The Farmers Mart Autumn 2017 - Issue 52 | Page 82

Intake Farm We are proud to be associated with Robert Ventress for over 20 years Agricultural & Rural Supplies Malton Country Store - 01653 600328 carrs-billington.com Legal Services For Your Business • • • • • Agricultural Law Property Law Probate & Wills Advice for the Elderly Inheritance Tax Planning & Trusts • • • • • Family Law Civil Litigation Insolvency Debt Recovery Employment Law Providing the Yorkshire Coast with expert legal advice for over 75 years 64 Westborough, Scarborough Tel: [phone] Bridlington Street, Hunmanby, Filey Tel: [phone] Baxtergate, Whitby Tel: [phone] Quay Road, Bridlington Tel: [phone] Exchange Street, Driffield Tel: [phone] pinkneygrunwells.co.uk e [email protected] Find us on Facebook Twitter @PGlawyers Instagram @pinkneygrunwells Pinkney Grunwells Lawyers LLP is authorised and regulated by the Solicitors Regulation Authority 65145 - H H Smith & Son - 8TH.pdf 1 27/07/2017 10:41:55 C M Y CM MY CY CMY K H.H. SMITH & SON Taking care of our customers & their Animals for generations H.H. Smith and Son Whitby are pleased to be associated with Robert Ventress of Intake Farm and wish him well for the future. Tel: [phone] Mob: [phone] Wood Hill House, Ugthorpe, Whitby, North Yorkshire, YO21 2BP 82 Autumn 2017 www.farmers-mart.co.uk Hill farming mix of boots, bleats and beef Chris Berry visits Robert & Judith Ventress in Littlebeck » » WHILE VENTRESS IS perhaps best known for a fictional police character in the TV series, Heartbeat, it is the beautiful hamlet of Littlebeck, just off Blue Bank near Sleights where you’ll find the real life Ventress family. Robert and Judith run a sheep, cattle and B&B accommodation enterprise from Intake Farm where they have 390 acres of mostly steep and permanent grassland, which includes 20 acres of woodland that provides shelter belts. It is predominantly Less Favoured Area and has disadvantaged land status. They have a herd of around 60 suckler cows and 450 breeding ewes. The cattle regime changed from rearing bull beef to producing stores and fat cattle in more recent times. ‘We were struggling to get the cattle to the weight supermarkets wanted them at by 16 months so we now sell as stores at Ruswarp livestock market or to either Dawn Meats at Carnaby or sometimes Malton livestock market. There have been some good sales for the North East Yorkshire Suckled Calf Association at Ruswarp. Our calves go as stores between 10- 12 months with bullocks going at 18-20 months and heifers at two years if going to Dawn Meats,” says Robert. ‘We have quite a few Simmental X cows as well as Limousin X and Angus X dairy cows. We bought an Angus bull three years ago. He’s good for putting on our Simmental heifers and we also have a Simmental bull. Our calving is mainly around February and March but we have a few in September and October. We’ve always had suckler cows since 1971 when my mum and dad, Joyce and Henry, came here. I was 16 at the time. This had been my great uncle Robert’s farm previously and my granddad John’s until 1928. ‘There was a time when milk was produced and churns taken down to the main road by