We’d like to thank everyone who came along to our Enchanted Lights event this year. We hoped that this event would be bigger and better than previous years and we think that, according to your feedback, we most certainly managed it. It was fantastic to see so many people in attendance and to have people back on the estate in such numbers for the first time in 18 months.
We are still awaiting the final total from the wishing fountain donations for St Barnabas Hospice and will share the total with you as soon as we know.
We couldn’t have done it without our hard working and incredibly flexible Stourton Team and volunteers who made sure that not only did everything look great but that the event ran smoothly.
The photographer, John Aron came along to the event on Thursday night and has taken some great pictures, a few of which we have made into a gallery that you can view by clicking here.
And so onwards to our next event!
We invite you to start the festive season with Christmas at Stourton. In the woods under the shelter of our new roundhouse you will be able to collect or purchase your beautiful Nordman Fir Christmas tree (5ft,6ft & 7ft) as well as frozen venison from the Veni-Van and order any kiln dried logs to see you through the Christmas period.
We will be holding festive deer safaris which you can book in advance here and a selection of hot drinks and light refreshments will be on offer from The Lunch Wagen.
It is FREE entry and we are open from 10am until 4pm on Saturday 4th December and we will be delighted to see you.
Get ahead and order your tree now for delivery or collection!
We have a beautiful selection of freshly cut Nordmann Fir trees in stock ready to deliver to you, or for you to collect from the farm by prior arrangement. They are available from the end of November.
These premium trees have the added advantage that they hold their needles throughout the festive season and beyond! Pruned and tendered throughout their growing season, they have a lovely conical shape.
The trees come in arrange of sizes between 5ft – 7ft 6 and cost between £35 – £50.
We can deliver your tree directly to your door with any log order free within 20 miles of LN9 5PB or you can come and collect your tree from the farm office, off the Caistor High Street, B1225 LN9 5PB by prior arrangement.
If you’d prefer to collect and choose your tree in person, please pre-order online and come and see us at our Christmas Open Day on Saturday 4th December – just let us know on the notes of your online order!
Click here to place your Christmas tree order online!
Whether it’s a deliciously tender venison casserole, a roasting joint, sausages or steaks venison makes a great alternative to the ‘usual’ beef, pork or lamb versions of your favourite dishes.
Make sure you place your order early to stock your fridge or freezer in time for the festive season.
The last opportunity to buy Imperial and Royal fresh venison boxes are available to order now with delivery from 16th December. These boxes, packed full of a range of venison cuts also make great Christmas gifts for foodie friends and can be delivered across the UK.
We will also have the veni-van in place for anyone wishing to collect their box order or pre-order their frozen venison, there will also be fresh venison available to purchase from the van. You can find us at the Stourton Woods entrance, (off A158 – follow Walled Garden signs) from 11am – 2pm on 17th December.
A full range of our frozen venison available to order online. If you order more than £25 worth delivery is free of charge within 20 miles (by road) of LN8 5PB.
Don’t get chilly over Christmas! Please place any log orders as early as possible so that we can ensure pre-Christmas delivery. Our logs are of a very high standard and are Woodsure™ certified to ensure a clean burn.
We offer a discount for delivery of more than one bag of logs, currently restricted to a maximum of 2 per order. Please contact us if you would like to order more than 2 bags.
Delivery is free within a 20 mile radius of our farm by road. If you live outside the 20 mile radius please contact us to discuss a delivery price.
To find out more or to order your logs please click here
Please note that we will be closed from 23rd December until 5th January and will be unable to make any log deliveries in this time.
Well…after the nightmare of the last two ‘back ends’ 2021 autumn drilling campaign has largely been completed here at Stourton Estates and conditions have largely been good.
Firstly thanks must go to everyone in the team for their efforts in getting drilled up. The busy period doesn’t really seem to have let up since the middle of July, it’s been a long pull for everyone but the team’s hard work is very much appreciated.
The majority of wheat and barley has now emerged and is looking well. We have a couple of areas where the field underdrains need some attention, once these are sorted we can get the last little bits of wheat put in and put to bed.
We are now monitoring crops for late weed emergence to assess whether or not to apply a ‘top up’ to our autumn herbicides already applied. We are also monitoring whether or not the crops require an insecticide application to control BYDV infection of the crop. Please find more information about that here.
As we go to press we are busy lifting our second tranche of sugar beet to be delivered to Newark processing factory. We were very pleased with the yield of our first lift, however the factory had had some considerable issues getting up to full processing capacity. It looks like it will be a very long season as a result of this and high yields. A lot of risk therefore on the grower with beet in the ground over winter due to risk of frost and the resultant spoilage.
Next on the agenda is to bring all of the equipment through the workshop to carry out any repairs necessary and make sure it is all in good order before the spring.
It’s been a busy and noisy time in the deer park. We are just coming to the end of the rut and hope that Nelson and Winston have done the business and that we have lots of calves appearing in late spring/early summer.
Dotty, our hand reared calf is now fully weaned, no longer needing a milk top-up at all. She is fully integrated with the herd which has had no problem accepting her back into their fold. She is naturally less wary of humans and still likes to pop over to say hello whenever we are in the field.
As we are now approaching winter and the grass growth has slowed considerably we have moved to winter feeding where the deer get a bale of hay when needed to nibble on. Later on in the season we will top up with silage.
The Roundhouse is very nearly ready for its winter residents. The floor is being concreted this week with the work being carried out by Pell Plant Hire. Once the weather turns cold we will move this year’s batch of deer calves in to ensure that they are kept warm and snugly throughout the winter months.
We hope to see you on 4th December for our Christmas Open day.
Antony & Helen
We are delighted to announce that the last open day of the year will take place on Sunday 10th October, from 10am – 4pm.
We will be offering deer safaris which we advise pre-booking here as well as lovely autumnal walks through our trails. The trees are just on the turn and some wonderful colours are emerging. Nice N Toastie will be on site throughout the say offering a range of unique and classic savoury or sweet toasties. Refreshments will also be available from the arboretum where you can also find delicious Stourton Honey and Venison (frozen) available for you to purchase and take home.
As this is our last open day of the year entry is free, donations are however welcomed at your discretion. Should you wish to make a donation then you can see Clare in the safari tent shop.
We’d also like to thank some of our recent visitors for their great feedback on our open days and deer safaris, both made directly and via facebook. It means a lot that you have taken the time to let us know what a great time you had.
Well behaved dogs on leads and their owners are more than welcome to attend.
After a hugely popular event in 2019 (& an enforced Covid break last year) we are so excited to invite you back to experience our extended enchanted woodland trail!
The trees and arboretum will be lit up with coloured lights, soft music and special illuminations creating a magical evening. LED spinning and a wishing water fountain (where every bit of loose change thrown in will be donated to St Barnabas Hospice) plus a storytelling tree ending with fire dance performances make for an immersive and entertaining evening.
Purchase marshmallows to toast on the specially designed mini fire-pits under the stars on the Old Hall Lawn and then at the end of the trail enjoy locally produced food from street food vendors around the fire-pit. Perhaps indulge in a Bailey’s hot chocolate or beer from the bar in the Safari Tent where you can warm up around the log burner!
We are operating Covid secure procedures on site with limited numbers over two time-slots (5pm – 7pm and 7pm – 9pm) each evening over 3 nights where a one-way system will be in place to keep everyone safe.
This is an alternative evening’s entertainment to a traditional bonfire or fireworks night – even well-behaved dogs on leads are welcome!
Tickets are priced at £7 per adult (over 16) and £5 per child (1-16yrs).
To find out more and to book your tickets please click here.
We invite you to start the festive season with Christmas at Stourton. In the woods under the shelter of the roundhouse you will be able to collect or purchase your beautiful Nordman Fir Christmas tree (5ft,6ft & 7ft) as well as, logs and venison to see you through the Christmas period. We will be holding festive deer safaris and a selection of refreshments will be on offer. More information will be available in due course. Please keep your eyes peeled on our website or social media.
