Author Archives: Alan Green

R.I.Penny

At Sacrewell, we’re very realistic about the fact that we’re a farm and we keep and breed animals for food.

In that sense, we usually wouldn’t report on the death of an animals, but sometimes those animals find a special place in our hearts.

On Boxing Day, our beloved Rhode Island Red chicken, Penny, passed away. She was six-and-a-half years old, which is a pretty good innings for a chicken.

She stood out to the team at Sacrewell, and our visitors, because she was so mischevious-often taking the short cut through Reception to get to the other side of the farm (having discovered the automatic doors open on demand), or “begging” for scraps of food.

On Grow Your Own Day, Penny was often found digging up the seeds that had just been carefully planted, and pecking them down as a snack.

We know our visitors enjoyed Penny’s antics as much as we did, and she will be greatly missed.

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Sacrewell hits the small screen

See Sacrewell Mill as you’ve never seen it before in a new series that hits BBC Two on 5 January at 8pm.

In the first episode of Victorian Bakers, which was filmed at Sacrewell Mill, four professional bakers leave their businesses behind to find out how the early Victorians got their daily bread.

Using ingredients and methods from the 1830s, the bakers use heritage wheat and brewers’ yeast (sourced from The Grainstore Brewery in Oakham) to make bread and cakes by hand and baked in the wood fired oven in Sacrewell’s bakery.

Then as the programme explores the history of the trade and moves into the 1840s, which were plagued by poor harvests and a huge rise in the price of wheat, the bakers learn to use other grains, such as barley to bake bread.

The programme was filmed just as the £1.8m restoration project to the 18th century grade II* listed watermill, which was part funded by the HLF, was completed.

Mill Project Officer, Jane Harrison said: “As it was the first time the bakery was used after the project, it seemed very appropriate that it was for a programme that brought it back to life in such a traditional way.

“The problems discussed and the bread made will of course reflect exactly what was happening at Sacrewell in the 19th century and we were very fortunate to get to taste some of the bread that was produced.”

The three-part series will go on to look at other economic and industrial factors that effected the baking trade during the reign of Queen Victoria-including how the Industrial Revolution and an increase in consumerism changed the relationship between people and their food for good.

Ms Harrison added: “Sacrewell is part of The William Scott Abbott Trust, a charity formed in 1964 to try and reconnect people to their food again. The way people connected with, and bought their food, changed dramatically in the late 18th and early 19th centuries and has continued to grow apart ever since.

“We are delighted to be a part of something that may help people to understand where their food comes from, the methods and processes that wheat goes through to become a loaf of bread, and would encourage everyone to tune in to BBC Two on January 5th.”

Presenters Annie Gray and Alex Langlands at Sacrewell Mill

Prize draw winner

Congratulations to Felicity Dobbing who picked up first prize in our Christmas prize draw yesterday.

Hers was the first name to be pulled out of the box by our visitors yesterday lunch time.

We had nine prizes in total to give away-ranging from hampers of toys to place mats and real ales.

Congratulations to all our winners and a huge thank you to all our generous suppliers.

Winter Solstice

Today is the Winter Solstice and traditionally in the farming community, it was the last big feast before the lean winter set in.

It is celebrated when the sun is at its most southerly point, away from the North Pole.

The Winter Solstice has been an important day across the world for thousands of years, and in Scandanavia marks the 12 day Jul (Yule) celebration. Many Christmas traditions such as the Yule log and the Christmas tree were actually Pagan celebrations brought over from countries like Sweden, Denmark and Germany.

In Britain, Winter Solstice was a Druid celebration and people still visit Stonehenge in Wiltshire every year to celebrate it. It would coincide with a huge feast to mark the beginning of winter.

This is the time of year that wines and ales would be ready to drink, and the livestock would be fat enough to slaughter and eat.

As people didn’t have fridges or freezers to store food, they would fatten up for the winter and live on grains and other lean, easily stored food until the spring. Many believe that the feast of Christmas on 25 December, which by comparison is a relatively new celebration, is the evolution of the Winter Solstice feast started by our ancestors.

From today, the days will begin to get longer again until 21 June, which is the Summer Solstice and the longest day of the year.

Christmas Jumper Day

The teams at Sacrewell and Origin8 @ Sacrewell showed their support for other charities by taking part in the Text Santa Christmas Jumper Day on 18 December.

