The Farm
Baylham House Farm
Baylham House Farm consists of about fifty acres adjacent to the house and a considerable amount of extra grazing that is available to us is scattered round the local area. Not all the land round the house is open to the public as there are woods and wilderness areas which provide food and shelter for wild life and we have a ten acre lake which is stocked and fished by a private fishing club. The animal paddocks are interwoven with a network of paths which enable visitors to meet all the animals, walk along the shady riverbank path or a stretch beside the lake. We have plans to open up a nature trail through one of the wooded wilderness areas and the lakeside. This was partially completed in 2011 and we are hoping to finish the remainder in 2012. We have an outdoor picnic area and also some outside picnic tables under cover.
The outdoor picnic area
The Animals at Baylham House
The livestock we keep at Baylham House Farm mostly belong to breeds that were once common but are now under threat because of the current commercial pressures to produce cheap food. We also keep Highland cattle and Herdwick sheep which are not classified as rare but we keep them just because we like them.
People who keep rare breeds do so, not for sentimental reasons, but in order to maintain a vitally important gene bank of valuable and irreplaceable qualities that modern industrialised farming tends to eliminate. In recent years a market has developed which provides an outlet for produce which may sometimes cost a little more but which has been produced by traditional methods using traditional breeds and provides traditional quality and meat which has flavour. It therefore seems likely that farming will evolve along the dual track of large industrialised units aimed at high productivity, minimum cost and hence cheap food, alongside much smaller units producing quality products for smaller but specialised markets.
Apart from breeding livestock, Baylham House Farm is managed with the local wildlife in mind with some areas and features provided specifically for their use. There is a wide selection of birds and insects to be seen and the local mammal population is extensive but rarely visible during normal daylight hours.