A happy landing for sheep sale at RAF base

Location, so we are told, is everything when purchasing a property or running a business, but what about hosting an annual sheep sale? Prior to the opening of livestock markets in rural townships these often took place in farmers’ fields and one that still stands in a field of its own is Fadmoor Sheep Sale.

Five years ago the North York Moors Sheep Society that was set up to promote and market hill sheep and organises the sale with Cundalls auctioneers in Malton started up a further sale in a new location.

They chose Wombleton Airfield, a former RAF station that opened in 1943 as part of Bomber Command’s No.6 group. Today it is used for purely recreational flying 
and also as the site of one of North Yorkshire’s best-known sheep sales.

Next Thursday it will host what will bring to an end a triumvirate of autumn sales this year that will have seen two at the airfield along with the traditional Fadmoor Sheep Sale at The Fairfield, which took place last Saturday.

Will Tyson, a farmer’s son from Snainton who has attended these sales for years, will be selling the sheep along with his colleague Keith Warters and he reports that numbers are looking extremely healthy.

“We’re expecting an entry of around 5,000. The sale is definitely unique and they don’t come much more so than the one being held here at an ex-RAF base. We’d had these fantastic old sheep sales at Fadmoor for years and years and they had just continued to grow in number. One year we had 8,000 at just one of the sales.

“It is a beautiful part of the world but two sale days, as they had become, was getting too much and a combination of the ground conditions and government legislation meant that a new site had to be found to accommodate the demand. Last Saturday at Fadmoor it was another tremendous day once again.

“We had sheepdogs and sheep everywhere, bunging up the roads as many of those selling either walked their livestock to the sale or came out with their vintage tractors towing trailer loads.

“We would still have all the sales at Fadmoor but the field just cannot take it especially if it is wet and in Wombleton Airfield we have found a site that everyone is happy with. The runways provide an excellent concrete base for the sheep to arrive by truck or trailer while the grass fields are excellent for the pens.

“Back at Malton Livestock Market we host great sheep sales every week, but the farmers find these sales extra special both at Fadmoor and now at Wombleton.

“Sheep men and women like to sell their sheep on grass as it presents their stock well. The sales are all about breeding sheep and stores and many of the farmers really do prefer this type of sale.

“We get masses of buyers too and they are often attracted because they can see that they are picking up stock straight from the farmer himself rather than something a dealer has bought from a farm to bring to market. Up in Fadmoor and just a few miles south here in Wombleton the farmers also feel more in their own comfort zone. They haven’t had to travel far to get here and they can enjoy their day in surroundings that are more familiar to them.”

Although Wombleton Airfield is not exactly a farm nor is it a village it is a country location and it has become a bit like a small agricultural show. “We get around 5,000 people and there’s a real buzz about the place. Uncannily the prices always seem to be that much better too. Maybe it is the banter or that sheep just take to being here more than in their usual livestock market setting. Horned sheep such as Swaledales certainly do very well and our entry for Mule gimmer shearlings is on the up this year. We’re now also attracting a number of trade stands as feed companies and other associated livestock businesses realise just how popular the sales are becoming and that their customers are all together in one place.

“It all adds to the atmosphere and the North York Moors Sheep Society presents a rosebowl for both the best pen of gimmer lambs and best pen of shearlings.”

Just a handful of years before 2001 and the problems that were created through the Foot and Mouth controls the society was formed to promote and improve the marketing of hill sheep.

They are now a very active association and have done much to reignite the confidence that was in danger of being lost in the sheep world up in the Moors.

Rob Myers is the chairman of the North York Moors Sheep Society and farms at Toad Hole Farm in Bransdale where he has 400 breeding ewes made up of Swaledales and Mules. He is in little doubt over the value of next Thursday’s sale and the earlier sales at Wombleton and Fadmoor.

“These sales are priceless for the sheep farmers up here. The uplands would be lost without them.

“Five years ago we started with just one sale here at the airfield, now we have two and this autumn we will have seen in excess of 10,000 sheep sold across the three sales. I remember attending Fadmoor Sheep Sale when I was a kid.

“It was a highlight of every sheep farmer’s year and if anything these sales have become even more of a highlight today.”

The North York Moors Sheep Society / Cundalls Special Show & Sale of Down Cross, Draft Ewes, Breeding Sheep and Store Lambs takes place at Wombleton Airfield on Thursday, October 17. The sale commences at 10.30am.

High-fliers add to atmosphere

One of the society’s latest ventures is the Uplands New Start Academy, which will be featuring in a future edition of Country Week.

In the meantime if you see an aeroplane flying in to Wombleton Airfield next Thursday it will not be a farmer bringing his sheep.

“It does provide quite a spectacle though,” says Will Tyson. ‘There are cars, trailers and lorries on one part of the runway and sheep in their pens in the field. It can be fantastic on a sunny day when there is a plane coming into land whilst I’m selling gimmer shearlings.’