The Farmers Mart Dec-Jan 2019 - Issue 60 | Page 56

56 HIGH SNAPE FARM
DEC/JAN 2019 • farmers-mart.co.uk
TOP GUNS IN THE
MASHAM WORLD
AIM HIGH AGAIN
Chris Berry talks with Chris & Amanda
Douthwaite in Kirkby Overblow.
SHOOTING for the top has always been
in the Douthwaite family’s DNA whether
breeding quality sheep that sell well or in
clay pigeon shooting, Chris Douthwaite
having represented England on the world
stage, and latterly in 2018 through Chris’
daughter Amanda’s success at the Great
Yorkshire Show and at many others be-
sides with their Mashams.
Amanda had swapped competing with
horses for sheep three years ago after a
bad fall broke her elbow. She had shown
sheep with her father previously, but
having suffered the injury her competitive
instinct was to see her transfer her equine
energy to something somewhat smaller on
four legs without quite the danger associat-
ed with one-day eventing.
‘Being a competitive person I needed
something else and the Mashams have
taken over,’ says Amanda. ‘Dad had a
Great Yorkshire Show champion in 1998
but it seemed ever since I’ve been around
we had always been pipped at the post.
In 2017 we were placed second so many
times it was very frustrating so we set out
our stall for 2018.’
The Douthwaite brothers had to set their
own stall out farming-wise from a young
age and similarly their grandfather had
stepped up to the plate years before when
faced with a dilemma that saw him have to
up sticks from west of Harrogate to south
of the town.
Chris, his brother Alan and Chris’ son
James farm across 200-owned acres at
High Snape Farm, Kirkby Overblow, anoth-
er 200 acres at Menwith Hill and a further
115 acres at Delves Bridge near Blubber-
houses as well as other parcels of land and
fields around Kirkby Overblow. It’s quite
a family community at the home farm of
High Snape.
‘I live here with my wife Debbie,’ says
Chris. ‘Alan lives in the house next door on
the farm across the yard, and our sister
Linda is also in another building across the
yard with her children Marcus and Daniel-
la. In the 1950s our granddad Cyril Douth-
waite owned the land right where the ‘golf
balls’ are now situated on Menwith Hill.
The MoD took it off him by compulsory
purchase and although he kept some of
the land as a tenant with what he was paid
out he bought this farm from Harewood
Estate.’
‘Alan and I had to take over the running
of the farm when our dad Donald died of
cancer of the throat in 1987 when he was
only 50. We were thrown in at the deep
end but it’s not done as any harm.’
‘Our farming business today includes 150
acres of arable land here at Kirkby Over