April 2024 at Stourton

April 2024 has been a very busy one at Stourton. There has been lot of behind the scenes preparation for our forthcoming events and things are slowly starting to move on the farm and with the deer.

Outdoor Festival Activity Day – Sunday 12^th May

We are ready to launch the Lincolnshire Wolds Outdoor Festival at Stourton Woods & this event is going to be a smasher!

We have planned so many activities on site for you to have a go at or take part in and the best part is that most FREE OF CHARGE or very heavily subsidised.  From bushcraft to seated yoga, storytelling walks to beekeeping, archery & axe throwing and woodland craft activities for our younger visitors there really is something for everyone!

We will also be hosting our famous farm safaris in our accessible tractor and trailer. We recommend that you book in advance to avoid disappointment.

All of our self guided trails are open on the day so you can stretch your legs and enjoy a 1km, 3km or 5km walk. Dogs are more than welcome to join you for the day, all we ask is that you keep them on leads and pick up after them.

Plus, there will be top quality street food vendors on site to keep your energy levels up throughout the day.

Gates are open from 10am until 4pm and there’s a car parking charge of just £5. If you are struggling to get to us or don’t want to drive there are buses to & from the centre of Horncastle to the event and these are free of charge.

For more information about all activities, bookings (where needed) please go to our website:

https://www.stourtonestates.co.uk/product/events/outdoor-festival-activity-day-12th-may-2024/

Lincolnshire YFC County Rally – Saturday 18^th May

We are delighted to host this year’s Lincolnshire Young Farmers’ County Rally.

You can come along and support your Lincolnshire YFC’s and cheer them on in the many competitions taking part throughout the day.

This is a fantastic opportunity to get involved & join in the fun with an after party taking place in the roundhouse in the evening.  For more information and to book after party tickets please keep an eye on the YFC Lincs facebook page which you can find here.

Somatics Self-care Days – Friday 7^th & Saturday 8^th June

Enjoy a day with Nicki Marshall, The Somatics Coach for a day of self-care and relaxation.

Somatics is a gentle movement practice that is suitable for all ages, you do not need to be flexible or fit to take part.

You will take part in 2 somatic movement sessions and enjoy a delicious lunch provided by Holly’s Garden Kitchen.  There will be built in time-out to explore the beautiful estate at Stourton Woods too!  No experience is necessary to enjoy these days.

Contact Nicki at hello@thesomaticscoach.co.uk to book your place or for more information.

Landscaping products delivered to your door

Did you know that most of our landscaping products are made from timber from the estate or other local Lincolnshire woodlands?  We have a great range of products available to spruce up your garden or make your play area safe.

For your convenience we bag these up in builders bags and we deliver direct to your door (20 miles radius of LN9 5PB) in our transit van with a mini crane and very friendly driver!   You can order these online here.

On the Estate

What a busy time it is on this side of the business at the minute!  With the deer now enjoying the grass and space frolicking in the deer parks, we have cleaned out the roundhouse & pressure washed the concrete base to make it event ready – certainly no mean feat!

Antony has also planted another 500 of mixed species native trees, (alder, oak, hazel & silver birch) to thicken up belts of woodland and replace any that haven’t made it through the winter & recent weather.  We have a further 25 pot grown trees from Crowders Nursery to be planted around the roundhouse and then we are done for this year – hopefully the wetter ground will help these get away.

Some of the grass around the arboretum, old hall lawn and car parking area has had it’s first couple of mows and is starting to look a little more managed.  We always leave large sections of grass un-mown for the wildlife and to encourage wild flowers – in fact Jim from Wilderness ways found at least 30 different species suitable for foraging in one small section of the arboretum – you can learn more about this at one of his sessions at the Outdoor Festival Activity Day!

Weddings at Stourton

Our first wedding this season is almost here on 4^th May. In preparation the safari tent has had a thorough spring clean both inside and out. The internal floor has been re-treated, the internal doors and furniture has all have a lick of paint and we are pleased to say it is now looking in tip-top condition for all celebrations and events taking place here this year.

We love hosting weddings here in our special woodland venue. If you would like to find out more about a Stourton Woods wedding the please don’t hesitate to contact us.

On the Farm

Since the last farm blog we have been able to make a good amount of progress. All of our spring wheat, spring barley, sunflowers, and sugar beet is now in the ground. Conditions have been incredibly tricky and we have had to be extremely patient while some of the land has dried sufficiently to drill in good order. Even then there are certain areas we have had to go round which are too wet to travel or too wet and heavy to create a suitable ‘seedbed’.

All round a very challenging spring to get things right. However on the plus side, thanks to some incredibly hard work from Ken and Dan we are almost ‘back on track’ albeit with crops established a month after we would ideally do so.

Next on our agenda is to get some fertiliser applied to all of our spring sown crops. This will be in the form of a ‘compound’ fertiliser containing Nitrogen, Phosphate, Potassium and Sulphur. This product allows us to apply all key crop nutrients in one pass, saving time in what is a very tricky and late season. While the April showers have frustrated at times we are hopeful they continue a little to allow the fertiliser to be dissolved in order that the crops can access it.

The sprayer will soon be very busy with fungicide applications to the winter cereals. We have already applied our ‘T1’ (first fungicide) to our winter barley crop which will give us around 3 weeks of disease protection before we have to apply a second fungicide to take us through the key growth and development stages of the crop. Other job the sprayer has on at the moment include applying herbicides to the sugar beet crop and the final small dose of nitrogen to the earlier drilled (October) winter wheat crops.

We will also need to catch up on a few other jobs such as re marking footpaths, repairing tracks, and general farm maintenance. On top of this we have a few areas to establish stewardship options, but have a bit of time flexibility on these. Never a dull moment here on the farm though!!

Deer Diary

So the deer are out in the parks, however they look rather shabby at this time of year!  As they lose their winter coats and then roll around in mud, swim in ponds – take it from us they are very happy animals they just look very scruffy!

We are working to create a circular system to link up all the deer parks so that we can move them into the handling centre and onto fresh pasture around the estate more easily.  This means some forestry work to create race-ways around the back of the woodland and then fencing and gates so it is all go with this too at the minute.

With the incredibly wet weather our forage crop that has been growing quite happily for a couple of years, has taken a bit of a hit.  Our forage crop is important as we mow and bale it to produce silage that keeps the deer fed and nourished over the winter months. To help restore the health of our forage crop Jamie has spent a couple of days (!) aerating this field with a spiky roller and has re-seeded parts of it with an herbal mix.

We look forwards to seeing you in a couple of weeks!

Antony & Helen