Archived News

4th September 2008

Laurence finally rolled in at 5.30am!  He managed to cut the last of Peter’s wheat before the rain came.  The main problem during the night was that the men who were corn carting, couldn’t keep up and at 4am when Laurence wondered why one of the tractor’s wasn’t moving with a full trailer, he drove across to find the driver fast asleep!

It was a pleasure to welcome Helen Philips the Chief Executive of Natural England and Councillor Michael Sydney, Chairman of the Surrey Hills Board, to Manor Farm today as part of a tour of the Surrey Hills AONB. 

Councillor Michael Sydney, Helen Philips and Laurence.

Laurence gave a summary of Matthews’ family farming and diversification in Surrey.  We discussed the potential of a landscape scale approach to land management, which certainly seems an avenue worth exploring when endeavouring to manage and conserve large stretches of chalk downland habitat.  We also talked about school visits to Manor Farm which have helped to introduce ‘real farming’ to over 100 local children this summer and hopefully will continue, however it was acknowledged that funding for transport remains a major hurdle for schools arranging a farm visit.  We appreciated the opportunity to meet Helen Philips during her busy schedule within the Surrey Hills AONB.

The guinea fowl was making quite a racket this afternoon, she gives an excellent alarm call but I could see nobody through the window and went back to my desk.  A short while later I went out to collect eggs and found piles of white and black feathers just beneath the office window.  Foxy had killed our only two Bovan Nera hens from our original flock, plus one of the young white hens.  The fox was then seen chasing a hen across the yard at tea time and was chased away, but returned again within minutes, so we shut the hens away.  I saw him streak past again this evening with his distinctive white-tipped tail flying out behind him.  We are down to 16 birds, including guinea. We have to stop this fox.