Tan Hill Show: 'I farm on remote land near Tan Hill Inn - but I still dream of winning big'

Raymond looks forward to it more than any other event in the year, including most probably his wedding anniversary, certainly his birthday, definitely Christmas and only Muker Show, comes anywhere close.

“Tan Hill is my local show, it’s always a great occasion and quite a moment when you have the exhibitors of the champion male and female stood there after 31 classes of tups and gimmers, when the Supreme Champion is decided.

“I was absolutely delighted to take the role of secretary and feel it is important to keep these sort of things going. One or two people said, ‘You must be wrong in your head taking the job’, but I said it’s something I always wanted to do. It’s the top show, the cream of the Swaledale breed.

“When I write to the judges that are selected each year, inviting them to judge, I receive letters, nearly every time, from those invited mentioning the word honoured.

"That’s because it’s an exceptional show and it’s not easy to judge, with the prestige that goes with it and the quality on show.”

Raymond says that Tan Hill Show was started after two local sheep breeders had been judging at Mungrisdale Show in May 1951.

“Brian Fawcett and Jack Pat Alderson were two great men of Swaledale sheep. They came back from Cumbria saying we must have a spring show in Swaledale and coming to the end of lambing time that folks were ready for a bit of a day out.

"It got talked about at the Shepherd’s Meet held at Tan Hill Inn on the first Sunday in July that year where it was decided to call a meeting at the pub in November to set it up.

“One of the ideas was to give the pub a really good financial day because it wasn’t long since the winter of 1947 when it had been closed for weeks.”

Raymond says the crowd of around 300 the show attracts is mainly sheep farmers, but there are always others who enjoy the moor-top spectacle.

“You don’t get hundreds of exhibitors. A very good entry would be 40. The show starts at 12.30pm and the Supreme Champion is usually announced by 4.30pm.”

Raymond has farmed with his brother Chris since leaving school, but Chris has just announced his retirement, even though like most farmers he’ll probably still be on hand. That now leaves Raymond farming with his wife Alison, his son Andrew and his wife Claire.

“Chris and I took over from our father George and he had farmed with his brother Tom until 1968, until they split, amicably, and Tom moved to Garsdale.

“Since Chris and I left school we’ve built up the farm considerably. Here at Hoggarths we are a typical family-run hill farm with a large flock of pedigree Swaledale sheep consisting of 10 separate hefts of sheep.

"We’ve picked up other farms along the way taking our in-bye acreage to 500, plus grazing rights for just over 1,300 on Birkdale Common and Angram Common.

"But we no longer have the number of sheep that was the case years ago as environmental schemes do not allow that.

“Where we farm would once have had six families doing their best to make a living. Now, at this top end of the dale there are only four farms where there were up to fifteen. That’s how things have gone in a lot of these upland areas.

“Our hill flocks of Swaledales are the first in the sheep breeding chain. We have our self-retaining flocks which means we have no need to buy in. We have them about two to three years, selling draft ewes to upland farmers further down the dale on better land for their replacements.

“The Swaledale is without question one of farming’s biggest success stories, particularly its crossing with the Bluefaced Leicester producing the North of England Mule.

"The Swaledale ewe is really suited to this area because of its hardiness, ability to thrive on poor vegetation and comes completely into her own at lambing time with fantastic mothering ability.

“What makes things even more special is that we live in the area where the breed originated. Our mainstay is trying to breed as good a Swaledale sheep as we can and keeping up a reputation for breeding stock.”

Raymond says the loss of the funding from the Basic Payment Scheme and now the Inheritance Tax proposals have an effect on the farm’s future.

“With Chris going into retirement we had to get it valued up and what amazed us was that any bits of farm buildings, however ramshackle, with no chance of making a house, have been included for their potential, lifting the value of your property a lot.

"I think the Government may have told valuers to include anything that can make a bigger amount for the Inheritance Tax figure to be based upon.

“All the land we have is classed as Severely Disadvantaged. We’ve always come up with the goods on looking after the environment, conservation and the landscape but feel quite strongly we’re just being taken for granted.

“We feel betrayed. We’ve now been stopped from entering the SFI schemes. These were meant to cushion the loss of the BPS. We were desperate to fill some of that gap with money from the SFI schemes.

“When the schemes first came out they didn’t put common land into it. Fortunately, we had already got an SFI on our in-bye land, but for us hill farmers there weren’t that many options available.

“They’d just come up with an option for drystone walling, which was a great thing, and we’d just got everything measured up and were ready to apply when they closed it off.”

Raymond has his eyes firmly fixed on another successful Tan Hill Show.

“I’d dearly love to win the big one.

“We’ve had male champion at Muker Show, we’ve had a few tups sell at £12,200 and £11,000 at Hawes, but the closest we’ve got at Tan Hill is when Andrew had a really good ewe that got Small Breeders Champion.

“There’s no greater acknowledgement than parading a tup and knowing there’s a lot of people want to buy it.”