If you’d like a beautiful Nordman Fir tree please email contact@stourtonestates.co.uk now to reserve your tree (5ft, 6ft, 7ft)
We have fully stocked the freezer for winter with delicious venison. So whether you have a special event that you want to cater for or would just like to stock up, everything is currently in stock. Plus as a special offer we are giving away a FREE pack of burgers (4) with every venison purchase over £35.
Our fresh venison boxes are also currently available to order and will be delivered to you either via the veni-van or courier from Thursday 14th October. Our venison boxes come in 2 sizes; the Imperial Box, weighing at least 6kg and priced at £125 and the Royal, weighing at least 3kg and priced at £60.0. Both include a wide range of premium quality cuts, lovingly reared on the farm.
Our frozen venison is available to order online for home delivery within a 20 mile radius of the farm. Delivery is free on orders over £25.
Our fresh venison boxes are available for delivery both locally and throughout the UK via courier delivery.
The Veni-van will be in place on Friday 15th October from 10am-4pm. If you place an order for frozen venison or fresh boxes online we can have it ready for you to collect from us too! You will find us parked up near our Stourton Woods entrance, off Clay lane (A158) in Baumber (follow the Walled Garden Baumber turning signs).
Also, keep your eyes peeled for the latest edition of the Good Taste Lincolnshire Magazine where we tell you how we produce such sustainable venison here on the estate.
Our Woodsure™ certificated kiln dried logs are now available to order for delivery direct to your door!
Our kiln dried logs, in 0.7 cubic metre builders bags, are fantastic quality, super dry & graded (to remove dust, sticks etc) before being kiln dried at the farm at Baumber. We have just received our certificate confirming our logs are ‘Ready to Burn’ accredited under the Governments’ scheme demonstrating a moisture content of under 20% – and being kiln dried ours measured 9% so they are super dry!
We offer a discount for delivery of more than one bag of logs, currently restricted to a maximum of 2 per order. Please contact us if you would like to order more than 2 bags.
Delivery is free within a 20 mile radius of our farm. If you live outside 20 mile radius please contact us to discuss a delivery price.
To find out more or to order your logs please click here
September has been a really busy month with the deer. We have been treating the herd and have given them a copper bolus ensuring that they are receiving the correct nutrition as we go into the winter months. We have separated the hinds from the stags and have de-antlered the stags. This is a quick and pain free process for them but keeps injuries to both each other and us whilst handling them to a minimum as the testosterone levels rise! Here at Stourton we have two main breeding stags, Nelson and Winston. Nelson has already moved in with his hinds for the rut and Winston is waiting eagerly. The historical layout of the deer park makes moving him around the other herds slightly challenging but we do have a plan and we hope that he will be happily ensconced with his ladies in the ‘Home’ deer park by the end of the week.
Dotty is thriving with the main herd. She has now got so big that we can no longer lift her by hand. She still happily gallops over to us for her bottle, much to the amusement and bewilderment of the rest of the calves and hinds.
There must have been something in the air at the weekend though, when we were checking the herd they were having a great time. We found hinds playing on hay bales and the yearling stags wallowing in the mud – what swamp donkeys!
We finally finished harvest on the 21st of September with the completion of our field bean harvest; a full two months after starting! The dull, damp August had a ‘double whammy’ effect of both limiting harvesting days and also slowing crop ripening. Many have referred to harvest 2021 as the driest wet harvest they have ever known…it certainly is for me!
Another knock on effect of the lack of any significant rainfall is that establishment of our oilseed rape crop has been hindered. Establishment of the crop on any land with any amount of ‘body’ has been severely hampered. The small emerging plants in these areas are suffering from both the dry and a concerted effort by a large number of cabbage stem flea beetle to try and make sure we don’t have a crop!!
The positive side of the dry is that as we have cultivated the land ahead of sowing autumn cereals, it has crumbled nicely. False seedbeds look good, and hopefully as long as we don’t get too much rain (like the last two years) our winter wheat and barley crops should go in nicely.
We haven’t yet started our autumn drilling campaign but that should be starting in earnest over the next few days. Just one last big push required from the team to get the bulk of the autumn work completed is required before being able to have a little bit of ‘downtime’ and catch up with families etc.
We hope to see you very soon at one of upcoming events!
Take Care
Antony & Helen
We are delighted to let you know that we will be selling our fresh vension from the ‘veni-van’ on Friday 3rd September from 10am-4pm. If you place an order for frozen venison online we will bag it up ready for you to collect from us too! You will find us parked up near our Stourton Woods entrance, off Clay lane (A158) in Baumber (follow the Walled Garden Baumber turning signs).
All cuts will be available along with some recipe cards for inspiration. So you can stock up your freezer or just buy something a bit different for your Sunday lunch!
To make it easier for you to get hold of our venison we are planning on doing this monthly from now until Christmas, so please keep an eye on our social media for future dates
We had the pleasure of hosting the Mud, Sweat & Gears Eastern series of the mountain bike cross county racing event at the weekend. This was the first time the Eastern series of racing has come to Lincolnshire which is a great for the area. It was a fabulous turn out with many different classes of riders racing around a 4km loop of the estate – although we’re not sure with the speed they were travelling that they had time to take in the views!
The event was supported by Focus Rides Coaching who provided coaching to those who wanted some extra help or hints and tips for improving their performance and Greenan Cycles from Horncastle had a range of bike accessories on offer. Teams and their supporters also had the option to camp for the weekend.
Graham Elliott the leading event organiser said:
“Having organised literally hundreds of cycling events it was great, albeit unusual to find a venue with such supportive and enthusiastic owners. The surroundings were picturesque and nothing seemed too much trouble. Where something wasn’t practical alternative solutions were easily found.
I would be very surprised if this wasn’t the first of many similar events at this venue. All the feedback from the riders has been uniformly positive and trust me when I say cycle racers are not backwards in saying what they think!”
With feedback like that we’re certainly hoping that we can put the event on again next year!
We are pleased to announce that we will be hosting another open day on Saturday 11th September. As per our previous open days we will be open for visitors to explore the estate at their leisure from 10am – 4pm.
This is a great opportunity to walk, cycle, run or just relax, and see the deer in the normally private parkland, woodland and lakes. Visitors can enjoy Stourton Estates for free at our open days; however there is a car parking fee of £3, payable upon entry.
We will be running deer safaris throughout the day, if you wish to book in advance you can do so here. There will also be some fun activities for children including a scavenger hunt around the estate; find all the clues and claim your prize!
Refreshments will also be available from Fleurs Kitchen in the arboretum. We will also have delicious Stourton Honey, deer antlers and frozen Venison available for you to purchase and take home.
Well behaved dogs on leads are more than welcome to join you for the day too.
We look forward to seeing you!
If you are unable to make this open day we will be hosting another on Sunday 10th October, which will be our last open day of the year.
We can announce though that we will be holding out Enchanted Woodland Lights event on 4th, 5th and 6th of November. We are so excited to be able to host this event again. It’s a real favourite! Not only will you be able to enjoy a walk through the arboretum in all its lit up glory but there will also be fire dancers, a fire pit with marshmallows available to toast and refreshments. The walk will have a Covid secure one way system and numbers will be limited to ensure that social distancing is possible.
We can assure you that there are no fireworks or loud bangs at this event so it’s perfect for dogs to attend too.
Tickets will be on sale soon!
We are super busy with weddings here at Stourton. We have worked really hard to ensure that anyone who needed to reschedule has managed to and we’ve even fitted in a few extras!
We are delighted for Asha & Matthew who held their celebration earlier this month after the 3rd attempt due to COVID complications, such a lovely couple and the sun actually shone!
We are hosting a festival styled wedding on 4th September and a further celebrant service in the woods on 18th September.
We are almost fully booked for 2022 and are now taking bookings for 2023. We do limit the number of weddings we host each year so if you are looking for a flexible wedding venue set within beautiful woodland please don’t hesitate to get in touch.
We have just undergone our Woodsure accreditation. The Woodsure Certification scheme comprehensively checks woodfuel producers to ensure that they produce and supply woodfuel to the correct standard. This means you can be assured that the wood products you purchase from us have been checked and tested and that our logs are indeed a high quality product.
