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Foot and Mouth was spur for dairy farm to diversify into holidays


Alison and Darren Reed, with Classic Cottages’ Anna Gibson and their son Seb on their farm in Broadwoodkelly.

After losing its entire dairy herd to Foot and Mouth, a North Devon farm has turned to high-end holiday letting to boost business.

In 2001, life was turned upside down for the Reed family, who have owned Park Farm in Broadwood Kelly since 1917.

The successful beef, sheep and dairy farm was just two farms away from one of the first sites of the original Foot and Mouth outbreak, and although they held out longer than many neighbouring farms the inevitable eventually happened and fourth-generation farmer Darren Reed had to destroy the family’s 150 dairy cows and 150 sheep.

“My parents never spoke about that day again,” said Darren. “When the farm was condemned they went inside the house and didn’t want to come out again. I helped the Ministry staff with the animals as I felt it was important that they were handled by someone they were used to.

“You get to know your dairy cows very well milking them twice a day. It was very emotional and incredibly upsetting for us all, and by far the worst thing that has ever happened to the farm.”

After losing their entire herd, the Reed family took the difficult decision to give up dairy farming for good. Since then however, fortunes have improved for Darren and his family – they now have 320 continental beef cattle, a small herd of pedigree Limousins and fatten 1,000 hoggs each year.

Darren and his wife Alison, an equine vet he met in 2004, have also diversified with the purchase of Moorhayes, a neighbouring traditional linhay barn, transforming it into a self-catering holiday property which is now bringing in a valuable second income stream for the family.

“My parents had always had their eye on Moorhayes but with no real plans for how to use it. It wasn’t suitable for modern farming purposes, so Alison and I thought we might be able to turn it into a holiday property instead.

“The first thing we did was speak to Anna Gibson at Classic Cottages, who already marketed properties for several people we know. We wanted an honest opinion on whether we could make it work before we even applied for planning, otherwise it would just be a waste of money.”

When Anna, who is one of the Classic Cottages Property Managers covering North Devon and North Cornwall, came to view Moorhayes she immediately saw its potential, but knew it would have to be done right to be a success.

“Moorhayes is in the middle of nowhere – miles from the coast, no nearby tourist attractions, and it doesn’t even have a local pub – so to make it appeal to holiday makers it was imperative that it be high end to stand out from the crowd,” Anna explained.

“Darren and Alison understood that and were willing to invest in it, so I wrote a letter of recommendation to the planning committee explaining the need for such a property in this part of Devon.”

Darren added: “We really took Anna’s advice on board, particularly when it came to the layout of the property and having two bedrooms and two bathrooms rather than trying to squeeze in three bedrooms. It definitely wouldn’t look as good as it does, or be as popular with guests, if it wasn’t for Anna.”

Planning permission was granted in 2011, and work was completed by local builder Glynn Sutton over 10 months in 2012. Moorhayes started welcoming its first guests in May 2013, and Anna says it is now one of Classic Cottages’ most popular properties.

“Initially I estimated 20 weeks of letting a year, because it was a bit of an unknown as a holiday destination. This year Moorhayes is already booked for 25 weeks and if it continues at this rate it could reach 35, which would put it in the top 20 per cent of properties on our books, performing better than many of our coastal cottages.”

For Darren and Alison, who have two young sons, Leo, 6 and Seb, 3, investing in the renovation of Moorhayes has been the best decision they could have made for the business.

“The cost of purchasing and renovating the barn and landscaping the land was £170,000 in total,” said Alison, who looks after Park Farm’s accounts. “It’s already more than covering its costs and the amount of bookings we’ve had has completely exceeded our expectations. Agricultural land prices are so high that if we’d spent the money on that we would never see a return on it in our lifetime.”

“For anyone in a similar situation, I would definitely recommend looking at the possibility of converting a farm building into a holiday let – just make sure you do what we did and follow the advice of a specialist from start to finish to make sure you get it right,” added Alison.

“Anna has been amazing, the advice she has given has been invaluable and she is always on hand to answer any questions. We couldn’t have done it without her.”

Moorhayes is marketed by Classic Cottages, www.classic.co.uk


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