Franklin Farm

Hampshire

Our family small holding on the Hampshire Downs has been converted from arable plough to herb-rich chalk grassland, grazed by our herd of English Longhorns. Around the pasture we have planted native oak, field maple and hazel coppice woodland and dug a series of dew ponds.

Barn owls, swallows, bees, toads and newts thrive on the dew ponds, hay meadows and coppice woodland. Productive walled gardens, orchards and farmyards surround the old farmhouse. A sunken grass spiral curls out to a turf burial mound in the field that looks south to the Isle of Wight.