Logs will be available to order again very soon.
I’m not sure that I mention the weather enough when writing the farming section for the newsletter? Well, once again the weather is providing us with some very frustrating conditions for harvest. Following a very wet mid-August week the weather has dried up but the overcast and ‘mizzly’ conditions means that the crops are not drying quickly enough during the day to make good headway and keen followers of Clarkson’s farm now know that with harvest it’s all about the moisture content. A delayed harvest also delays our ability to work land and drill the crops for next year’s harvest. All in all very frustrating!
Fingers crossed for a continued dry spell and this promised ‘heat –wave’ so that we can crack on and get the crop out of the field and into the shed.
We are delighted to let you know that Dotty is now back where she belongs, with the herd. The re-introduction went very smoothly and she is settling in very nicely in her new home. She still has a bottle every morning and night, which she pronks (runs!) across the field for with great enthusiasm. She occasionally tries to follow us out of the field to ‘come home’ with us. We have to say, despite its challenges we have really enjoyed having a pet deer at home and it’s certainly been an experience but we are also absolutely thrilled that she has re-joined the herd and is back where she belongs and seems to be thriving with her friends.
The stags have now lost all the velvet on their antlers, and with the testosterone levels rocketing the noise of chinking antlers can be heard across the field where they are gently sparring with each other. The next step is to separate Winston and Nelson from the other boys and get them ready for joining the hinds for the rut. We’re hoping that as these are two very good natured animals we can do this fairly easily over the next few weeks… we’ll let you know!
We hope to see you at one of our forthcoming events or at the veni-van on Friday 3rd Sept!
Antony & Helen
We began July with our first public event of the year! Depsite an awful forecast we had such a great day on our open day and managed to escape any bad weather. It was lovely to see so many people on site enjoying themselves. The deer safaris went down very well and some even took in a trip to see Dotty.
We are holding another open day on Sunday 8th August. If you fancy visiting us and enjoying a walk around the woods and trails or just to enjoy the view and get some refreshments in our Arboretum please come along. Refreshments will be available from Fleur’s Kitchen, who makes the most delicious sweet and savoury crepes as well as serving teas and coffees. We will be running deer safaris throughout the day some of which are available to book in advance, please click here to reserve your spot, alternatively we will also be taking bookings on the day. There is a £3 parking fee payable on the gate. We look forward to seeing you then!
July also saw our second event of the year in the form of our Camping and Caravanning weekend. The weather was glorious if not a touch on the warm side! Our campers were very grateful of the dappled shade offered by the pitches in the arboretum. We sold out completely of ice creams and the home made cakes were kept cool in the fridge after the icing began to melt in the heat! We had some great feedback from some of our campers who shared pictures on facebook – it’s great to see your photos so thank you for taking the time to post those!
Some of our campers even took boxes of venison and honey home with them to enjoy on their BBQ’s at home over summer. We are currently developing some new recipes as we speak for our delicious produce and will tell you about them really soon.
If you have been inspired by the inspirational Tom Pidcock bringing home another Olympic Gold medal for Great Britain in Tokyo mountain biking, or even if you just fancy getting out your bike and having a go – our next event, to be held on Sunday 29th August is the Mud, Sweat and Gears Mountain bike racing event. There are various entry categories and the event is open to all levels of ability and age. Camping is also available on site over the weekend. For more information and to book your place please click here.
Dotty is continuing to live the high life with us, mainly in our garden. However she did join us (briefly indoors) to watch the Euro’s final, we have created her own little mud bath to help keep her cool during the hot weather we have been experiencing and she is becoming a bit of a media darling! Antony was recently interviewed by Melvyn Prior on BBC Radio Lincolnshire about her. If you missed the interview you can listen again here from approximately 32m50 into the show.
Despite being spoiled rotten Dotty is going from strength to strength and she is currently having taster days with the calves and hinds who have accepted her for a short period of time and we hope that she will make her permanent home with the herd at the end of August, although she will continue to have a bottle feed from us morning and night.
Well… we’ve made a start to harvest!! Baumber Park’s winter barley is now safely in the shed. Yields are reasonable by comparison to the last couple of years but there is a question mark over the quality for malting. It is clear there was a great deal of potential in the crop, unfortunately due to the dull June and possibly the dry conditions running through May there are some grains which haven’t ‘filled’ properly. We are waiting to hear from our merchant as to whether there are too many of these ‘screenings’ in the sample. Read more about barley requirements for malting here.
The winter barley we have grown is a variety called Craft which is used to make malt for brewing beer. If it hits the quality specification it will be delivered to Souflett’s maltings in Burton on Trent before being used in Molson Coors Beverage Company’s brewery (also in Burton) to make beers such as Carling and Doom Bar so definitely drink more Molson Coors beer as our spring barley will hopefully also be destined for Burton!!
We now face a few days wait with the combine for the oilseed rape to ripen, hopefully the thunder showers forecast don’t materialise as the pods are very prone to shattering in heavy rain/wind/hail as we found to our significant cost a few years ago.
Elsewhere on the farm the team are working hard on track maintenance, grain store cleaning and general sorting and tidying. We have recently completed a successful second cut of our grassland, with half being made into silage and the remainder being made into hay.
We are most definitely in the ‘calm before the storm’ as far as harvest work is concerned. Our cropping this season is such that the majority of it will ripen within the same 10 day period! As a result the pressure will be well and truly on from the second week in august, we are hoping for the weather at harvest to be a little kinder than last year. Wish us luck!
The second phase of the roundhouse installation is underway. We are currently installing the ring drainage system with the concrete base to follow which will allow for easy cleaning once the deer take up residence.
Our silage has been efficiently baled by Chris Frick and is now safely stored for winter feed. We have also taken a hay crop from the meadow and have 150 bales for sale if anyone interested please contact us.
The team have been hard at work preparing for our open day on Sunday 8th August. We have cleared another section of overgrown footpath around the big lake and begun work some more log benches to allow our visitors to relax and enjoy the views!
We really hope to see you at our Open day or at the Mud Sweat and Gears event!
Antony and Helen
We are busily gearing up: getting trails mown and pruned, benches in place, signs up etc to welcome visitors to the Estate for the first time in over 18 months on Sunday 4th July.
You can come along between 10am and 4pm to walk, cycle or even run around the estate or you can just relax and take in the scenery of our usually private parkland, woods and lakes. There is a £3.00 car parking fee payable either on line in advance or on the gate.
Deer safari’s are running throughout the day and are being run in line with current COVID guidelines. As such, pre-booking is essential, a few spaces are available on the safaris and they can be booked here.
Refreshments will be available from Nice n Toastie horse box catering on site here too.
We are so excited to be able to open up again and to have visitors back to the estate. We’ll see you on Sunday.
Open Camping Weekend
If you can’t make it on the 4th July or would love to come along and spend more time here, our Open Camping Weekend takes place between 16th and 18th July. We are inviting you to come and stay for the weekend in your tent, caravan or motorhome.
Tents and caravans are welcome in the grassy glade of the arboretum and there is plenty of hard standing in the woodland parking area too. The site doesn’t have electric hook ups but running water and fully flushing toilets are on site and a waste disposal facility is available.
You are welcome to pitch up from 4pm-7pm on Friday afternoon until Sunday at 4pm to enjoy the whole estate at your leisure. Deer Safaris will also be available to campers and there’s even some evening entertainment at the Walled Garden on Saturday night. To find out more and to secure your pitch, please click here.
There are still a few pitches available so we encourage you to book as soon as possible as they are selling out quickly.
Mud, Sweat & Gears
We are delighted to host, (& for the first time in Lincolnshire!), Mud, Sweat & Gears on Sunday 29th August, perfect for all avid mountain bikers. Not only is the event taking place on Sunday but on site camping is also available over the weekend. You can find out more details and book a place in the event or camping on the Mud, Sweat and Gears website here.
Our Imperial and Royal venison boxes are available to order now for delivery next week from 8th July. So you can try something different on the barbeque as well as stocking up the freezer!
