A Year on the Estate: 2024 in Review

APRIL

After a distinctly grotty winter, the ground was finally dry enough for Paul to prepare for ploughing and spring drilling. South Ormsby Hall was completely empty for perhaps the first time in centuries and Damian captured the spectacle for posterity.

Rt Hon Victoria Atkins, MP for Louth and Horncastle, visited the Estate. “At South Ormsby Estate, we’re building a thriving local economy,” said Jon. “We’re working hard on initiatives to support local businesses, create job opportunities and attract investment to our area. By taking the lead in these efforts, we can help our MP to build a stronger, more prosperous community.”

Joshua and Charlie made a working visit to Waltham Windmill to see our organic Ladum spring wheat being turned into flour the old-fashioned way. Charlie also told us all about life as a Trainee Poultry Manager: “I liked seeing the whole farm-to-fork process and I’m quite passionate about it. People are often disconnected from what they eat. I enjoy eating something I know I’ve cared for. I think more customers care about this sort of thing now.”

Life was stirring out on the land. Paul told us all about our part in the Pulse PEP project and the benefits of nitrate-fixing without recourse to synthetic fertilisers.

MAY

Conditions continued to be challenging out on the land; the 18 months up to this point had been the wettest since records began. We never expected to be so chuffed to see dust in the air when the arable team set to work.

The Conservation Club were also doing their bit and Vanessa Heatherley told us all about it: “It’s a very sociable experience. You meet new people and you natter as you work. You also pick-up some good know-how with each new task that can come in handy in your own garden.”

The plan to bring Lincolnshire growers, millers and bakers together was gaining traction and the bread produced from our flour tasted as good as it looked and smelled. We caught up with Ralph Gilsenan from Grain of Truth Bakers to find out more. “I love being in touch with what goes into your bread,” said Ralph. “I think it fulfils a primal urge in us. It restores something that’s missing. It’s a bit like the pleasure you can get from growing your own fruit and vegetables.”

We played our part in the Lincolnshire Wolds Outdoor Festival and enjoyed sharing our biodiverse working countryside with friends both old and new. One exciting new addition to the tour programme was our fledgling vineyard, and we’re confident that everyone enjoyed the wine-tasting.

The Lincoln Red herd’s new calves began to appear, the first, a heifer, greeting the world on 8^th May.

JUNE

While spring had felt and looked cool, appearances were deceptive. The Met Office reported that despite above-average rainfall for 2024 to date, the UK had experienced its warmest meteorological spring since records began in 1884.

The farming year was flying by and Lamyman Grange Contractors hoovered and cleaned the grain stores ready for the harvest. The arable team drilled both the winter-forage mix for our cattle and our winter bird-food areas ahead of a heavy summer downpour.

Jim Lennon and Adrian Blackburn gave some of our nesting boxes the once over and found a healthy tally of barn owls and tawny owls. They were helped by new graduate Chloe who told us all about her emotional encounter with wild birds. “It was quite an experience to see barn owl chicks up close and I got quite teary,” said Chloe. “In fact, it’s opened a can of worms. It inspired me to meet up with a specialist and start training to be a bird-ringer in my own right.”

JULY

Gemma hatched a plan to recruit thousands of unpaid and highly industrious new workers for the Estate. Helped by Will Hamilton of The Lincolnshire Wolds Honey Company, our existing colony of honey bees would be moved and expanded.

Will did a talk on bee conservation for the Saturday Club and shared his insights in a blog. “Honey bees form model societies,” said Will. “They’re a collective organism in which females lead and do the work. Workers will sacrifice themselves for the greater good. They’re not entirely domesticated and not entirely wild. You can move them around but you can’t completely control them. It’s a bit like being a shepherd. You can relocate them but they forage for themselves.”

With harvest season getting closer, the hard-working team from McArthur BDC renewed the intake and out-take conveyors from the bin storage system.  They also installed a new pre-cleaner cyclone that would use ducted air-flow and centrifugal force to remove dust, chaff and any weed-seed from the harvested crops ahead of storage.

AUGUST

We caught up with Josh Bryssau, an alumnus of our graduate programme, who was busy supervising our beef operations at British Superbikes events while preparing a birdlife-tracking initiative. “This is South Ormsby Estate so naturally my role has expanded,” said Josh. “I’ve recently helped to clean out the Hall prior to major work there and I’m now looking at audio-visual wildlife hides. Birdsong analysers have gone up around the Estate and from those we’ll build up a database on which species are out there. This will give us an idea of how well our agricultural approach is doing, and perhaps feed into wildlife experiences too.”

We also got acquainted with new graduate trainee Sarah Tutt who told us all about marketing, honey bees, horse-riding, skippering the hockey team, being a young farmer and more. “The South Ormsby Estate graduate scheme has been amazing so far,” said Sarah. “I’m excited to get to try all sorts of opportunities, some of which I’ve never been able to try before. I start my cattle placement in a few weeks, where I will be trading my trainers in for steel-toecap boots.”

