The former underwater archaeologist who is passionate about heritage breeds and the ethos of compassion in farming

Nina Baptiste looks completely at ease with life as she sits on a straw bale in her rudimentary hayshed with her flock of Hebridean sheep.
The farm is run on the ethos of compassion in farming.The farm is run on the ethos of compassion in farming.
The farm is run on the ethos of compassion in farming.

An old coal barge at the foot of the slope provides the perimeter to the 15 acres of what is today Crowkeld Rare Breeds Farm on the edge of Kildwick, between Keighey and Skipton.

The views are beautiful, rustic and Nina intends they will stay that way with her and her cohorts’ plans for rewilding, hedgerows, wildflower meadows and orchards while also ensuring that everything they grow, build or tend pays its way.

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When I visited last week the former underwater archaeologist and teacher in residence at industrial museums such as Armley Mills and Thwaite Mills was excited about something that had just dropped into her messaging on her mobile phone.

“These things are brilliant. I’ve just received an order from America for 200 balls of Hebridean sheep’s wool,” said Nina.

“That’s very good. Our online shop is going really well, selling wool and rugs, as well as hogget from our Hebrideans and pork from our Large Black pigs.”

Quirky is one way of describing the farming and countryside philosophy adopted by Nina, her husband Phil and their good friends, Jason and Claire.

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“I’d always had this thing about farming in the back of my mind, and self-sufficiency was the main driving force when we came to bid on this place and bought it in 2007. Phil and I had been looking for a project after having previously renovated houses in our spare time, and Jason and Claire wanted to join us. Jason’s career is in banking and he keeps us focused as a business.

“We don’t always go after new, shiny things. Our catchphrase is ‘if it works, we don’t want it’. We purchase things that are old and bring them back to life.

“The hay store where we are sat now is a recycled back body of a lorry. The barn next door we bought off eBay for £630. We keep rare breeds. We work with nature.

“We are surrounded by what I call normal farms that specialise in Mule sheep or Mule X Texels, producing large, white faced sheep.

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“Our whole farm is on one long slope and is only small, so we can’t do anything big, but we run the whole enterprise here properly.”

It has to earn its keep. “Our land is rough grass and native breeds are fantastic on it. As Phil and I both worked in museums, heritage is our background, so to have heritage breeds suits us. The Hebrideans are good conservation grazers as they eat back all of the nestles, thistles and scrub.”

Having started with 10 Hebrideans a decade ago the flock has now reached 82 breeding ewes. Nina is wary of the numbers game.

“We try to keep the number around 80. I’ve learned not to get too big. We are totally committed to animal welfare and believe in the Rare Breeds Survival Trust’s freedoms, which relate to each animal having a life worth living; Compassion in World Farming’s five freedoms; and the Farms not Factories campaign.

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“We have respect for every animal, while also as a business trying to make as much from them as we can, but also ensuring we don’t let any animal suffer.

“We will forego profit at any time rather than let that happen.

“Our first Hebrideans came from Richard and Sally White in Bramhope. Six were already in-tup. When it came to our first lambing, I was hardly ever off the phone to them asking advice.

They were very understanding.

“We have one glorious tup of our own, Fenton, and we bring in a tup from my good friend Helen Wray at Gam Farm in Grassington.

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“They are a beautiful breed that have fought their way back from being nearly extinct back in 1973. We just need to keep an eye on the breed slipping back.

“I love Jacobs and Black Wensleydales and always have since I visited my sister on Harris, where she was a surgeon in the Hebrides 26 years ago.

“I now work in the arts full time, so I try to book three weeks’ leave at Easter for lambing. We are tupping the ewes from October 28 this year and because there are several breeders in the area I’ve become a kind of Hebridean Hotline dating agency for tups.”

Demand for how Nina, Phil, Jason and Claire are rearing their animals and producing their food offering from Crowkeld has seen them provide an exclusive service to a top quality restaurant in the Ryburn valley.

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“We sell ewes with lambs at foot, some in-lamb and shearlings to other breeders as well as producing hogget or mutton from our flock.

“They are too small to sell as lambs and because we let them grow naturally and they are totally grass fed rather than being pumped full of chemicals they are at their best when hogget or mutton.

“We supply The Moorcock Inn at Sowerby Bridge because they like our ethos. The owner and chef is the fabulous Alisdair Brooke-Taylor.

“He regularly visits, loving what we do and what we provide, but we also have an impressive online trade.

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“Our Large Black pork and Hebridean hogget are available now, as well as fleeces and wool. The Natural Fibre Company that processes our fleeces purchased all of our fleece crop last year.’

Prior to livestock Nina and the team started growing vegetables.

“The soil is so fertile, without any form of industrial chemical. Although we cannot classify ourselves fully organic because the system that leads to the status is too expensive we know ours is as organic as you can get.

“Our first potatoes were the size of footballs and our pumpkins needed two of us to lift them and we could only fit one in a wheelbarrow.

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“We now have a quarter of an acre set aside for growing herbs, vegetables, rhubarb and gooseberries.”

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James Mitchinson