Farmers are perhaps the world's greatest hoarders, accumulating junk over many years and never (or rarely) throwing anything away.

My granddad, who farmed at Ganstead, near Hull, would always simply sniff, when asked what something that was lying around was for, and say 'it'll come in' and that's exactly the mantra that most of us have. But one North Yorkshire farmer has turned his love of collecting things and being interested in old stuff into a business all of its own.
Now a milk churn collection may not sound awe inspiring but it has proven to be the catalyst for Killinghall beef farmer Andrew Fawcett's rural antiques business that he eventually set up last year, a mere 20-odd years after he started collecting churns.

'I've always been interested in old stuff, agricultural machinery, antique furniture and any type of farm memorabilia. If there was anything I had seen that was a bit out of the ordinary I would buy it. Stone rollers, stone troughs and I've always had a thing about buying stuff that nobody is making anymore.'

His antique emporium is an Aladdin's Cave of rural treasure with everything from hardwood furniture to a creel, along with quite a lot of churns it has to be said, and a hay cart that Andrew has been told may well have come from the East Riding originally.

Just how it came to be this far over the county may be a story in itself. Perhaps those involved in the Walkington Hayride (a marvelously well attended rural event that takes place near Beverley each year) would be interested in seeing it. So who buys the stuff Andrew puts on sale? 'It's mainly people who have property in the country and who are not necessarily farmers but want that farmhouse kitchen look. That's the popular thing at the moment.

The good thing about the real farmhouse kitchen is that not everything used to match anyway so people are quite prepared to buy individual items. Beer pots or anything using clay that needs little or no maintenance and goes with the Aga are what's in at the moment. Jampans and anything made from brass or copper are not as fashionable as they used to be and I'm not convinced they'll come back either because they need more looking after.'

Garden ornaments such as troughs and fountains are sought after during the summer and Andrew's older troughs benefit from his plants and trees business that he has also built up over a number of years at Four Lane Ends Farm on the busy A59 just out of Harrogate. As a location for passing trade it couldn't be better for what is now a farm shop encompassing antiques, plants, flowers, trees, beef, pork, lamb, crisps and you get the feeling just about anything else Andrew feels will add to his business.

'We are amongst the smallest of farms around here but you have to treat it as a mini-estate and the way I do that is by trying to make every corner work to its fullest potential. And so he does with the sale of everything from Christmas trees to livestock.

Farming still takes up 70 per cent of my time but Andrew now finds it only provides 30 per cent of his income, but he wouldn't want to stop farming. 'I have a moan about things but that's what proves I'm a farmer doesn't it! There's something about it that means you can't give up and I know we're renowned for grumbling but I reckon if you pulled us away from it we'd soon want to be back again.

I still enjoy it.' Nonetheless it looks as though Andrew will constantly be stocking more farming treasures, rather than greater numbers of cattle, as more and more farms sell up, particularly in his area.
'A lot of the little farms have gone from around here. In the last twenty years we've lost more than half the farmers in Nidderdale. The land is still being farmed but the farms that are here are now generally working twice the amount of land and with less labour than they had previously.'

Andrew and his father (Arthur) bought Croft Farm where he lives, just three quarters of a mile from Four Lane Ends, in 1984 with just 40 acres at the time. Although he still regards his enterprise as a smaller farm than most, he now owns 120 acres and rents another 30. He started his farm shop in 1989 when his dad, Arthur, was still very much involved too and they sold eggs and potatoes.

'My father worked 25 years as stockman for the Umpleby family. He had been looking for a farm and rented Croft in 1970. He was a dairy farmer milking 20+ cows in the days when you could earn a living from it. I left school in 1978 and went into pigs, borrowing a bit of money and set up with 30 sows when I was 17, eventually building up to 100. But my main interest had always been cattle and when dad went out of dairy in 1985 we took over some more land at Four Lane Ends and I went out of pigs so that we could both work together on a beef herd.'

Andrew and his father became the middle-men in the beef fattening world, buying and selling stock. 'I started by buying calves. It was a good way to get going, buying something at low cost and also a cheap way of getting stocking numbers up. Then I started buying store cattle. You soon get to realise that the first 20 weeks of an animal's life is damned expensive and so I realised that buying store cattle was probably cheaper than rearing calves.

I usually buy at about 8 months and sell at 18 to 22. We stock some of the beef in our farm shop.' Andrew still attends Skipton, Otley, Northallerton and Gisburn markets regularly but his current stocking numbers have reduced to around 150 from a high of 250 as a result of another diversification enterprise. He's made more prudent use of some of the farm buildings at Four Lane Ends by converting them into commercial lets and antique wholesalers have taken the spaces available. Having them around has opened Andrew's eyes even further to the trade he has moved into in the past year since he opened in April 2006.

If I had thought the agricultural world of buying cattle was specialist (and Andrew usually attends two sales per week) I found that it is nowhere near as specialist as the antique world. I take my hat off to them over what they know.' Andrew is married to Amanda and they have two children – Kathryn (3) and William Andrew (7 weeks). It's a bit early to say whether they will develop the same tendency towards collecting old stuff yet but when they get a little older they might just wonder what all of those old milk churns are for!