Brow House Farm, Goathland: The Yorkshire farm which was the real home of Greengrass in Heartbeat

“My family has farmed here 56 years. I was born and bred here. I’d just left school when they started filming. I was in the first two episodes as a biker. I helped them make the snow when they did the snow scenes. They were all really nice to get on with.

Keith’s fledgling acting career was foregone for life as a farmer, following his father into what was a dairy farm and for the past seventeen years has been suckler cows and breeding sheep.

The family’s 500 North Country Cheviot ewes graze the common land all around the village and Keith is part of the village’s modern heartbeat which last year saw the debut of Goathland Farmers Market that gets back under way next Saturday 15 March.

“I help put up the stalls, gazebos and stands and supply the stallholders with tables from Goathland Hut,” says Keith.

“It’s another local man Keith Thompson who runs the hut and farmers market that became popular last year with over 1000 people coming every month.

“We have around twenty great local producers including Collinson’s pig farm at Carlin How who come with their Pork on the Fork produce and Abbey Farm Cottage of Rosedale with their goat’s cheese.

"We’re hopeful we will have someone supplying beef and lamb when we start again, 70 per cent of the stands are food based.

“Goathland Hut’s proper name is Goathland Community Hub and came about when the cricket club wanted a new pavilion and when the Goathland Plough Stots, the village’s historic long sword dance teams, that I’ve been part of since I was at Goathland School, wanted a place of our own.

“We raised all the money ourselves and it now hosts events that go on in the village, including Goathland Farmers Market. I’m the cleaner, and I run a domino drive once a month in aid of Air Ambulance.

"Other than that I’m a general dogsbody. If they want a tractor to go and shift something or hedges need cutting, I’m that man.

Brow House Farm runs to 88 acres tenanted and Keith says the family rents a little more, bringing their farmed land to just over 100 acres, and while destined to follow in his father’s footsteps he had thought of another career.

“I fancied being a mechanic, but started helping dad and it just carried on that way. We were strictly a dairy farm when dad first came here after growing up in Troutsdale. When I left school dad bought a flock of sheep off a neighbouring farmer, so that what we made from them would go towards my wages.

“When the milk price crashed we sold the dairy herd and went into sucklers and now have 60 mainly crossed sucklers, but we do have a few pure Blondes. That’s because we run two Blonde bulls. We’re all natural service, we don’t put any cows to AI.

“We originally had a Hereford bull and tried others but then somebody said about a Blonde bull and how the cows would calve better. We bought one and we’ve stuck with them, they do produce easy calving and they’re quite suitable for up here.

“We now have one or two pures and a few threequarter Blondes with the others being a mix of crosses such as Shorthorn, Angus and others of which 90 per cent are bought in and we have a few we’ve reared ourselves.

Keeping things local is a common trend for Keith and the family as they are supporters of their local livestock markets.

“We buy and sell stock at Ruswarp. All our store cattle go through Ruswarp. We sell some of our lambs privately, but the rest go to Ruswarp or Malton.”

Keith says their sheep haven’t always been just North Country Cheviots.

“When we first started we had nothing but Swaledales and had them for quite a while, then we started breeding Mules, crossing the Swales to the Bluefaced Leicester and Border Leicester tups, but we lost a lot of land we used to rent so we came out of all of those and started with our Cheviots.

“For us they are are a lot better lamb, worth better money. Before the Cheviots there was a stage where our lambs were selling at 50 pence.

“We changed to Cheviots about 2013 and sell all the wether lambs as stores, keep 100 gimmer lambs as replacements and any other gimmer lambs go for either breeding ewes on other farms or as stores. We take some to the annual Wombleton Aerodrome sales.”

It’s coming into the Jacksons’ busiest time of the year with calving and lambing.

“We start calving now and that carries on right through summer; our lambing time starts pretty much in the next few days.

One of the legendary sights of Goathland and other North York Moors villages like Hutton-le-Hole is the grazing of sheep in and around the respective villages. Keith says this also brings about another example of a community that works together.

“Unless our ewes are in for lambing or tupping they will roam freely on the common above and in the village. We all gather our numbers of sheep together but inevitably we will end up taking some in of another farmer’s flock.

"We sort this by simply ringing each other and arranging to swap them over. You’ve got to work together up here.”

Keith says that the farm is as self-sufficient as it can be, but they need to buy in feed and minerals; and that the loss of the annual farm payment and new schemes not being helpful are cause for concern.

“We cut our own grass and have somebody baling for us. Everything we grow goes back into our stock but we also buy cake and minerals from local firms.

"We’ve found that some of these new schemes are going to cost us more than we are going to get out of them.”

The Jacksons have run a camping and caravanning site for many years. Keith says it works well and the Heartbeat factor still brings tourists to Goathland.

“We have over 30 caravan pitches and can take as many tents as we want. They’re all in our grass fields, there’s no hard standing. We have ladies and gents toilets and showers.

“Goathland was always popular with walkers, hikers and daytrippers before Heartbeat and it is slowly going back to what it used to be, but with Heartbeat being shown across the world we often see visitors from abroad in the village.

Keith is married to Jane. They have two sons – Callum and Duncan, who works as a repairman in James Cook Hospital. Keith has a stepdaughter Callie-Ann.

Goathland Farmers Market is held on the third Saturday of each month from next week from 10am-2pm.