The family farmers
Grazing the lush pastures of Richard Lunn’s family farm are a miscellany of contented cattle: Dexters, Belted Galloways, Gloucesters, Shorthorns, White Parks and feeding comfortably alongside them are the sheep: Welsh Badger Face, Kerry Hills, Scotch Black Face, distinctive black Hebrideans and pretty Herdwicks and Swaledales.
In a field to themselves, ‘because of their horns’, are a herd of majestic Highland cattle, and the inspiration for the farm’s name, ‘The Horny Cow’. They are all hardy breeds and all well suited to the undulating fields of this semi-upland farm on the edge of the North York Moors.
Richard Lunn is a third-generation farmer and the custodian of 650 acres near Thornton le Dale. His father Ken, is semi-retired, but still lives on the farm and shows up most days. His son Jack is coming up behind, an enthusiastic apprentice.
The Lunn family farm supplies the top supermarkets with quality, grass fed beef and lamb, but it is the rare and heritage breeds that make it so special, meat that goes to top quality butchers, local restaurants and their own farm shop.
Lucy, Richard’s wife, runs the shop, newly fitted out with fridges and freezers stocked with meat: joints, steak, chops, mince along with vegetables, local rapeseed oil, Bracken Hill preserves and her own home baked scones and cakes.
Naturally the meat is the star. It all comes from their own animals, grazed just a few yards down the road, fed on grass and reared slowly for flavour. The animals remain outdoors for most of the year, well adapted to the weather and the geography. The cattle are brought inside only in the deep midwinter, when they have trampled the fields and with it the grass, then they feed on their own farm-grown silage.
Similarly, the hardy rare and heritage breed sheep live outdoors all year. They lamb outside and are free to roam the fields and feed on the farm’s verdant pastures. They are sold as lamb at 10-12 months old and over 12 months old as hogget, which provide a fuller, richer meat.
With all its rolling acres, Yorkshire is exceptionally good at producing top quality beef and lamb of which the Horny Cow is an outstanding example. These outdoor reared and grass-fed animals provide meat that is both nutritious and succulent, based not just on the breed but on the farm’s pastures of old and diverse grasses.
It is the best kind of meat you can buy, created from generations of knowledge, skill and good animal husbandry. If you follow the adage, eat less meat but better meat, then this is Yorkshire meat at its best.