Our boxes contain a variety of cuts of our home reared, premium quality, delicious venison.
If you live over 30 miles away we will post your fresh venison box – for this we charge £10 for post and packaging which is added to your order at checkout.
To place your order please click here.
As well as our venison, local Stourton Honey is now also available to order on our website. The honey is produced by Billinghay Bees from their 12 hives located on our estate. The 360,000+ bees spend their time feasting on the wild flowers and crop pollen and nectar around the fields and woodland, providing important pollination for plant survival as well as creating delicious honey that we can now share with you.
You can find it here on our site and it can be added to your venison or landscaping products order for home delivery.
This month we have welcomed two happy couples and their nearest and dearest to the estate for their wedding celebrations. Both weddings were entirely unique and seeing couples celebrate in their own way is always such a joy! We have also hosted a private party for a family-get-together meeting up for the first time in almost 2 years, the children in particular really enjoyed the freedom of playing garden games in the arboretum as well as a private deer safari on the tractor and trailer. It really has been wonderful to see people enjoying themselves again.
If you’d like to find out more about what we can offer to help you plan a bespoke rustic woodland celebration here then please don’t hesitate to visit the venue section of our website or to get in touch with us.
Since the last blog was written we have been busy with the sprayer applying fungicides and nutrients to our crops. Hitting the correct application timings for crop growth stages has been tricky at times this year, some long hours have been required to stay on target!
Now we are largely caught up with our arable crops, as mentioned in the previous blog we will be working to prepare for (the fast approaching) harvest. As well as readying the buildings and machinery for the busy time ahead, this is a good opportunity for us to take a break from work. The farm team will be having a bit of time off to ‘recharge the batteries’ before we set about the next challenge.
Other upcoming jobs include a degree of estate maintenance; ensuring all of our roadways are in good condition, mowing field gateways to ensure good visibility for the grain carts. Health and safety is also firmly in our minds at this time of year. While it is an incredibly important part of our thinking here, with seasonal staff arriving and with the long hours of harvest looming it is also important that we bring it to the forefront of our minds. Agriculture has a very poor health and safety record, it is high time attitudes were changed, accidents can and do happen all too frequently.
That’s all for now, hopefully by the time the next blog comes around we may have made a start on the winter barley over at Baumber Park, let’s hope we don’t get too many thunderstorms in the meantime as it is still stood up nicely!!
All of our deer have now calved and the parkland is full of little calves, running with the herd. It’s such a lovely sight to see.
In other news Dotty, our hand reared deer calf is continuing to thrive….in our garden. She is proving to be quite a character. Not only does she now head butt the window when it’s time for a bottle feed but has started to try to barge into the house with us whenever the back door is opened. We now cannot put any sheets on the washing line as these are proving to be a delicious snack and we’ve all but given up on having any flowers in the garden. These small issues not withstanding she is very much part of family life now and we love her very much!
Dotty is now having fewer but larger milk feeds throughout the day and has started to graze, so no need for a lawn mower! We add selenium to her bottle feeds to ensure that she is getting the same mix of nutrients that she would naturally be getting from her mother. She is already substantially bigger than the other calves out in the parkland, so we can’t be doing much wrong! Hopefully her size will work to her advantage as we introduce her into the main herd. We will do this once the other calves have weaned from their mothers and Dotty herself no longer needs as many milk feeds, this will be later in the summer. We hope that she becomes one of our breeding herd of hinds and enjoys a long and happy life with us.
In our last blog we discussed our carbon footprint and how we are working to increase efficiency or energy usage across the estate.
We have just completed an upgrade of our biomass boiler to both improve its performance and also allow surplus heat to be piped across the yard to our farm offices. Now waste timber can be used to keep us toasty over the winter months!
But before then we will see you hopefully see you soon…
Antony and Helen
We are delighted to be able to announce that we are opening our gates again this summer and can welcome you back safely to enjoy the estate. As well as Beyond the Woods festival in August on you can visit us on the following dates:
On Sunday 4th July you can come and enjoy some of our trails around the usually private parkland, go on a deer safari to see our growing herd of deer calves and generally take in the views!
Refreshments will be on offer and you are more than welcome to bring your own picnics to enjoy in the arboretum.
We will charge £3 for the car park and you are free to stay for as long as you want, bookings can be made online or we will take payment on the gate. Well behaved dogs on leads (with well behaved owners, armed with poo bags) are more than welcome to come along too.
If you want to enjoy a deer safari then you must pre-book as we will be unable to take payment on the day. To pre-book your spot on a deer safari please just click here.
Come and stay for the weekend with your tent, caravan or motorhome. Bring your friends and family and get together in the great outdoors!
Tents and caravans are welcome in the
grassy glade of the arboretum and there is plenty of hard standing in the woodland parking area too.
You are welcome to pitch up from 4pm-7pm on Friday afternoon until Sunday at 4pm and have full access to enjoy the estate for the weekend.
We will be running deer safaris throughout the weekend, tickets for these need to be booked in advance online here.
There will be a communal fire-pit available for your use, and there are areas designated for bbq’s should you wish to.
Limited refreshments will be available on site over the weekend.
If you would like to enjoy some live music on Saturday night, there is ‘An evening with THE TAILFINS’ starting at 7pm at the Walled Garden Baumber, a short walk away. Tickets for this are £10 per person and available in advance by emailing walledgardenbaumber@gmail.com
The Walled Garden Baumber Tearoom will also be open on Sunday from 10am – 4pm.
To book a pitch for our camping weekend simply click here.
When you work for a small business you always expect an element of variety in your role and that’s certainly true here at Stourton! However the flexibility that the whole team have shown this month has been truly remarkable and very much appreciated.
Preparing to reopen a venue that has effectively been mothballed for 18 months has taken an enormous amount of hard work by everyone. From Julie and Clare cleaning the Safari tent windows to Guy treating and painting the entire floor (twice!) Helen raking up numerous fallen leaves, sprucing up borders and together with Clare varnishing all the Safari tent tables it has been all hands on deck! Additional help from Helen’s parents has also been invaluable: assembling shelving units and attaching essential fixtures and fittings to the new toilets.
Ken and Dan have found new digger skills extending and levelling the parking area and Antony has moved around 1000 tons of rubble to create the roundhouse footings and spread 2 acres of grass seed around it by hand! With all these extra jobs Jamie has helped at the weekend by bagging up woodchip for customer deliveries for the following week.
There has been plenty more going on but hopefully the next time you visit you will see the improvements and changes for yourself – in the meantime a big THANK-YOU to the extended team working at Stourton for their effort’s this month.
Although the weather probably has other plans it would be great to be able to get the BBQ out soon! We have some great venison in stock for you to enjoy.
Why not try our delicious, gluten free venison sausages, burgers or steaks on your bbq?
We also have a range of joints, mince and braising/stewing steak in stock too.
Delivery is FREE within a 20 mile radius of LN9 5PB.
To view our full venison range, click here.
May has seen us very busy with the installation of the roundhouse, our new outdoor handling and winter quarters for the deer herd. Once ground works were complete we were able to take delivery of the roundhouse. The first step was to put the stanchions in place. From this we could then construct the roof trusses. Once the centre pole was in place the roof fabric could be stretched across the structure. The roof is made from high density UPVC canvas and is not only incredibly durable but fully recyclable. Once the main construction is complete the build team will put the handling pens in place later this year. These are very versatile and easy to install or remove depending on our desired use for the enclosure….. outdoor dining area anyone? We hope that you can catch a glimpse of the new roundhouse on a deer safari at one of our events!
