Whoa, what a bumper, action-packed month September has been!
From weddings and private parties to our Food & Drink Fayre, fresh venison, forestry work and plenty happening out on the farm, September has certainly kept everyone at Stourton busy.
As our 2026 events season draws to a close, here’s a look back at what’s been happening across the estate.
September has been a fantastic month for events at Stourton Woods.
We’ve hosted two very different private parties, a beautiful and perfectly relaxed wedding filled with personal touches, a fun-filled day in the woods organised by Home From Home Care and our fabulous More Than Just a Food & Drink Fayre.
We’ve also attended the Walled Garden Baumber Wedding Fair, welcomed campers to the Old Hall lawn, where they could enjoy views of the deer, and for the first time, completely sold out of fresh venison at the Louth Food & Drink Festival!
Phew! What a way to bring this year’s events season to a close.
We’d like to say a BIG, heartfelt thank you to everyone who has supported us throughout 2026.
We’ve loved sharing the estate with you. Whether you joined us to celebrate 100 years of farming, browsed one of our ever-popular artisan markets showcasing talented makers from across Lincolnshire, wandered through our spectacular sunflowers or simply came along to enjoy some of the mouth-watering local food on offer – thank you for being part of it.
It’s been an incredibly varied year, and we’re already busy planning for more in 2027…
While our public events season might be over, we do still have some availability for weddings and private celebrations in our woodland safari tent during 2027.
Better still, we’re holding our 2026 prices for bookings made before the end of this year.
If you’d like to see the venue for yourself, why not arrange a visit? Come and explore the safari tent tucked away in the woodland, overlooking the lakes, and imagine how the space could work for your own celebration.
Simply get in touch with us to arrange a viewing.
There’s been plenty happening in the log shed too, with orders flying out throughout September.
The good weather has helped enormously with drying timber this year, although we continue to face increasing costs, particularly diesel prices.
Our timber kiln has been working 24/7 to help us keep up with demand and make sure we have plenty of kiln-dried logs ready for the colder months ahead. To order logs please click here.
It’s also been a busier-than-usual month for our landscaping products, with bark proving particularly popular. Click here to take a look at our range of landscaping products.
Our order books are open for fresh venison deliveries. Our next delivery date will be Friday 23rd October. To place your order please click here.
We have lots of different cuts on offer, including haunch and loin joints, steaks, mince and casserole cuts. You can even pop some honey, eggs and rapeseed oil in your basket.
Delivery is FREE if you live within 20 miles (by road) of LN9 5PB if you place an order of more than £25.
Once we have collated your order we will contact you to take payment over the phone.
Jamie and Ed have been hard at work around the estate, clearing overhanging boughs, dangerous trees and fallen timber now that the bird nesting season has finished.
They did manage to escape for a day to visit the APF Exhibition, the UK’s largest forestry and arboriculture exhibition, to catch up on the latest machinery, equipment and developments in the industry.
Back at Stourton, we’ve also taken the opportunity to begin some long-overdue thinning work in our woodlands.
A timber harvesting machine has been working through selected areas, thinning trees to improve the health and development of the woodland. The harvested timber won’t go to waste either – it will eventually be turned into logs or woodchip.
We’ve made good progress with sowing our winter cereals, with around two-thirds of the planned area now drilled, rolled and treated with herbicide to help control blackgrass and other troublesome weeds.
Conditions have been ideal so far. This year, we’re sowing a large proportion of our wheat directly into the soil without ploughing beforehand. Because of this, we started slightly earlier than usual, giving the young plants a little more time to establish before the colder winter weather arrives.
Hopefully, this will help produce stronger crops and potentially better yields when harvest comes around next summer. Earlier drilling isn’t without its challenges though, as it can increase the risk of weeds, pests and disease, so we’ll be keeping a close eye on the emerging crops over the coming weeks.
There’s another benefit too. By reducing the amount of cultivation required before drilling, we’re using considerably less fuel – a welcome saving with diesel prices remaining so high!
Our oilseed rape has established well and is now growing strongly enough to withstand and recover from some flea beetle damage.
A little rain wouldn’t go amiss now to keep it moving in the right direction, but we’re pleased with how the crop is looking so far.
It seems a long time since visitors were wandering through our sunflower field in July!
The sunflowers have now been harvested, dried and safely stored in the shed, ready to be sold as winter bird feed.
The field itself looks very different too. Because conditions are currently so dry, we’ve taken the opportunity to cultivate the ground and plan to sow winter wheat rather than leaving it until the spring as we would normally do.
It’s quite a transformation from the sea of yellow flowers we enjoyed during the summer!
After another busy harvest, the combine has now been put to bed for the winter.
Before being stored, it was thoroughly cleared of dust and crop material and given a very good clean. It’s important to remove every last trace of grain before machinery is stored – otherwise mice and other rodents have a habit of moving in for the winter and can cause expensive damage by chewing through wires and pipes!
After plenty of work over the summer months, the combine can now enjoy a well-earned rest.
Our cattle are still happily out in the fields and, weather permitting, they’ll remain outside until conditions become colder and wetter.
The grass has recovered really well, meaning we’ve been able to stop providing additional winter feed for now.
The extra growth has also allowed us to make some additional silage bales, which should fully replenish our stocks ready for when the cattle eventually come indoors for the winter.
Finally, we’ve been carrying out some long-term improvements around the farmyard.
Areas of old and broken concrete have been dug up and will be replaced with a new surface. It’s quite an investment, but one that should make a real difference to the day-to-day running of the farm for many years to come.
The new concrete will make the yard easier to keep clean and provide a much better surface for moving machinery and keeping cattle. It should also improve the efficiency of everyday jobs such as mucking out and feeding.
It’s not just the farming operation that will benefit, the improved surface will make loading our log and landscaping delivery van much easier too.
As ever, there’s plenty happening behind the scenes at Stourton, and with winter crops going into the ground and preparations for the colder months underway, autumn has most definitely arrived on the farm!
We are soon to temporarily lose a valued member of the Stourton team to sunnier climes.
Jamie will shortly be heading off to Australia over the quieter winter months, where he’ll be experiencing large-scale harvesting in Victoria.
We wish him a fantastic time on his travels and look forward to welcoming him back to Stourton in the spring.
Our autumn deer work has begun, with the hinds now separated from the stags in preparation for the rut.
The rain earlier in September has completely transformed the deer parks, producing a phenomenal flush of grass growth. There’s now so much available that we’ve been able to stop supplementary feeding with silage for the time being.
The deer themselves are looking fantastic, with both the yearlings and hinds appearing noticeably larger than they were at the same point last year.
After such a busy September, things might be getting a little quieter on the events front, but as ever, there’s never really a quiet month at Stourton!
Keep an eye on our news and social media over the coming months for more updates from the farm, woods, deer parks and estate – and for the first details of what we have planned for 2027.
Reared here on the farm, professionally butchered & packaged for us by local butchers and labelled here, we deliver direct to your door in our veni-van across Lincolnshire, freshly frozen venison is also available for delivery nationwide!
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