A Year with Glencoyne Farmers

What struck me, and continues to strike me, about the Hodgsons, is their gentle and determined attitude to farming. A continual quest for balance: with love, knowledge, a commitment to farming, and concern for their animals and for every bit of the land they care for.

Sam and Candida (Can) Hodgson have been tenants of the National Trust’s Glencoyne Farm for over 25 years, and over that time, there has been significant change. On arrival, they took on a flock of well over 2000 hill sheep; around a third were the ‘landlord’s flock’ (every National Trust Farm in the Lake District has a flock of herdwick sheep that is passed from tenant to tenant) and the remainder were bought from the previous tenant. The landscape within the farm’s boundaries was, in many parts, in poor shape. This pattern has changed: today, the Hodgsons have fewer than 400 sheep, a herd of shorthorn cattle and belted Galloway cows, and a landscape that is being nurtured sensitively and is brimming with biodiversity.

 

 

What a farm can hold

Glencoyne farmhouse and barns are not far from the shore of Ullswater, sitting at the end of a track, with the lake in front and fells rising steeply behind. The farm’s land is diverse. There are meadows that provide shelter and grazing for sheep, and in the summer are a mass of colour from wildflowers. There is a large area of wood pasture (approximately 300 hectares) where ancient and veteran trees witness the decades pass, and new trees are finding their own feet at an increasing rate – fallen acorns here can root, shoot, and grow, hidden among brambles, biding their time until they too become ancients.

There’s a balance between trees and animals in a system of grazing that the Hodgsons have been refining over the years – and recently, fences have been removed to allow the native breed cattle to browse, find shade, calf, and grow, with fewer restrictions, while the trees around them grow too, and the soil and invertebrates are enriched by their dung. In wet patches of land, mosses and bog plants thrive. This includes the Grass of Parnassus, which is Cumberland’s county flower, whose sighting gave me particular joy.

 

 

A year marked by birds

We have sat around the kitchen table with Sam and Can talking about individual trees, patches of woodland, particular becks and gullies, or sections of fields; every bit of the land is familiar, and family, to them. And when it comes to birds, their own list of sightings is longer than the official ornithology records. The birds are often mentioned: when the first oystercatchers appear, whether there are curlews, which trees the long-tailed tits flock to, redwings cruising over the hawthorns in autumn … they are markers of a yearly cycle.

And into higher land

The farmland extends up to the wide glacial basin of Glencoyne Bowl, and then onto Sheffield Pike and the bare sides of Brown Hills – high places of rock, wetlands and coarse grasses, and harsh weather. The Hodgsons also have Great Mell Fell within their bounds, a small fell in Matterdale Valley that has changed in the last decade, with reduced grazing and an increase of tree cover.

Gowbarrow Fell comes into the care of Glencoyne Farm too. This is a beautiful, lower, fell, very popular with walkers; it rises above Aira Beck and the much-visited Aira Force waterfalls. Over the time the Hodgsons have been balancing the grazing regime on Gowbarrow, with both sheep and cattle. It has responded with changes in vegetation and an increase in biodiversity. Swathes of heather give purple hues in summer, and on lower slopes, regeneration of birch trees has brought a sense of wild where the trees are simply getting on with being trees, relatively undisturbed. Around here you’re very likely to see red squirrels, maybe badgers, and more birds than you can count.

 

 

Counting carbon

Glencoyne farm has recently received a ‘positive’ result in their carbon audit; this means that the farm is storing more carbon than it emits, taking into account the land, the animals, and the impact of running the business. The soil is in great condition, with no addition of fertilisers and a steady input of animal dung. The range and abundance of plants and birds is worth celebrating. And the animals are doing well, with sheep selling for a good price, and cattle that seem content. The passion to keep animals and land well, with each benefitting the other, brings pride; and it drives the decisions that Sam and Can make as well as their stamina to keep going when things get tough. Seeing beneficial change makes the hard work feel worthwhile.

 

Bringing into focus – for PhD research and poetry creation

The Hodgson’s attitude of care and a commitment drew me in and compelled me to ask them whether I could visit regularly over the course of a year, as part of my PhD research. My curiosity centres on the dynamics of landscape change, on states of equilibrium and health (meaning both holism and healing), and points or actions that lead to transformation. In the Ullswater valley, and across the Lake District, factors of influence and interaction include landforms; the watery system of becks, rivers and lake; vegetation (trees, grasses, flowers, mosses, soils etc.); farming; woodland management; policies; funding mechanisms; and cultural identities, practices and heritage.

I wanted to think about this dynamic of change by considering perspectives at different scales, one of which was the perspective of a single farm. There is no such thing as a ‘standard’ or ‘typical’ farm though, because every farm is unique, so it did matter which farm I chose to spend my time on. Glencoyne Farm stood out for me, and because I had come to know the Hodgsons over the past decade, I had an idea of the context I’d be going into. Very generously, Sam and Can said yes.

Monthly visits

So in 2024 I visited at least once a month, and Rob came with me, camera in hand. I had a commitment to visit Can and Sam in the last days of the month, and each time, I asked the same short set of questions: touching on what has changed that month, what’s been unexpected, where the challenges have been, and the joys, as well as political changes and financial factors. Sometimes I visited more than once a month, and I aimed to join the Hodgsons for events such as gathering, shearing or sorting sheep, or walking the cows between grazing grounds.

 

 

Our conversations were long, both in the kitchen and out among the animals. We talked about the animals, about soil health, climate change, politics, and the farmer protests across the UK, about government decisions, payment regimes, payment problems, relationships with neighbours and farmer-landlord relationships, about tourism, world affairs, auction markets, calving difficulties and successes, tree planting plans, habitat assessments, lake swimming, storms … and the list goes on. Over the year there has been much to celebrate and there have been difficulties, and I’ve come to better know Sam and Can’s children, now both in their twenties.

Detail from our conversations and my experiences on the farm, and reflections on the local and external factors that are part of a journey of change, I’ll share in time. There’s a lot of digesting to do, of a complex multi-layered set of facts and experiences … a lot of crafting of words, through prose, poetry, artwork and mapping, and sorting of images and drawings. This is the next stage of the PhD, bringing it all together: to give a glimpse of a year in the longer process of change, and see what emerges. None of this would be possible though without the Hodgson’s open hearted welcome and patient responses to questions, and it’s a pleasure to be able to learn so much from them.

All pictures shared here are by Rob Fraser

Snapshots in an ongoing poem

What I’ve learnt while spending time with the Hodgsons, and in around Glencoyne Farm, has influenced the creation of a set of 12 poems: one at the end of each month, which I have filmed in 12 locations around the Ullswater Valley. I’ve considered this farm scale perspective alongside learnings from meetings and discussions with others in Cumbria and beyond, around regional and UK-wide land use, policy shifts, and national events, particularly connected with weather and land use.

You can watch the film here: https://www.youtube.com/@harrietfrasercumbria/playlists