Being members of Select Lincolnshire, we recently attended a webinar organised by the Lincolnshire Chamber of Commerce which was a fascinating insight into the rise of sustainable packaging and trends in this area. However, the wider issue of our Carbon footprint was also touched upon. As a business we have always been very conscious of minimising our impact on the environment and being as environmentally conscious as possible – working with nature not against it. There are many ways in which we do this being part of the Higher Level Stewardship Scheme which includes a range of measures including leaving wide field margins to encourage wild-life and habitats to only applying the essential amounts of fertiliser and chemicals where the crops need it most. We have also installed renewable power sources such as solar panels, we source timber from our own another Lincolnshire Woodlands to produce logs and woodchip, we plant trees across the estate and in producing venison we are providing one of the most sustainable meats available. In terms of packaging we have also been very careful to select cardboard boxes, paper insulation and also recyclable boxes wherever possible to deliver our meat to customers safely, hygienically and efficiently. For our venue we go to great lengths to source compostable or re-cyclable cups to minimise our carbon footprint. The mantra: Reduce, Re-use, Re-cycle is one that we work to. It is not always possible to eliminate plastic entirely, for example our ice packs are plastic, however these can be re-used by our customers for their own picnics over
the summer months and the concept of reducing waste whilst being sustainable and carefully considering the life-span of a product is a delicate balancing act.
Whilst we are only a small business we are keen to calculate our carbon footprint and actively take steps to reduce it, our starting point will be working with Carbon Footprint Ltd (individuals also have access to a free online carbon footprint calculator on this website too). This is a piece of work that is likely to take some time, however if in our small way we can reduce our impact on the environment and help drive down carbon emissions, it will be for the good of future generations.
May has seen the arrival of Dotty into our lives. Keen followers on our social media channels will already be aware of her… Dotty, one of the first calves to be born this year was abandoned by her mother. In our experience and in the deer world this is incredibly rare and Dotty is the first calf that we have so far had to hand rear. She has taken up residence on our patio and is already a much loved and quite spoilt family member.
The first couple of weeks involved four-hourly bottle feeds, both day and night as well as lots of exercise and gambolling around the garden to start to make use of her gangly legs and to build muscle strength. We now don’t have to feed her through the night but she still requires regular milk feeds from us until July/August by which time we will be weaning her onto grazing and hay. In an ideal world we will slowly reintroduce Dotty back into the herd. Being one of the first born and having such a controlled feeding regime should ensure that she is one of the biggest among the calves when the time comes to join them. We shall keep you posted on her progress!
As well as Dotty, we have started seeing many new calves around the grassland. As we have mentioned in previous years, the hinds tend to enjoy quite stress-free births which we do not have to get involved in. They usually give birth in an inhospitable patch of nettles which provides some shelter for the new born until it gets on its feet and can run with the herd. If you come along to one of our summer events you will see the new calves with their mothers on one of the deer safaris.
Well, apart from a fair bit of spraying to do we are largely caught up on the farm. The final applications of nitrogen fertiliser have now been made to both our winter and spring crops. The most recent were a ‘top-up’ for the winter wheat and the sugar beet, thanks to Ken and Dan for their hard work to get this done between the wind and the showers.
Having had quite a bit of rain now and with temperatures creeping up crops have really turned themselves around and are now racing through the growth stages. We will now be monitoring crops for disease levels as well as looking to control weeds as the season moves forwards. For anyone who would like to learn a bit more about the disease challenges we encounter on our cereal crops through the growing season the Agriculture and Horticulture development board (AHDB) have a useful guide here.
Now we are caught up on most other jobs Ken is loading grain lorries and carrying out maintenance to our machinery. This is likely to keep him busy up until harvest, although he will be taking some much deserved time off as well.
As thoughts move towards harvest we look to make the last of our grain sales to clear the decks for the sheds to be fully cleaned and treated prior to being refilled with the produce of 2021. We are also currently interviewing for our ‘harvest student’ position; someone to join our team from July through to September to assist operations during the busy harvest period. We have been very lucky with our harvest staff for the past few years but as an industry we now seem to be a little short of people who are keen to do these jobs. While the hours can be long, and sometimes antisocial, it can be incredibly rewarding. For me grain harvest is a very exciting time; the culmination of the past 12 months efforts, working as part of a team in a ‘race’ to beat the weather and harvest the crops at their optimum quality.
Hopefully we all get some warmer temperatures and some sun some-time soon, I’m keen to get the barbecue out!
We can finally say that we really look forward to seeing you here soon!
Antony and Helen
We are delighted to announce that the Beyond the Woods festival is confirmed and coming back to us on the 6th and 7th August where it will take place in the parkland overlooking the lake! You can buy your tickets now by following the link.
We are just putting some finishing touches to our own plans to re-open over the next few months. We have definitely missed the buzz of events on the estate and we can’t wait to welcome you back from July. At this stage we are thinking that we will open up the arboretum to camp in for a restricted number of people to come and camp out as well as hosting some open weekends on selected weekends.
We will let you know as soon as we can what the confirmed dates are! Please keep an eye on Facebook and your inboxes for all the information once it’s available.
On the estate we produce two types of play chip that meet BSEN1177 and are suitable for use in play areas, both domestically and commercially. This is our standard play chip and also our pine nuggets.
The safety standard ensures that, when laid to an appropriate depth of 150-300mm it can absorb impact enough to prevent serious injury. We also ensure that during production the process that the chippings are screened to remove fine dust and also sharp or too long pieces. It is also very important to point out that our play chip contains no additives, toxins or that the timber used to create chip has had no chemicals applied to them.
Both types of play chip can be delivered free of charge within a 20 mile radius of LN9 5PB. We can deliver further afield, please contact us to discuss this.
Also please don’t hesitate to contact us if you need any advice on how much you should order to provide adequate and safe coverage for your play area.
As is fairly typical with this blog I’m going to start with the weather! As I’m sure you will have noticed we have gone from being too wet through February into an extended period of dry weather! While initially this helped us to get on with our spring drilling program (and we are glad that we did, the dry weather is now hurting the crops we have in the ground. This has been compounded by the ‘frostiest’ April for 60 years. The combination of frost, lack of rain and large diurnal temperature variation (difference between daytime and night-time temperature) has done significant harm to the potential of our crops. With such cold soil and air temperatures, plant development is held back. The crops are also unable to take up and/or use sufficient nutrients. This is compounded by lack of rain to dissolve surface applied fertilisers and ‘wash’ them into the soil solution for the plant roots to access.
As mentioned in the previous blog we had just finished sowing our sugar beet crop. This emerged in good time but has since been subject to the extended period of frost. While the plants are at a very early stage and don’t look particularly ‘happy’ with life we cant find any evidence that there has been any ‘frost kill’. However, due to beet being a biennial plant we are concerned that the cold period may cause the plant to vernalize and therefore enter its’ seed production phase during this growing season. These vernalized plants are known as bolters and are very bad news for a number of reasons. Firstly, bolters concentrate their energy on seed production, this means poor root growth and low sugar content of the root. Secondly, large numbers of bolters will shade the crop in vegetative growth and thus reducing yield. Thirdly, each bolter will produce 1000 viable seeds or more. These seeds will remain in the soil seed bank and will proliferate in a following beet crop. Mechanical weeding and hand pulling are the only truly effective solutions to ‘weedy beet’ within a sugar beet crop and are very expensive to carry out. We have all of our fingers and toes crossed that we avoid the picture painted above!
In other news we have largely completed our nitrogen fertiliser applications to all crops, with a small balance to apply to winter wheat and sugar beet. Thoughts have now moved to protecting the crops from disease and competition from broad leaved weeds.
Ken is helping out with some demolition and building work on the wider estate at the moment. We are also waiting for rain and warmer conditions so that we can sow our stewardship buffer strips and pollen and nectar mixes. Hopefully we can get on with these soon so they can establish strongly and provide good habitat for insect, bird and mammalian life on the farm.
We have a vacancy available in our harvest team. This is a great opportunity to work as part of our harvest team across the Lincolnshire Wolds this summer. You will be required from July – September, previous experience is preferred. For more details or to apply please email Oliver.Smith@stourtonestates.co.uk.
Since our last news story in March we have been busy preparing for the installation of the new roundhouse, which will serve as a winter shelter and handling facility for the deer herd. We have felled some trees to make room, the wood from which we will process and turn into high quality play chip, and we have had to get the diggers out to create a suitable base for the round house.
The next phase of installation will include the erection of the upright stanchions that will support the roof and finally the roof will be added. Fingers crossed by the next news story, at the end of May we will be able to show you pictures of a fully constructed round house.
