May 2020 at Stourton

Stourton does home delivery!

We are having some great weather and we hope that you are managing to get cracking with those garden projects that have been building up since last year.

If you have kids at home and want to make their play area safer we offer a couple of different types or play accredited chip or bark.  You can choose from either standard playchip or the slightly more rustic looking pine nuggets.  Both chip types are available in 0.7m³ builders’ bags with prices starting from £60 and £70 respectively.

After you’ve ordered your landscaping products why not order some delicious venison which can be delivered at the same time?

Our venison home delivery sales are going from strength to strength and we have added a couple of new mixed packs into our range for you to try.

Joining our great value BBQ pack we have;

• The Venison Family Selection Pack which, for only £35 includes;
  • a small haunch joint, perfect for an alternative Sunday roast,
  • a pack of casserole steak,
  • mince; and
  • sausages

This pack is great for feeding a hungry family.  There are at least 4 meals here and you can simply replace your usual beef, lamb or pork in your family favourites with any of the above.

• The Venison Steak Selection, for only £29, includes;
  • 2 x Sirloin,
  • 2x Rump,
  • 2 x Haunch; and
  • Braising Steak

The sirloins, rump and haunch steaks are great for a BBQ.  They are easy to prepare and quick to cook for a delicious and healthy alternative to beef.  The braising steak is a great alternative to beef or lamb in a slow cook recipe.

If you want some recipe inspiration please don’t hesitate to visit our recipe gallery, plus we pop a couple of recipe cards into every order.

We are offering contact and £ FREE delivery within 20 miles of our office postcode on all orders over £25. 

If you aren’t sure whether you qualify for free delivery or have any questions about any of our products please contact us.

On the Estate

At present we obviously can’t deliver any of the events we had planned but we are still busy keeping the arboretum and surrounding areas tidy and putting improvements in place for the time when we can safely re-open.

As spring has well and truly sprung we are busy keeping vegetation under control around the estate.  We are mowing rides as well as weeding and tidying the arboretum.  As our events are growing in terms of visitor numbers we realise that we need to improve our access into the car park.  We are planning to put better signage in place as well as creating a new one-way system into and out of the car park for our larger events.

Our team are tidying up our winter wind fallen trees and branches and making safe any dangerous trees.  We are also looking at making some benches out of fallen timber which we will scatter around the estate and in the arboretum.

We have also been sprucing up the footpaths across the farm, our permissive routes have been mown and permanent routes marked where they cross arable fields. It has been great recently to see people out and about responsibly enjoying the great British countryside. We are lucky that our area has a good network of public footpaths, a map of which can be found here.

Weddings at Stourton

We know that lots of people have had to postpone or cancel their wedding plans for this year.  If you are planning a wedding or have to re-make plans please consider our beautiful venue for your reception.

We can offer a truly unique rustic woodland wedding experience and a setting which the happy couple and their guests will never forget.  We offer a great value package for 80 day time (and up to 120 night time guests).

We are taking bookings for 2021 and 2022 and are currently holding our 2020 prices.  We understand at the moment that coming to look around is not possible, so you can secure your date with a deposit which we will then refund if you change your mind when you have had the chance to visit us.

If you have any questions about weddings or party hire please don’t hesitate to contact us, we’d love to talk you through what we can offer.

On the Farm

Well what a bizarre season we are having.  If you had come to us in the middle of March and said we would be crying out for rain by the middle of April and positively praying for rain by the middle of May we would probably have thought you were mad! The 2020 harvest season will go down in history as one of the most difficult seasons for weather that we have seen.

October drilled winter wheat is now ‘splitting the boot’ (ears/heads are emerging), and all crops on farm are moving quickly through their growth stages in response to drought stress. The dry spring has meant that spring sown crops are patchy, particularly on our heavy land which baked as soon as the seed drill had been in the field. That being said, we are pleased with our sugar beet and spring oat crops which have both established well.  Oli is busy spraying fungicides on spring and winter cereals as well as herbicides to control broad-leaved weeds in sugar beet and Ken has been busy in the workshop making a new gate for the farm entrance.

Away from the farm we are following government discussions on the agriculture bill and the US-UK trade deal very closely. These are interesting times in terms of agricultural trade. The most concerning element for us and a great deal of other rural businesses centers on the comparison between our high domestic production and animal welfare standards, and those practices used in countries we are negotiating trade deals with. We feel it is very important to uphold our own standards in any deal as well as ensuring that we are not undercut by imports produced to lesser standards. This brief article by the National Farmers Union and Which lays out briefly this concern.

That rounds up the farm ‘blog’ for the time being.  Hopefully there will soon be some rain on the horizon, however history tells us to be careful what we wish for as far as mother nature is concerned…

Deer Diary

Thanks to Chris Frick we have our first forage crop cut, baled and safely in storage for our deer’s winter feed.  The forage is a herbal mix rich in variety and nutrients and is a firm favourite with our deer in the months where grazing is thinner on the ground.

The deer look really well at the minute; they have almost lost their winter coats and the stags’ antlers are growing back. The Yearling Hinds are playful and enjoy racing around their enclosure just for fun!

Winston’s impressive 24 point, 2019 season antlers aren’t going to waste.  We are auctioning them off to help to raise much needed funds for St Swinthin’s Church, Baumber. For more information about this please checkout our facebook page.

The last few weeks have seen us preparing for the arrival of the deer calves.  We have been moving deer into the right enclosures before calving, separating the expectant mothers from the rest of the herd so they can calve in peace. This is a juggling act as we have to make sure that the mothers and their young are in an area of the parkland where they will have enough grazing to last them until September as we can’t move them until the calves are strong enough to run with the rest of the herd. The dry weather we are currently enjoying means that the grass isn’t growing as much as we would like. If we need to, we will provide supplementary feed of beef nuts but we don’t want to start giving them their newly baled winter feed this early! We hope that Oli’s rain dance works!

Some of our deer calves have now arrived – have you seen some of the images on social media last week?

We hope to be able to let you know sometime soon when and if we may be able to re-open and which events will be still running this year.  In the meantime please continue to keep safe.

We hope to see you soon

Antony and Helen