The events raises money for Save the Children, Make a Wish Foundation and MacMillan Cancer Support.

Marketing manager, Megan Allen said: “As a small charity ourselves we think it’s really important to support other charities-especially those helping children and families across the UK. We never know when we, or our members might need their support.”

To donate text SANTA5 or SANTA10 to 70760 to donate £5 or £10. Over 16s only.

Send Sacrewell this Christmas

Some of our favourite winter scenes at Sacrewell have been made into greetings cards for the Christmas season.

Artist Neen Sidnell from Sutton has worked with us to capture animals, winter scenes and lanscapes of Sacrewell for cards that are on sale in the shop.

Pictured below are a couple of our favourites for Christmas, but browse the collection to see Shire horses, goats and wildlife.

They’re on sale for £2.50 each.

A shed load of talent

Volunteer woodworker John Oliver has once again left us in awe of his abilities by building us a traditional chicken shed for the mill.

The portable shed is an old fashioned, based on lots of research by John, who designed it fro the wheels up.

It can house up to six chickens and in the new year, Sacrewell will be working with students from Peterborough Regional College to build a run to house them.

You can find it next to the vegetable patch at the mill, waiting for its new residents.

What’s new this Christmas?

We’re starting to get tinsel-toed for Christmas at Sacrewell, as we count down to the arrival of Father Christmas on 28 November.

For the first time this year, and on select dates, we will welcome Woodbine Reindeer.

General manager Debbie Queen says the team are really excited about the new feature.

“We went an visited the reindeer and were very keen to have them along.

“Woodbine look after them incredibly well and they are goingt to be a real assett to Sacrewell at Christmas.”

Watch our new video about Christmas at Sacrewell on YouTube.

Pupils lead the way at mill

The leadership team from Brewster Avenue School in Peterborough have visited Sacrewell to give their opinion on what activities we should be doing at the mill.

And no, we don’t mean a team of teachers, we mean their pupils.

Our Learning and Interpretation Officer, Nikki Cherry, took the group of children of all ages, who each represented their class and year group, on an in depth tour of our grade II* listed watermill.

She then asked them a number of questions about what they found most interesting, what surprised them and what they would like to show their friends.

Answers ranged from the machinery to the story of Jack, the young mill apprentice.

The information will be used to create learning activities and trails through the mill, to inspire future visitors.

A Sacrewell classic

The rain didn’t wash away the spirits of classic vehicle enthusiasts who held their first meet at Sacrewell on Sunday (8 November).

About 20 classic vehicles lined up for a breakfast meeting, including classics, American, Hot Rods, motorcycles and scooters.

The next meet will be in two weeks time (22 November) from 10am. For more informatin, please visit the group’s Facebook page.

100,000 strong

Exciting news! We’ve reached 100,000 visitors in 2015.

Hayley McAllister from Peterborough and her son Toby, popped in for a rainy day in the Playbarn and left with an annual membership to Sacrewell as our way of celebrating another record-breaking year at Sacrewell.

Hayley said it had made her day, and they made ours too.

It’s the first time we’ve ever had 100,000 visitors to Sacrewell and as an educational charity, our supporters mean we can carry on doing the great work we do.

Thank you to everyone who has visited us in 2015, from us all at Sacrewell and The William Scott Abbott Trust

Here are Hayley and Toby with our General Manager, Debbie.

Winter closure 2015-16

As well as being closed on Christmas Day, Boxing Day and New Year’s Day, we’ve decided to close Monday to Thursday for a few weeks in January.

We’ll be using the time wisely to do some deep cleaning, and adding a touch of paint to the areas in need.

The dates we’re closed are:

11-14 January
18-21 January
25-28 January

Members have already been contacted regarding how this will affect them.

Sacrewell Mill commended by HRH The Duke of Gloucester

The team at Sacrewell were delighted to welcome HRH The Duke of Gloucester to the visitor centre last week.

His Royal Highness officially commend Sacrewell Mill, which reopened after a £1.8m restoration project in July, and was given a tour of the 18th century grade II* listed building, which pointed out the work that had been completed with the help of the Heritage Lottery Fund.