Our stags are also beginning to naturally shed their antlers and we are finding and collecting them up from their grazing areas. This happens as their hormone levels drop and the antlers are no longer needed to impress the ladies! On that note we are also gearing up for calving season by getting the herds in the right enclosures so that they can settle in their surroundings before calving in June.
We are also delighted to have a whole page dedicated to our venison and recipes in the Countryman Magazine this month. Keep your eyes peeled if you take this magazine.
We have lots of frozen venison in stock at the moment which can be delivered free within 20 miles of LN9 5PB! Please click here to browse our range and place your order.
We wanted to share with you the journey the estate and we have been from the very beginning in the 1500’s to present day. We will include excerpts from this story over the coming months to share with you our history, how and when we introduced the deer to the estate and more about our low stress, sustainable rearing methods:
“Stourton has an interesting history dating as far back to The Romans. However the first evidence of an estate at Stourton was the establishment of a large stately home in the mid 1500’s by Sir Edmund Dighton. The estate was handed down through the generations and ownership passed into the Fynes-Clinton family who later became the Earls of Lincoln and Dukes of Newcastle. The house fell into disrepair and the estate was subsequently sold to The Livesey family around 1790. Joseph Livesey began work on his new house (Stourton Hall) in 1810, a short distance from the ruins of the first. Subsequent generations invested heavily in the estate, building the walled garden, three inter connecting lakes, remodelling the parks (which would have been home to herds of fallow deer) as well as creating a model farm.
The estate is now owned by the Strawson family. Harry Strawson took on the tenancy of farm in 1926. When the last squire; Algernon Livesey died in 1951, the estate was broken up and Harry was able to purchase his farm at auction. The holding continued to grow under the management of his son Roger in later years. The last major acquisition and final piece of the jigsaw was the purchase of the woodlands from The Forestry Commission in 1995.
Since then Antony (Roger’s son) has been working to restore the central part of the old estate. Works have included the dredging of the 3 lakes, active management of the woodlands, re-opening rides and creation of the arboretum.
It was in May 2012 that we re-introduced deer to the parks after an absence of nearly 100 years. Whilst we felt it was important to retain the historical link for the estate, we also had the desire to produce high quality venison from deer living in fantastic surroundings. Our 30 red deer hinds who leapt off the lorry into their parkland would be our first step towards this, and the infinite beauty and appeal of these creatures was not lost on us either!”
We really hope to see you very soon!
Antony & Helen
We are now sold out of logs until Autumn and will no longer be able to take any orders. We’d like to thank all of our log customers, both old and new for your business over the winter season, you’ve certainly kept us very busy!
We are now focusing on our landscaping products and we are in full swing. We have good availability and lots of stock at the moment. If you are planning some work in the garden or are laying a play area or chicken run please take a look at our full range of products.
Delivery of our landscaping products is free up to 20 miles from our farm postcode, LN9 5PB. If you live outside of this area please don’t hesitate to contact us to discuss your requirements.
If you fancy trying something different this spring why not try a joint of venison?
We have both haunch and sirloin joints available. Both have a lovely flavour and as its venison is a very low fat choice. All of our venison is reared to the absolute highest standards and welfare and sustainability is always at the forefront of our minds.
We have produced a little video full of hints and tips to cook a venison joint. You can find it here.
Our fresh vension boxes will be available for delivery from 8th/9th April. Our Imperial and Royal boxes are proving very popular and we can deliver these across the UK. We always include recipe cards in the order to give you some meal ideas and handy hints if you are worried about cooking venison for the first time. Don’t miss out, place your orders now.
Last month we launched our first meal box in conjunction with the Wolds Egg company, TW Produce and Saucy Cups at the Elder Tree Inn. We have received some great feedback from our customers so thank you! They said;
“We loved the simplicity of the starter, easy to follow instructions, really tasty venison, great presentation, good value for money and particularly pleasing”
and
‘a good introduction into how to cook venison, given me the confidence to do it again!’
We will be producing another meal box at the end of April which will be full of more seasonal produce from some great local suppliers. Keep an eye on social media for more information once its available to order.
We are cautiously optimistic that after 21st June we will open the estate for open days, opportunities to come camping and hopefully launch some events towards the end of this year.
We are working hard to put plans in place, ensuring we are Covid secure as well as completing ground works needed and we will share these dates with you as soon as possible.
We are delighted that we have some private bookings for weddings and parties taking place in June and we look forward to sharing our venue and celebrating these special times with those people.
We are delighted to announce that we have had planning permission approved for the construction of some new housing for the deer within the woods. We will imminently begin ground works for the construction of a roundhouse which will provide some extra shelter for our deer herd during the winter months or for necessary handling activities to ensure the health and welfare of the herd.
The design of the round house is open sided with a stretched canopy roof which is fully recyclable and has low visual impact. The roof has a centralised open area that provides excellent ventilation and the structure creates a very low stress environment for the deer.
We will begin work very soon and will make sure that we post lots of pictures both during and after construction.
We’ve had a few bits and pieces going on since the last blog post to say the least!
Our 2020 sugar beet crop was finally lifted early in March and delivered into Newark factory during the first half of the month. Sadly, while our root yields were ok given the difficult season, our sugar content has left a lot to be desired. Virus yellows, circospora and late frosts have left us licking our wounds as far as sugar beet is concerned. We are amongst the ‘lucky’ ones this year as our overall yield is down by just over 10% compared to our 5 year average. The national yield has been affected by 25%, with some growers sadly losing up to 80% of their usual yield!
Landwork and spring drilling have been going a pace during March. Rotationally a lot of our ‘easy working’ land is in with spring sown crops this season. This has helped our progress no end, we have now completed putting in our spring barley and spring oat crops. By the time this blog ‘goes to press’, our next sugar beet crop will be in the ground as well, to be ‘drilled up’ by the end of March is almost unheard of here. Thanks go to the hard work of all involved, it really is much appreciated.
You may or may not have read in the press about the emergency derogation given to beet growers to use a neonicotinoid insecticidal seed treatment (as long as a number of strict conditions were met). Well, due to the sustained period of cold weather during the latter part of winter the number of aphids which carry virus into the crop has been reduced by comparison to last year. This has meant that the ‘virus modelling’ thresholds set by the British Beet Research Organisation have not been met. This in turn means that the 2021 sugar beet crop will not be treated with the neonicotinoid seed treatment after all. In my opinion this is a triumph of integrated crop/pest management, demonstrating for all to see the way our industry takes a robust, evidence based approach to such significant crop protection decisions. While the modelling suggests a low risk year for aphid vectors of virus I am hoping our beet crop will have reached 12 true leaves by the time any aphids migrate. At this point the plant will have developed ‘adult plant resistance’ to virus infection and any impact will be significantly reduced. Read more about the neonicotinoid decision here.
Now the spring crops are safely in, our attention turns to taking care of their nutritional needs. The barley and oats will both receive a fertiliser supplying their needs of Nitrogen, Phosphate, Potash and Sulphur. The sugar beet will receive it’s first dose of Nitrogen and sulphur.
Our winter wheat crop will imminently be receiving its first fungicide of the season to protect the crop from a number of plant diseases. Our main focus at this time of the year is to keep the crop clean from Yellow Rust and Septoria Tritici. These diseases move into and through the plant at an incredible rate if left unchecked; causing a large reduction in green leaf area. Retaining green leaf is incredibly important as the crop moves through its growth stages, thus allowing the crop to intercept the maximum amount of sunlight for photosynthesis. Read more about wheat and barley diseases here.
There appears to be light at the end of the tunnel and we really hope that we can welcome you back to the estate very soon.
Antony & Helen
Spring is in the air and it’s time to get back out into the garden and ready for the warmer months ahead. We have a range of landscaping products that can help you to prepare your garden for the summer.
Our garden bark chippings are a simple, cost effective and versatile product. Made using a fuel-wood grade chipper which produces a high quality, consistent chip our chippings are ideal for creating paths in your garden, adding to your beds or creating a chicken run base.
