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In the early 1900's the farm was well
known as Coaley Poultry Farm, which was run by a Miss Edwards.
Miss Edwards appears to have been very successful and her farm was
advertised as 'the largest poultry farm built up and carried on
by a woman'. The farm produced various types of poultry, but was
particularly famous for it's Coaley Fawn Duck.
Miss Edwards ran a School of Poultry at the farm, teaching practical
work during the day and giving lectures in the evening. Courses
lasted for either 3 or 12 weeks. Her students came from as far away
as India, South Africa, Holland, Sweden and France.
Most of the birds raised at Coaley were transported to customers
by rail from the nearby Coaley Junction (now the Cam & Dursley
Park and Ride railway station).
The Farm
Waterend Farm is a grassland farm on the edge of the Cotswold Hills
and the Severn Vale. The farm runs to about 82 acres. It is owned
by Gloucestershire County Council and forms part of their Rural
Estate of some 8600 acres. We took over the tenancy in September
2004.
We run a commercial flock of 260 breeding ewes, either Suffolk x
Mule or homebred Texel Cross, which are put to high genetic index
Texel rams to produce quality fat lambs. In 2010 we purchased a
high genetic index Poll Dorset ram to put on our best homebred Texel
Cross ewes to produce our homebred flock replacements.
Lambing starts in mid March and goes on for about 3 weeks. Lambs
stay with their mothers until they are 12 to 16 weeks old and are
then weaned. Lambs are sold from 12 weeks old via a marketing group,
May Hill Lamb Producers, to Sainsburys supermarket. The sheep are
predominately grass fed with some supplementary concentrate feed.
All the hay for winter feed is made on the farm.
In 2010 we purchased a small nucleus flock of pedigree Blue Texel
sheep with the aim to set up our own pedigree breeding flock.
Like many farmers we realised that we would not make a living just
from farming a relatively small farm, we would need to diversify.
The large house we felt was ideal to develop as bed and breakfast
accommodation and spent our spare time in the first two years here
converting and decorating the front part of the house.
We were lucky enough to obtain a grant
from DEFRA's Rural Enterprise Scheme to convert a large outbuilding
adjacent to the farmhouse into a country meeting room, providing
well equipped facilities for small business and group meetings,
as well as private parties. |
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