From dreaming spires to cows and muddy wellies

Two high-powered graduates are taking the family farm forward. Chris Berry reports

Chris Shipley’s decision to turn his back on his university career and return to his homeland is testament to the continued pulling power of the broad acres.

Chris got a first in chemistry at New College, Oxford and was eventually appointed as a lecturer in inorganic chemistry.

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He met Charlotte in a pub where she was working as a barmaid to make ends meet while studying nursing and they married.

But when Charlotte was pregnant with their first daughter, Bethan, Chris believed the time was right to come back to Yorkshire.

He lined up a job at York University but while completing his contract at Oxford he started working on his father’s mixed farm in Thornholme, near Burton Agnes.

“I asked dad if I could come back to farm. I think he just thought I meant for the summer, but I’d started helping out and had loved it. I’m now an employee.”

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Chris’s grandfather Harold moved to Manor Farm in the 1950s. Chris’s father Patrick works full-time on the farm, with mother Margaret making sure the books balance.

It is an approximately 490-acre concern that includes a 70-cow dairy herd, beef herd, cereals and other arable crops including oil seed rape and spring beans. It is one of the few remaining dairy farms in the East Riding.

“When I was young I never had any interest in the livestock side,” says Chris.

“But I remember there being three dairy herds in the village. I was much happier sat on the newest tractor.

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“Now I’m back I do drive the combine but the major part of my work is with the cows and I’m damned sure we’re not going to be the generation that stops dairying.”

Chris and Charlotte also started up Manor Farm Beef in 2010.

This has now reached the stage where they have enough quantity scheduled to go to abattoir through the year to attend Driffield and Hovingham farmers markets each month and sell increasing volume on the internet.

They are specialising in Belted Galloway cattle, but they are also using various other breeds including Limousin, Aberdeen Angus and British Blue.

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Charlotte is particularly adept at social networking sites and writes a regular blog. “We looked at selling raw milk when we first came back but that was far too complicated.

“Then we looked at marketing our own beef. My argument was, why was mum buying supermarket beef when we could sell our own?

“I’m now looking at areas such as curing and at using improved genetics to maintain the quality of our beef and dairy herds.

“We’re also looking at developing our own brand of cheese in the future – and robotic milking.”

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In between bearing children (she is heavily pregnant just at present) Charlotte also found time to take a degree in archaeology at York University.

It looks likely to come in handy as a Romano-British settlement was discovered, including a round house and human remains, when pipes were recently laid by Yorkshire Water.

Never one to miss an opportunity Charlotte is looking forward to being able to organise a community dig when she is less encumbered.

They are also hosting an open farm day in June.

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