Meet the Yorkshire farmer who ditched milk rounds and mushrooms to open a luxury wedding venue

Ian’s journey to opening the latest chapter in his once farming but now special occasions life has taken in many initially successful attempts at new business ideas only to be thwarted by external influences over the years. He said his latest venture may, he hopes, be the one that remains for good.

“My grandfather Reginald Dennis moved here as a tenant farmer 80 years ago this year, in 1942. When my grandfather died in 1967 my dad, John, carried on the tenancy until he was offered the opportunity to purchase the farm, which he duly did in the year I was born in 1971.

“Dad brought the farm into the next generation of agriculture. He’d been to college, knew about cropping and did really well in the potato market until 1988 when quite a few potato farmers were crippled by the fall in price.

“We had to sell some land to keep going when I was just coming into the business at 18 and then later in the mid-90s. Dad had pigs and I carried on building up the number of sows. I’d had 60 sows at 16 years old and I pushed us on to around 130 sows by the time I married Janine when I was 23.”

Ian said that he managed to get through the pig crisis of the late 90s, but that the lesson he’d learned was that he needed to develop other strands.

“I’d taken on a bit of agricultural contracting work and the sow herd had grown to 250, but I knew that I needed something more to keep us moving forward.

“In 2002 I bought the milk round for Church Fenton and six months later another for Cawood. We ran both for the next 10 years but after the first four years the milk rounds started declining due to supermarket loss-leading milk prices and the pig job never really pulled round. You’d make money one month and lose it the next.

“I’d continued to branch out and had built polytunnels on the farm to grow mushrooms for a company called Greyfriars at Wath in 2004.

“It went really well for three years then the bottom fell out of the market due to supermarkets buying imported produce and we went from 20p per lb margin to 7p in just one month. Determined I wasn’t going to lose money as we had with the pigs in the late 90s I came out of mushrooms immediately."

Ian said his next move was to take up a trade.

“I’d always loved making things. I’d built our pig unit. I’d done a lot of labouring for dad’s new house and had realised there was a massive shortage of plumbers.

“I learned the trade by going on several courses and started by working on mending taps and putting in toilets, that grew into bathrooms, employing someone and work snowballing.”

By 2010 Ian had sold the milk rounds, having had enough of deliveries, especially after a horribly cold winter. By then the sows had gone, replaced by fattening pigs on contract for a company.

Ian said his last foray into anything farming-related came when he started buying in calves and rearing them.

“I’d always had an interest in cattle and I could fit in feeding them in a morning and evening. We had someone working with dad on the pigs and so I had a bizarre mix of plumbing, pigs and calves.”

Ian said it was a chance remark that proved his destiny.

“Everything was going nicely but we were only standing still. I’d known Simon (Spinks) for years and he’d asked how everything was going. I said the plumbing was fine but the farm was going nowhere.

“We had a lovely place but that was all.

“Simon has Hornington Manor at Bolton Percy, another wedding venue. It turned out he was looking to get involved in a second venture. He said he’d come around and take a look and when he did his first comment was ‘look at the views’.

“I’d been looking at the views for the last 50 years and I’d probably taken them for granted but Simon loved them and saw the potential immediately.

“We’ve built everything from scratch. I did the buying, foremanship and project management. Janine handled all the interior design work with a company called Furnish & Fettle. The whole family has been involved and Simon and I are now equal partners in Oakwood Manor Ltd.

“After 80 years the farm now has new purpose.”