Farm of the Week: Yorkshire coast farmer and lifelong Shire horse breeder with family pedigree

“Breeding Shire horses has always been one of my greatest pleasures,” says Francis whose voice is close to breaking point as he recalls a sad moment from this year.

“We’ve had our ups and downs, this year we lost our best mare, Bewholme Moonlight Serenade four days after she foaled, but we found a foster mother in Cheshire and the foal is doing well. Moonlight Serenade had been champion four times at Driffield Show.

“I’ve worked with Shires from being about eleven years old. There were very few tractors when I was younger and my first experiences with a Fordson Major weren’t happy ones. You had to start them with a tractor handle and just when you’d got them where they wanted to be, they kicked your hand back. You could break your wrist. I never had a kick from a Shire.

“Later of course we had tractors on the farm, but we used Shires when we were still growing roots crops.

Francis tells of his family being steeped in history with horses and how having Hackney horses built the Richardson farming business around the turn of the nineteenth century.

“My grandfather Francis Henry Richardson was born at Manor Farm in Bewholme in 1870. He and his brother Robert were big Hackney breeders. They won the supreme championship at London Horse Show at Islington in 1898 with a mare called Bonwick Belle that was sold to America for £2000 that year. They bought several farms with the proceeds.

“My father started showing horses when he was 16. He had a good mare called Peggy that could always breed a good foal.

“I’ve shown for many years but our son Mark and his partner Jo-Ann now look after much of the showing. We won the championship with three different mares at three shows in three different counties in ten days during May. That was quite an achievement as one was down at Devon County Show, with the others at Newark & Notts Show and the Yorkshire Game & Country Fair at Scampston Park. We did well at the annual breed show too.

Francis is proud of his achievements in the breeding world and recalls an important purchase.

“We sold Bewholme Antigone to Australia about ten years ago. She became Reserve Champion of Australia, but it was the purchase of a mare called Mawstone Winnie out of Derbyshire, who cost me £1600 thirty years ago, that proved my best buy. She who won Shire Horse of the Year at the Horse of the Year Show in 2007.

“I bought her as a foal because I thought she was a better type of mare than anything we had. Wherever you looked she was perfect. The following year she won at Cottingham as a yearling and she was at the top of the showing game for ten years and bred us some wonderful foals.

“We have about a dozen Shires today with eight mares, a stallion and three foals and we are looking forward to another really great summer at the shows.

Francis is just as proud of another side of his show involvement, with sheep.

“We have the oldest flock of Leicester Longwool sheep in the country. I’ve enjoyed showing them. We used to go to Smithfield, the Royal, Yorkshire & Driffield and have had quite a bit of success.

“I’m really pleased that we have also been able to help set up several new flocks. I’ve been a past chairman and president of the Leicester Longwool Sheep Society.

“We currently have twenty breeding ewes, which includes eight Black Leicester Longwool that we have started getting into in the last four years and which we show in the Any Other Breeds classes at the Great Yorkshire Show. We took a black hogg to Harrogate in 2021 and she was champion.

Bewholme Hall Farm is a mixed farm with 130 acres of arable cropping and 90 acres of grass. Francis says it’s tough going in places.

“The land is what you call heterogeneous with every field having at least two acres of blue clay. It is very awkward to farm. When my father came here in 1938 he set off with a Norfolk four-course rotation of roots, barley, seeds and wheat. The root crop meant you kept the soil clean. We carried that out until the mid-60s. We then brought oilseed rape into the rotation, followed by two wheat crops and winter or spring barley and oats. Since 2010 beans have been introduced into the rotation.

“Up to 2016 we usually had about 100 cattle with a mix of a suckler herd and stores. We ran 150 breeding ewes and 20 horses.

“Nowadays Shelby Contractors from Skirlaugh help us do the corn and my daughter Lucy does the bookwork with Mark sorting the cropping out.

Francis says that there has always been one woman in his life who has kept him on the straight and narrow.

“I married Jenifer in 1975 after meeting her at a young farmers party in 1970. Jenifer has always kept me on my toes. We’ve been very lucky to have three wonderful children Mark, James and Lucy, and to be blessed with nine grandchildren.

The rural community has always played a major role throughout Francis’ life and he touches on how it helps him and many other farmers.

“I joined Brandesburton YFC when I was thirteen. I was the club’s first junior chairman in 1959 and then went on to be club chairman and president. I was also a club leader for quite a while, with my friend Robin Aconley.

“I went to Bishop Burton College in the year from 1964-65. I’d never been away from home before. I remember someone stole the plough off the top of college roof, so we were all off jankers. They had us plucking turkeys all weekend. It was like being in jail, but I had a good year and finished up top beef student and top sheep student.

“I enjoy visiting livestock markets. I find it very therapeutic. It’s a big relief to depression because there are times when things can get you down a bit. People don’t realise just how good markets are for that.

“I am a long standing member of Beeford Agricultural Discussion Group and the Seniors Club of former Brandesburton YFC members. I’m also a founder member of the Northern Heavy Horse Society which I still enjoy and being involved with Holderness Hunt and the Point to Points. I like a flutter on the horses. When spring comes it’s back to showing again.