The Farm...

The Living Rug farm is situated in the Staffordshire Moorlands. We are just within the boundary of the Peak District and in particular the White Peak part of the National Park. The farmhouse was grade two listed in 1994 probably because the farm dates back to 1773 and stands on a site occupied from about 1650. My understanding of the farm was that it was a tenant farm for many years until recently. Possibly in last 100 years or so.

As you can imagine it has had lots of tenant/owners. We know a few stories about the place. One being a lady who lived here with her two children and we assumed her husband was killed in the 1st World War. I have great admiration for this lady as it would have been an incredibly hard life living here and working the farm without modern conveniences and machinery. Other sad stories are one of the owners having a heart attack in the front room. And another one and the funniest is that someone opened a gay nudist camp here at least 30 years ago. You could not pick a more unsuitable place for a nudist camp 1,350 ft with various footpaths and local farms dotted around. I bet the farmers had a right laugh about this particular development.

At one time the farm had over 100 acres which were sold off about 30 years ago (about the time of the nudist colony) and now it stands in just under 40 acres. We moved here in October 2008 when the farm was bought for me by my husband. Having worked really hard and being away from his family, especially when the children were young, he built a business which was taken over and sold. From the sale he bought the farm for me as a thank you for the support I had given him.

The main aim at the time was to get me somewhere where I could be close to my horses having not had much luck with livery yards over the years. From that original idea making more use of the land and location was obvious and I decided to get involved with sheep so here I am with my flock…

One of the most extraordinary things about the farm is how high up, quiet and how much you are exposed to the seasons – both good and bad. There’s nothing quite like this place in spring and summer; in winter it can be very hard. We’ve been cut off for weeks when the snow comes and power cuts, often for several days, are not uncommon.

All of which provides me the ideal opportunity to do things with my other passion of taking photographs which I love to share with people who enjoy seeing what we’re up to and following the seasons with the flock and me as they go about growing their fleeces and I go about making them into rugs.