A 0.7m3 bag of bark chippings costs just £60 and delivery is free up to 20 miles from our farm LN9 5PB.
We also have small bags of kiln dried wood chip. The bags weigh 15kg (or 75 litres) and are heat sealed so they are easy to store outside and to handle. The chip in the bas is made from pure pine which is graded to 10-30mm in size. The kiln drying and grading process not only removes much of the water content but they also contain no dust, fungal spore or additives. They are ideal for landscaping and play surface use (conforming to BSEN 1177) or for chicken run bases or bedding.
They can be delivered within 20 miles from the farm at Baumber in a minimum quantity of 10 bags (£7 per bag).
For our full landscaping products range please click here.
We have some very exciting news to share with you which we hoped would be ready for this blog post but unfortunately we shall have to keep you on tenter hooks until next month!
As a family we have really enjoyed cooking at home together. We have also been taking advantage of Lucy’s photographic and technical skills whilst she’s not busy with her school work and have created a video for how to cook the perfect venison steak. If you missed it, here it is!
Here is our secret for the ultimate high quality fast food!
We have also made a video of how we label up and package our venison ready for delivery. Please click here to watch.
Our fresh venison boxes, great value selection packs and frozen individual cuts are available to order online as usual with free delivery within 20 miles of the farm.
We are also planning to launch a special edition box for local delivery just before Easter so do keep in touch with us on social media to find out more about this!
If you have any questions about our venison or delivery please don’t hesitate to contact us.
As we go to press we still have some sugar beet firmly in the ground. Thankfully the processing factory in Newark is due to stay open until the middle of March now. All being well, we will get ours lifted next week and delivered before it closes!
With the recent improvement in the weather the land has now finally started to dry, it has seemed like a very long wet winter, spring can’t now come soon enough. We will start our spring programme of works with a bit of ploughing both pre and post sugar beet crops before moving on to drilling our spring barley crops. On the subject of spring barley, we have mentioned before in our blog that the majority of ours is sold for malting to Molson Coors in Burton-on-Trent. We need you all to go and buy as much Doom Bar, Carling, Coors Light, Staropramen and other Molson Coors brands as you can! Due to the various Covid lockdowns during the past 12 months the brewing trade has been hit particularly hard (Molson Coors wrote off £25 million in keg beer). The knock on effect to our barley market has been staggering.
As our winter wheat and bean crops come through winter we have recently been assessing their initial fertiliser requirements. The wheat will be receiving a dressing of Nitrogen and Sulphur when ground conditions allow us to travel. All crops will have phosphate and potash applied during the coming spring.
Beans are a legume, and as such they ‘fix’ their own nitrogen requirements. Interestingly it isn’t the plant itself that is able to fix atmospheric nitrogen but the symbiotic relationship between the plant and nitrogen-fixing bacteria known as rhizobia. Read more about nitrogen-fixing here.
When crop-walking earlier in the week, I was delighted to see and hear how many skylarks we have on farm. They really are a wonderful little bird, their song flights are one of life’s small pleasures while out and about. One thing is for sure there is no ‘silent spring’ evident here at Stourton. In other recent good new, Michael Harrison reliably informs me that he saw a flock of Corn bunting on one of our overwintered stubbles. Hopefully this is a good sign that the work we are doing to improve the farmed environment and provide habitat and food sources for small farmland birds is having a positive effect.
Following a very nippy and snowy February we have been getting ready for spring with lots of our ‘end of winter’ jobs for the deer. As well as conducting routine worming treatments we have also been busy treating the hinds with a copper supplement. Copper is very important to livestock health especially those who are predominantly pasture fed. It is critical in the formation of collagen, keeping bones strong. It is involved in the formation of red and white blood cells so supplementation aids in ensuring effective blood clotting, nerve function and oxygenation as well as supporting the immune system. Copper deficiency can also lead to a weak and wobbly gait associated with swayback.
Last year’s young calves are also being weaned and are in the barn until the weather gets consistently warmer. We will try to get a video to share with you when we let them out!
After what has felt like an incredibly long year we are hoping (our fingers are so tightly crossed) that we shall soon be able to open up and welcome visitors back! We are still very much in the planning stages with one eye on whether timings may or may not slip. As soon as we have any firm plans and dates we will ensure that you will be the first to know!
We look forward to seeing you soon
Antony and Helen
New Selection packs
Thank you to everyone who placed a venison order with us before Christmas. We have now replenished our venison stocks on the website.
Due to customer feedback we are creating more great value selection packs of your favourite venison products. These include:
A Steak Selection Pack £27 containing: haunch, rump and frying steak as well as a pack of burgers.
A Family Selection Pack £38 containing a small haunch joint, frying steak, some incredibly versatile mince and a pack sausages.
A Winter Warmer Pack £27 containing 2 braising steaks, a pack of casserole steak, 2 large haunch steaks and approx 500g of mince.
This may mean that there are slightly fewer items to order on a pick & mix basis on the website but we hope that you will find a selection pack that is perfect for your needs and you can always supplement with additional items.
All of these are available for free delivery within 20 miles of LN9 5PB
New Recipes
We have got two great new recipe ideas for you to try too! These have been tried and tested on both family and friends and are a great way to incorporate venison into everyday meals. The first is a delicious lasagne recipe and the second is for a warming winter curry. We will include these as recipe cards in our fresh venison box deliveries from January. Alternatively you can find them in the recipe area of our website. Let us know how you get on!
Our frozen venison selection packs and fresh venison boxes are available for free and contact free delivery within 20 miles of the farm postcode. A small delivery charge applies for anyone who is further away.
Fresh Venison Boxes – Order Now!
Our Royal fresh venison boxes contain a wide variety of steaks, burgers, sausages as well as mince and casserole and / braising steak – the larger Imperial boxes also contain a haunch joint and premium quality venison fillet, perfect for a valentines treat?
These are available to pre-order now for delivery either Thursday 3rd / Friday 4th February, they are also available for nationwide delivery.
New Venison Stockists
We are also delighted to announce that our venison is now available to buy ‘off the shelf’ (out of the freezer!) in the following local stockists:
Or if you fancy a take-away in the form of a tasty toastie or baguette you need to visit Scrummies in Horncastle, they have venison specials including venison steak baguette and venison sausage sandwiches… we highly recommend Phil’s milkshakes and smoothies which are also delicious!
We have been incredibly busy with log orders in the run up to the Christmas and New Year period. We are still playing catch up on some of these orders. We have been working around the clock to convert, dry and deliver logs to our customers. The recent cold weather has an impact on the moisture content of the logs prior to them entering the kiln. We only deliver logs that are of the highest quality so as a result it is taking longer than usual to reach our high standards.
Rest assured we will get log orders out ASAP, and hope to have online ordering available again as soon as we have more stock available. Please keep an eye on our social media channels and we will let you know as soon as we can accept new log orders.
If you said ‘yes’ to THE question over Christmas then we’d like to extend a huge congratulations to you both. You are probably already considering where and when you wish to hold your ‘big day’. Have you thought about hosting your wedding in our beautiful woodland? We have updated our wedding package for 2021/2022 where from only £4,699 you can host your woodland wedding blessing and reception in our beautiful and unique safari tent, nestled within our peaceful tree lined arboretum.
Please visit our wedding page on our website to find out more about our wedding package or alternatively please don’t hesitate to get in touch where we can answer your questions and (fingers crossed) book you in for a socially distanced tour as soon as we are allowed to again.
Our deer have been keeping us busy this month. They are all still outside and the stags are currently resident within the woodland which is giving them a lovely natural shelter from the elements. Whilst they are all still outside the volume and quality of the grass on which they are grazing is not enough on its own so we are supplementing them with silage. Silage is essentially a bale which has been wrapped in film. This wrapping process helps the bale within to ‘ferment’ via anaerobic digestion. The silage bulks their diet out when natural forage is not as available.