Local dignitaries, staff, volunteers and the trustees of the William Scott Abbott Trust joined HRH aferwards for tea and cake in the cafe, where he unveiled a plaque and was presented with an artist’s impression of the restored mill by our chairman, Paul Hutton OBE.

HRH told the party that it was a pleasure to visit Sacrewell again and to see the great work the Trust is doing towards agricultural education. He emphasised how lucky we are to live in such a picturesque part of the country, and how vital small charities such as ours are in preserving our heritage.

Mill Project Officer Jane Harrison, who headed the project, was delighted with the afternoon’s events. She said: “It was a beautiful afternoon and HRH The Duke of Gloucester was able to see the mill at its very best. We were milling at the time and welcomed a group from Ravensthorpe School, who were making the most of the mill’s educational facilities.

“It was a pleasure to welcome HRH to Sacrewell and we thank him for his continued support.”

A pig in muck

No, we’re not referring to our Site Operations Manager, Richard, with the headline, but his role in awarding the British Lop Pig of the Year recently.

Sacrewell was proud to sponsor the competition this year, through the British Lop Pig Society, and Richard represented us at the prize giving in Melton Mowbray recently.

The prize was taken by Liskeard Lulu 24th, bred by Julian Collings and family which was Described as “a lovely, October born, in-pig gilt looking in her absolute prime.”

Giles Eustice took home the prize for Reserve Lop Of The Year with Bezurrell Supreme 11.

British Lop Pigs are a rare breed close to our hearts at Sacrewell. Ada, our sow, is a British Lop and we’ve successfully raised a few litters of piglets through our links with the Goosetree Herd.

A full report can be read on the British Lop Pig Society website.

Congratulations to everyone who took part.

The Harvest Moon

Today is the first day of Autumn in the Northern Hemisphere.

Autumn traditionally starts on the Equinox, the one day in September that the hours of day and night are equal. From now until the Spring Equinox in March, the nights will be longer than the days, with the shortest day being on the Winter Solstice, 21 December.

The Equinox is a Pagan festival, which was passed down through the genertaions, and when farming began about 6,500 years ago, coincided with the end of the harvest and the harvest festival.

The full moon closest to the equinox is called the Harvest Moon and this is when farmers set their deadline to have all their crops harvested.

This year’s Harvest Moon is on Sunday night to Monday morning, the 27 – 28 September and coincides with the Harvest Festival here at Sacrewell. It’s also a Super Blood Moon, which means it’s the biggest full moon of the year and a slightly red colour when it rises.

Sacrewell works with Peterborough Astronomical Society on a number of events throughout the year, including an autumn Star Party, which is on 17 October from 5.30pm – 9pm.

Phil Shepherd from the society explains: “A Blood Moon or  ‘Lunar Eclipse’ occurs when three things coincide: Earth passes between the Sun and the Moon; the Moon is closest to the Earth and the moon is full.

“A red shadow is then cast on the Moon making it look an orange-red colour. The colour comes from our atmosphere filtering the green to violet colours of the Sun, casting the remaining red onto the Moon.

“The Moon has an elliptical orbit around us (it is not a perfect circle) so on occasions, it is slightly nearer to the Earth. This is often called a Super Moon and appears about 14 per cent larger.”

At this year’s Harvest Festival on Saturday and Sunday we’re concentrating on celebrating our apples.

Nigel Venni, who manages Sacrewell Farm land farmed by our tenants, Riverford, says it has been a great year for apples. In fact, Riverford are sending out apples picked from their orchard at Sacrewell for the first time this year.

“It’s been a good season. It was warm and we had rain at the right times.

“In fact, most of our crops have done very well this year. On a farm that has more than 35 varieties of organic vegetables, you’re bound to lose something and this year it was the summer leeks but everything else has thrived.”

Keep an eye on our Facebook and Instagram pages for the latest autumn updates from Sacrewell.

Horse play

Being a fire fighter means you sometimes have to deal with tricky customers, as members of the crew from Dogsthorpe Fire Station Blue Watch recently found out.

They came to Sacrewell for Animal Rescue Two training, handling goats, sheep, Shetland ponies and Shire horses.

The crew at Dogsthorpe are one of only three teams in the county who are trained to handle animal rescue call-outs, covering an area that reaches as far as Huntingdon.

Fire fighter Vicky Best who organised the training said: “It was really good and we all got something out of it.

