Farm of the Week: Tracey realises her dream at last in Ryedale

When a tearful Tracy Beecroft rang her father from a call box in Uttoxeter more than 40 years ago and told him she was quitting the dairy farm and coming home, her dreams of a career in agriculture were in tatters. She needed to complete a year on a working farm in order to attend agricultural college at Aberystwyth but a combination of bleeding hands from milking, plus a wake up call to the demands of an unbeknown way of life tested her resolve to the limit.
Tracy Beecroft outside the glamping tepees at Low Bell End Farm near Rosedale Abbey.Tracy Beecroft outside the glamping tepees at Low Bell End Farm near Rosedale Abbey.
Tracy Beecroft outside the glamping tepees at Low Bell End Farm near Rosedale Abbey.

Today Tracy and husband Paul have their own 40-acre farm and holiday venue enterprise comprising of sheep, cattle, a shoot and a camping, glamping and caravan site at Low Bell End Farm, north of Rosedale Abbey. Hereford cattle, Texel X sheep, partridge, pheasant and ducks are part of a farming mix that may not have come about without her father’s words.

“My dad knew what I wanted to do. He knew I loved animals and that I was keen on agriculture. He’d said I should aim high and I might get there, but that day I rang I’d had enough. Dad just told me ‘fine, come home and stack supermarket shelves for the rest of your life if that’s what you want’. I went back to the farm and although it seemed really hard work at the time I don’t see it that way now. I was also fortunate that the man I worked for, Reginald Rushton, was such a lovely and extremely knowledgeable farmer and gentleman.”

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Tracy made it to agricultural college and spent a large portion of her working life helping others achieve their farming goals by teaching agriculture in colleges and supervising youth training in Northamptonshire and Leicestershire before moving to North Yorkshire with husband Paul and settling in Rosedale ten years ago after an earlier four years in Slingsby.

“I was born in Failsworth between Oldham and Manchester. I had no farming background. My dad worked as a greengrocer and in Smithfield market in Manchester. After studying agriculture in Wales I moved near to Market Harborough with my first husband when he took a dairyman’s job.”

Tracy has a son Gareth from her first marriage and daughter Harriet with Paul. Harriet is now 22 and lives on the farm in a separate cottage.

“Paul’s family all come from Yorkshire and his granddad was from Rosedale, but his parents had moved to Leicestershire when his father had taken a job as a car mechanic. Paul is a fencing contractor and has always been a shooting man.

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“Our first move into Yorkshire came about when Paul’s uncle Fred passed away. He lived in Slingsby. We were close to purchasing a lovely little place in Newton upon Rawcliffe before coming here.”

A lot of work has gone into preparing the farm for Tracy to offer camping and caravanning space.

“When we came here the farm was tired and run down. It had been a dairy farm that had moved to beef and sheep. Somewhere like this needs a lot of energy and seven years ago we set up as a certificated site affiliated to the Camping and Caravanning Club to take 10 tents and five caravans. Paul’s fencing contracting business has always been run as a separate entity and we wanted the farm to pay its way too.

“Paul had fallen in love with the place when we came as he saw it was pegged out for shooting and he has developed a pheasant, partridge and duck shoot that has six syndicate days a year. The shoot now contributes a significant amount to the farm income but it is the camping, caravanning and now glamping that is the main earner.

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“My son Gareth came to live with us for a short while four years ago and asked whether if he bought a bell tent/tipi he could put it here and run it as his own glamping business. One night in July that year he took some photographs, put something on Facebook and the combination of the pictures, the countryside and the timing had the phone ringing, texts pinging and our page went up to a phenomenal 93,000 likes in such a short space of time. Gareth then left it to us and now lives in a village close by, working for the BASC.

“We hadn’t a website at the time, we had no facility for customers to book and pay online and we only had one tent! We learned a lot that year and the glamping business has added a great, different dimension to our offering.”

The shoot and holiday trade has allowed Tracy to become the farmer she always wanted to be.

“I now have a flock of 30 breeding ewes, predominantly Texel crossbreds, and I have Lleyn and Jacob rams; I also have four Hereford cows. I wanted something that looks pleasing on the eye; that is easy to deal with and can make a contribution to the farm. So far I’ve had around £1,500 back from selling progeny against the initial sum we laid out.

Tracy and Paul produce their own game sausages, duck, partridge, pheasant and lamb.

Tracy puts together hearty breakfasts for her glamping customers and all visitors can buy their meat.

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