The rural smallholding
What makes a West Sussex based chartered surveyor and a city banker, transport a herd of goats and a collection of ducks, chickens and horses, 250 miles to deepest North Yorkshire?
According to Yorkshire-born Suzie Birrell-Gray and husband Jonty, it was more than just coming home, it was about living the dream. ‘I’ve always loved animals’ says Suzie as her five dogs and one nonchalant cat, roam the small farm they bought in 2019 and where they are now busy creating the good life nestled beneath Chimney Bank in a beautiful corner of Rosedale Abbey.
To live the country life they longed for, they have created a ‘portfolio business’ combining goats: the breeding, rearing and milking of; cheese and yoghurt-making and hospitality in the form of two cosy shepherds’ huts and a self-catering cottage. It all combines to make up Abbey Farm Cottage.
Suzie milks the goats each morning and collects the eggs while Jonty runs the cheese room. He makes three cheeses, a mild and fresh, white-rinded, raw milk cheese they call the Rosedale Crottin, a beautiful Bell Top Crottin and Bell End Blue, named after the legendary Bell End Farm at Rosedale Head. Yoghurt and labneh are usually available too.
They also run two cheesemaking courses. A three hour course allows guests to make haloumi, a creamy soft chevre and instructions on making yoghurt and labneh (a mild cheese made from strained yoghurt). The longer five hour course allows time to make a feta cheese and includes a light lunch.
There is goat meat too. Goat hasn’t caught on much in the UK outside the Afro-Caribbean community, the name ‘kid’ doesn’t help, but it’s common in Italy, Greece, Portugal and many other parts of the world. Jonty saw the potential for goat meat after watching a chef cook with it on the Great British Menu. To that end, the male dairy kids on the farm, which would otherwise be discarded at birth, are here being reared for their sustainable, mild and tender meat that cooks like lamb.
The French call it terroir: the character and flavour that comes from the region in which the food is produced. Suzie’s 50 well-tended, well-loved goats graze the field beside the cheese room, feeding on the verdant pastures in this tranquil, unspoilt corner of Rosedale Valley, and from them comes the excellent milk (they are certified raw milk producers), and by extension terrific cheese and meat - truly local, seasonal and distinctive produce that is the hallmark of Abbey Farm.
Alongside cheesemaking, Suzi offers ‘Goat Experience Days where visitors can learn about goat rearing, feeding, including bottle feeding where appropriate and goat management. There are visits to the cheese room and a light, goat-inspired lunch.
Cheese and meat are available to buy from the farm and online. For guests staying in the shepherd huts there are pop-up pizza nights when Jonty fires up the wood-fired oven and serves a well-flecked pizza crust, topped with homegrown tomatoes and their fresh young goat’s cheese. Best enjoyed at dusk with a cold beer on the sheltered deck, with views across the reed beds and the chance sighting of a woodpecker, a barn owl or roe deer.