Meet the couple who swapped urban living for a pig farm in the North York Moors

Around a decade ago, Gill and Mark Little decided to move from Sheffield to Gill’s sister Helen’s smallholding near York for what became a three-year farm apprenticeship under the guidance of Helen’s husband, Howard Gill.

“I know this sounds cliched, but we wanted to leave the rat race and for every day to be different,” Gill said.

“We had watched Countryfile every Sunday and having decided we’d really like to live in the countryside we moved to Wigginton where my sister and her husband have Dexter cattle, Wensleydale sheep and some goats.”

The couple had started their own livestock operation “extremely modestly” with two hens at their home in Sheffield.

After living in a static caravan for three years in Howard and Helen’s back garden, learning the ropes, the couple found their current home at Duffin Stone.

The two-bedroom cottage and ten acres of rough grazing was initially spotted by Helen who suggested they “take a look”.

“We had really wanted to find somewhere in the Peak District as that was closer to our friends and family around Sheffield,” Gill said. “But within half an hour of seeing Duffin Stone we put in an offer and moved in within four weeks.”

That was seven years ago and since then the couple have nurtured a small herd of rare breed Berkshire pigs, creating The Little Pig Company.

“We wouldn’t be here without the help we received from Helen and Howard,” Gill said.

The pedigree pig herd is the couple’s main farming enterprise which runs alongside a goat herd providing them, and also the pigs, with milk.

Mark said they had started their pig herd before moving to Duffin Stone.

“We had bought two pedigree gilts from a lady at Sutton-under-Whitestonecliffe and brought them with us. We now have a boar and four breeding sows producing around 40-50 pigs a year.

“They are all bred outdoors and as well as the goats’ milk we collect windfall apples for them from around the dale.”

Mark said he believed the milk and apples give their pork a “juicier and unique taste”. With his main line of business in freelance web design, Mark has put his professional skills to good use marketing This Little Pig Company and developing online sales.

“It helps that Mark is a software developer,” Gill said. “We now take orders from all over the UK and using a 24-hour courier service get everything delivered in insulated containers.”

Gill said Berkshire pigs are renowned for being slow growing which give the meat a good flavour and in Japan is treated as a delicacy called kurobuta.

“Our litters are generally between seven to 12 piglets and we aim to take four to five pigs through processing each month at around six to seven months old.

“We support local abattoirs, which are unfortunately fast disappearing and send our stock to Traves in Escrick and we’ve been with Hartleys at Tholthorpe for all our butchery and packaging since 2011.”

The couple’s respective professions now fit in around morning feeding and bedding up.

“We fell on our feet with the cottage, it had been completely renovated and was like new when we moved in,” Mark said. “But there are always jobs to do around the farm, checking fences, things to mend and tending the pigs and goats.

“It can get quite muddy here in winter and we get covered from head to toe, but the pigs love it. They live in pig arcs that are so cosy I have very nearly fallen asleep inside when they have been farrowing.”

But there are plans to give the goats a more prominent role in the future.

“We are gradually expanding our goat herd,” Gill said. "We have four nanny goats and a billy, one is an Alpine, the rest Toggenburgs. We enjoy their unpasteurised, creamy milk and as well as helping feed the pigs we also supply our neighbour, Mike Sunley, for his orphan lambs.

“As we are not registered as a dairy we cannot sell it for human consumption but next year we are looking to turn it into soap and cheese.”

Gill, a violin player, teaches at Ryedale School and plays in quartets and orchestras. She even performed an impromptu outdoor concert during lockdown with an audience of both people and sheep.

“My mini-gig for lockdown included Amazing Grace, Unforgettable and We’ll Meet Again. The sheep were bleating along,” she said.

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