The Wandering Herd at Lark Rise Farm

We've hired some new conservationists to come in and help get the grassland back in hand at Lark Rise Farm in Cambridgeshire – Hebridean sheep!  

We’re really excited to announce a new partnership with The Wandering Herd. Based in Cambridge (UK), the consortium of farmers uses native breed livestock to create truly beautiful and biodiverse habitats in our local landscape. 

The sheep arrived at the farm last week and have been busy settling in – thanks to local grazier Graham Webb. 

Vince Lea, our conservation officer at Lark Rise, said: “The Wandering Herd likes to take on grazing opportunities in the area and move their herds around. 

“Lark Rise Farm is about 500 acres and 10 per cent is grassland, which is spread out along the length of the farm, mainly following the floodplain of the Bourn Brook, which we don’t want to be cultivating with cereal crops. 

“The meadows are a wildlife corridor along the brook, but being small, narrow and spread out they are not ideal for  a fully commercial farming system. Wandering Herd are really set up to take advantage of this sort of opportunity, and our team of volunteers help with the daily welfare checks. The idea is we will have a mixture of grazing and hay cutting on these different fields.” 

The Hebridean sheep are the first to start at Lark Rise. They are very small and hardy, well suited to eating a wide range of plants and without making a big impact on the soft ground by the brook. We hope to graze Belted Galloway cattle in the future once fencing is secured. 

“For example, in Telegraph field, we want to start this spring with some grazing to take some of the nutrients out, leave it for hay-making in the summer and then follow that with a bit of grazing in the autumn,” added Vince. “This traditional method has helped create some of our most diverse flower-rich grasslands, 97% of which have disappeared from the countryside. We’re bringing them back!” 

Ed Wombwell, from the Wondering Herd, said: "We're passionate about conservation and nature friendly farming, so delighted to be working together with the CRT on its mission to improve these habitats for wildlife." 

We’ll be updating the public soon on how the grazing is going once we are more established- we would like more volunteers to help us too to check the livestock. If you would like to help, please contact us at [email protected].

And we’ll hopefully have a local food product we can be proud of too!