryhousemagazine.co.uk/ who also sent a journalist to cover the Masterclasses and her article was also included in the September edition along with the photographs from the photoshoot. It is out now! The pictures look amazing with the sheep, Atilla our lurcher and our horse all with starring roles! The article was very good and informative. We had an article about the Masterclasses in The Times earlier in the year too.

The weather has now turned into the monsoon season and it has rained continuously, rather like last year but without the Foot and Mouth complications of movement restrictions. The wet land is enough of a restriction this time! We have weaned the lambs and put them all in different fields and so it all takes time checking everyday the flock of ewes, the lambs, the rams, the muttons – all stomping along in the rain! The dogs love it and tear round through the mud and puddles.

The next big thing is the Organic Food Fair in Bristol at the beginning of September so preparations are well under way for that – we will be launching our new product of smoked lamb!

Everything is growing!

(2nd June 2008)

Time seems to be flying by already and this is our quiet time! Everything is growing! The lambs are eating the delicious white clover and wild herbs and all the trees are in full leaf. The moorhen chicks are running around the edge of the pond and scooting across the water, it is so lovely to see them. The carp and golden orf small fry are swirling along the surface of the water in the sunshine.

Every day something changes politically – from blue tongue vaccine being available which is something very new to food shortages and the huge rise in fuel and diesel costs. Our organic sheep feed has risen by 80% which is a huge hike in price and the diesel costs are rising by the week and will affect everything.

We will be vaccinating for blue tongue this week and it will seem very odd to be doing that but it is so very important to get this problem under control before it is a problem in this country. It is a horrible disease and affects the fertility of cattle and sheep and makes them very unwell and debilitated. Europe has had a very bad time with it and it must not get a foothold here.

Food shortages are another thing and we should be making the most of all the wonderful produce in this country and get back to having seasonal produce. Ah well, I am glad I am not running the country!!