We launched a series of Birdlife Discovery Tours and rolled out our BirdWeather acoustic sensors, which have given us an invaluable insight into local biodiversity. On one day in late August, our monitors picked up the red-listed spotted flycatcher 779 times.

SEPTEMBER

We welcomed Herd Manager Philip Taylor to the team and he told us all about his big move from the Karoo in South Africa to the Lincolnshire Wolds. “My four-year-old, Luke has just started school and he’s loving it. He comes to the office every morning to say hello and do some colouring. Because he’s a proper South African, he’s bound to invite you to a barbecue sooner or later.”

Sean Dunderdale of BBC Radio Lincolnshire visited the Estate and chatted with some of our key players. “8% of our farmed area we put down to wildlife,” said Paul Barnes. “We’re planting more hedgerows and it’s going to bring more birds in. I refer to it as Kevin Costner did in ‘Field of Dreams’: ‘Build it and they will come’ and it’s fantastic. We’ve been monitoring the birds since 2022 and we’ve seen numbers increase year on year with the farming practices we do. “

Work to boost biodiversity in South Ormsby Hall’s Lake entered its final phase, inspired by good ideas from both the 18th and 21st centuries. Out on the arable land, the team performed wonders, wrapping up 2024’s harvest after a growing season defined by topsy-turvy weather with an awful lot of rainfall.

OCTOBER

The Saturday Club cracked on with autumnal jobs including checking bird boxes for usage and harvesting walnuts and other fruit, some of which would find its way into a seasonal special gin.

At the Lake, the stones that would form the new wildlife-friendly weir were placed with a large digger, a job demanding skill and finesse. The lower pool was holding water and the new header wall was in place.

Paul Barnes was pictured with Ralph Gilsenan at Lincoln’s Grain of Truth Bakery celebrating the first delivery of our wholemeal wheat flour. Ralph used it to bake the wonderfully tasty South Ormsby sourdough loaf. Our own flour also went on sale at the Walkers’ Cabin.

We welcome new graduate trainee Mia Bojen-Taylor to the team. “I studied French and Spanish at the University of Warwick and I speak those languages fluently plus German and English,” said Mia. “Speaking four romance languages to a high level also means I can understand other languages like Dutch, Flemish and Italian.”

Due to a notable solar maximum, we were treated to a rare and vivid light display from the aurora borealis.

NOVEMBER

With summer a distant memory and winter approaching, we spread a little seasonal cheer by donating Norfolk Black turkeys to the Alford Storehouse Church Food Bank, the Skegness Storehouse and the Salvation Army in Louth.

We caught up with Philip Taylor as he prepared the Lincoln Red herd for winter. “We’ve got our allotted winter-grazing fields and we plan according to how they handle water,” said Philip. “While it’s still mild and dry, we start the winter grazing on the low-lying fields most susceptible to standing water. We keep the higher, dryer fields for the colder, wetter parts of the season.”

We also enjoyed a fascinating conversation with Daniel Shabetai of Marcus Beale Architects about the complex refurbishment work underway at South Ormsby Hall. “18th-century building standards aren’t necessarily better or worse than our standards today,” said Daniel. “But they were certainly different. Technology differed massively, for one thing. For another, people wore more clothes and had no concept of being warm in winter. Even a wealthy country squire back then would have expected to be cold indoors unless they were a few feet from an open fire.”

At the Lake, footings were in for the boat-house, a beautiful timber foot-bridge had been built over the beck, and the water was restored to its normal height and was flowing beautifully over the completed weir.

DECEMBER

Winter looked set to be wet and wild again, with noteworthy storms passing over the UK in quick succession in late November and early December. The Birdweather gave us more cheer, however, with healthy figures for seasonal migrants like redwings and fieldfares attracted here by our winter-fruiting trees and shrubs.

We were also looking ahead to summers to come as they will bring our grapes a wee bit closer to maturity. In spring 2023, we planted 12,600 grape vines close to the Old Rectory to create an 8.9-acre organic vineyard. When our vineyard is ready, we’ll be producing exceptional English wine. This month, we began offering our friends and followers the chance to get personally involved by sponsoring individual vines in exchange for a range of exclusive wines, tastings, perks and previews.

Jacqui maintained her Christmas tradition of visiting the grave of the Squire, Adrian Massingberd-Mundy, who died in 2012. Jacqui knew the Squire well and remembers him fondly. Colin put together a beautiful, seasonal wreath and he and Jacqui left it at the Squire’s resting place at St Leonard’s overlooking our beautiful parkland.

We hope you’ve enjoyed our brisk gallop through 2024. If you’d like to share your views on anything you’ve read here, join in the conversation on Facebook. We’ll see you next year.

* Spotted flycatcher image by hedera.baltica via Flickr CC