January on our farm is traditionally a fairly quiet month. As things stand we have about 20 hectares of sugar beet still to lift, but we need it to dry up a little before we can get on the land. Hopefully we get a weather window soon as the processing factory is due to close for beet reception at the end of February. Ken would usually be working through machinery ready for spring but has been busy lately with Dan and Guy processing round timber into logs. The sprayer is currently receiving a bit of attention, with the pressure regulation valve and the main pump being refurbished ready for the busy season ahead.
Our spring season will kick off in earnest from the middle of February when our over-wintered stubbles are free to be ploughed ahead of sugar beet. Some stubbles from the previous wheat or barley crops are left over winter to provide habitat and a food source for farmland birds. As well as overwintered stubbles and wild bird food plots around the farm we are supplementary feeding with 10 ‘bucket’ feeders in various places. By the end of winter we will have fed out well over a tonne of mixed grains, this is crucial to help farmland birds through the ‘hungry gap’. For anyone who would like to read a little about how farming and conservation can work hand in hand please have a look at the Game and Wildlife Conservation Trust website, the work they do is fascinating.
We’ll be busy until the next blog making sure the seed drills and cultivators are all in good working order prior to the spring sowing season, here’s hoping that as spring starts to bloom, we can all start to return to at least some small form of normality.
Well, we once again find ourselves in the strange position of not really knowing what and how to plan for the rest of the year in terms of our events. We really do miss our events and sharing our beautiful surroundings with our visitors. We will welcome you back as soon as we are able so please keep a keen eye on social media for any updates.
If, like us you are juggling home-schooling and working from home it can be tricky keeping everyone entertained. We’d like to help you out! Here is a word search and a ‘Spot the Deer-ference’ to help you to keep yourselves or your little ones entertained and have five minutes peace!
Until then, stay safe with best wishes
Antony & Helen
Well, we’ve made it to the end of another year… and what a year it has been!
We have definitely missed all of our event visitors and the opportunity to share our lovely park and woodland. This year has forced us to do things a bit differently and has enabled us to spend more time working on our venison offering whilst wrangling with the myriad COVID-19 rules and regulations. We have invested in the veni-van to manage local deliveries, launched fresh venison meat boxes as well as UK wide delivery of our fresh products.
As well as venison we have been kept extremely busy with our log and kindling orders, as well as unprecedented early sell-out of Christmas trees.
We’d like to thank all of our customers who have supported us throughout 2020. It has been an incredibly hard year for everyone and we really appreciate your custom.
We’d also like to thank all of our staff. This has been an extraordinary year and our staff have weathered the storm valiantly, all of us coping with shifting rules, juggling home-schooling etc. As ever, we couldn’t do it without them, so thank you and we hope that they enjoy the Christmas break.
From 5pm on 18th December we are granting ourselves some well deserved rest.
We will be back in the office from Monday 4th January 2021 and any order placed on or after 18th December will be delivered in the first week after we are back.
If you need to contact us urgently between now and 4th January then please email us on contact@stourtonestates.co.uk.
We have some tentative plans for events next year, if the rules permit it. As soon as we can we will let you know more. In the meantime we wish you all a very merry and safe Christmas and here’s to a much improved 2021.
Antony & Helen
We are delighted to launch our first ever Festive Fresh Venison Box.
This limited edition box, costing £60 contains:
Plus some delicious traditional accompaniments:
Whether buying for yourself or a food-loving friend or family member, this box is perfect for treating the family over the Christmas period. It contains a great range of versatile cuts to enjoy – these can also be used instead of your usual meat in some of your favourite recipes or take a look at our recipe gallery for more inspiration.
Orders can be placed now for delivery on Friday 11th December and we will be in touch to arrange a delivery time with you.
As well as our Festive box, our usual Royal and Imperial venison boxes are available to order for delivery on either 11th or 18th December.
All fresh venison boxes ordered are delivered FREE within a 20 mile radius of the farm. If you live between 20-30 miles of the farm additional delivery charges will apply.
For those of you who live further than 30 miles away or wish to send a venison box as a gift we can now offer courier delivery of our fresh boxes nationwide. For this we charge £10 for post and packaging which is added to your order at checkout.
Stourton Estates are very excited to be included in this brand new cookbook, Lincolnshire Kitchen.
You will find our one pot root vegetable venison casserole recipe using our finest venison casserole (or braising steak) to deliver a mouth-watering dish we hope you enjoy cooking and eating! Our recipe sits proudly with a huge range of Lincolnshire food producers who have also put forward their very best recipes.
The cookbook has been produced to raise vital funds for Lincolnshire charity, LIVES. Did you know the charity attended over 13,000 emergency 999 calls last year? The volunteers who give their time need to fund their training, on-going support and equipment, which LIVES provide.
Lincolnshire Kitchen will be available in a number of Lincolnshire Co-op Stores this winter, through the LIVES website and the link to purchase is available on our website too.
The cookbook is available for £9.99 and every penny will goes to LIVES. We are proud to support a charity that so clearly looks after communities right across our county.
You are certainly keeping us busy delivering your kiln dried log and Christmas tree orders. Christmas trees have now sold out! Don’t miss out on logs – place your order now… we can deliver log orders all the way up to 18th December 2020. So do get online and place your order for pre-Christmas delivery now!
You can rest assured that we are taking all steps necessary to make all home deliveries or collections from the farm COVID secure; offering contact free and socially distanced deliveries or collections.
And breathe… we’ll say it quietly but we have finally got our planned autumn cropping in the ground thanks to the hard work of our team. The latest sown winter wheat is just starting to emerge and is looking good on all but the heaviest of our land. We finished sowing winter beans on the 24th November in largely good conditions. It has felt like a bit of a slog to get everything in this Autumn, but we are pleased to be well ahead of where we were this time last year. The beans now need their pre-emergence herbicide, with the lighter land wheat requiring an application of nutrition to see it through winter.
We will be lifting a little more sugar beet imminently; the results from our first lifted field are relatively pleasing for the year. It seems our area has escaped the worst of the virus yellows impact, in the south of the county where there is a large amount of veg crops grown the beet crop has suffered immensely. Looking ahead it is of great concern to us that sugar beet has a viable future, our fingers are crossed that the necessary derogation for seed treatment is now granted by DEFRA as previous requests have not been granted. More information about virus yellows and what may be done in the future can be found here and here.
Over the winter Ken will be busy working through the machinery fleet to make sure it is in good condition to be put to work next spring. Usually in winter our workshop is bitterly cold even with a small diesel space heater. We have recently invested in a new clean burning heater supplied by Louth Tractors which should keep Ken nice and warm in there. It will also double as a heater for our events during the winter months (when we are able to put them on again).
If anyone has any questions for us about the farm and how and why we do things the way we do please do get in touch. Until next time…
We are very excited to announce that our flushing toilets are now fully installed and operational. Situated right next to the safari tent, the new loos will significantly increase the comfort of our guests whether they are visiting the estate for an open day or attending a private event. Let’s hope they get a bit of use next year!
As well as loo installation we have carried out the annual mow of the arboretum. We do this every autumn to encourage wildflower regeneration for the next year. The spoil from the mow is left behind to increase soil fertility, ensuring strong future growth and a wide variety of species to grow and live within the habitat.
It’s been a bit noisy around the estate for the last few weeks as the rut has been in full swing. Thankfully all is now calming down and the stags are no longer as ‘boisterous’. The end of the rut sees a dramatic drop in testosterone in the stags and this leads to the loss of their antlers, as they are no longer needed for duelling with their rivals. We currently have a few antler sets available to buy on our website.
We really hope that next year we get the opportunity to open up and share our beautiful parkland with you. We are offering deer safari vouchers for sale, which would make an excellent Christmas gift. We will honour them at any of our events next year.
We hope that you are all keeping safe and well.
Antony & Helen
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!
More
Our venue, Stourton Woods is at the heart of the historic Stourton Estate, made up of …
More
Our kiln dried logs and woodchip are dried at the farm in Baumber using timber from …
More
Our landscaping products are made from timber from our own and other local Lincolnshire woodlands. Use …
More
Experience a private farm safari tour. Our experiences make great gifts for someone special... or perhaps …
More
Our Festive Fresh Venison Box We are delighted to launch our first …
More