“Not all of us are confident in handling animals, especially large horses so we’ve now all had practice with the halters.

“Most of the call outs we get are for horses, but there’s the potential to be called out for any animal at any time.”

Fire fighter Kevin Gilbert with Macy

Video: Scorching summer at Sacrewell

What did you get up to this summer?

Here at Sacrewell we had a record-breaker, thanks to the support of thousands of visitors, who popped in to the centre during the school holidays.

To show you a little bit of what we do, here’s a video of our summer at Sacrewell.

Sacrewell sets regional trend

Here at Sacrewell we’re celebrating our most successful summer on record, following the announcement of an overall growth in the sector across the region last year.

Last week, Visit England announced that visitor attractions in the East of England had the biggest increase in visitor numbers across the country in 2014, with heritage and farming attractions at the forefront with a 10 per cent rise.

Sacrewell, which is part of the William Scott Abbott Trust, had record footfall numbers last year, but following the opening of its 18th Century grade II* listed watermill in July has increased its reach even further this year.

Marketing executive Megan Allen explains: “We welcomed 21,371 visitors through the door throughout the summer holidays this year, compared to 17,647 in the same time frame last year.

“It already looks like we’ll be setting another record in 2015, thanks to our wonderful visitors.”

Sacrewell puts the opening of the mill, as well as its fun and educational summer activities down to its popularity throughout the summer.

“Having spent £1.8m restoring the watermill thanks to part-funding from the Heritage Lottery Fund, we really do offer something for all age groups. Adults are just as fascinated with the story of the mill as children are. It’s great to have captured everyone’s imaginations,” Megan added.

As more farms diversify to become farm or heritage attractions, the regional growth is a testimony to the hard work put in by educational agricultural charities such as the William Scott Abbott Trust, which was formed 51 years ago.

General manager Debbie Queen says the team are very proud in the increase in footfall and awareness of the charity and its aims.

“I think the figures speak volumes toward what the team here achieves and having an attraction like the watermill only adds to the great offer we have here,” she said.

“An increase like this means that we can start to look towards the future of Sacrewell and plan equally as exciting projects to continue to capture that audience and keep spreading the word about our heritage, food and farming.”

Adults free after 3pm

It’s oh so quiet, it’s oh so still, we’re all so calm, and so peaceful until…3pm, when Sacrewell’s back to school offer kicks in.

Until half-term we’re allowing adults into Sacrewell for free after 3pm on Monday to Friday, so that you can make the most of our great facilities.

Grab a cuppa from Origin8 @ Sacrewell and put your feet up in the Playbarn while the younger generation run around and burn off some energy.

We’re open until 5pm every day and while the nights are light there’s still lots to explore, including our 18th century grade II* watermill.

Under twos visit for free. Offer ends on 16 October.

Sacrewell scoops prizes at Wansford show

Volunteers from Sacrewell entered a number of categories at last weekend’s Wansford Horticultural Show, and came away victorious.

Coming out top was Neil Hoffmann, who came first in the tree category in the photography competition with this snap of Sacrewell in winter.

Sacrewell volunteers were awarded a 2nd place for their runner beans and a 3rd place for cherry tomatoes, which were grown in the garden behind the old farmhouse.

They were up against about 12 other entrants in each class, so were pleased with the outcome.

Neil said: “Next year, hopefully we’ll be able to build on our success and try and achieve a first.”

Well done to all those involved in the show.

Looking to the past to build Sacrewell’s future

We’re very proud to introduce our new general manager, who is using her international visitor experience knowledge to push Sacrewell into a new era.

Debbie Queen, who hails from the USA but has lived and worked in Scotland and Wales for more than a decade, has big plans for the centre as part of its ongoing development.

Having worked at the National Trust for the last 11 years, Debbie says she is looking forward to bringing her ideas to the post.

“Sacrewell is a good match for my skills, experience and passion,” she added.

“There are huge development opportunities here. It’s a very exciting time to join the team.”

Last year Sacrewell, which is owned by the William Scott Abbott Trust, rebranded to expand its appeal to the wider community, and in July reopened its fully restored 18th century grade II* working watermill through a £1.8m project part-funded by the HLF.

But, these developments are just the tip of the iceberg, and Debbie has already started the ball rolling for further development of the site and the team of staff and volunteers who run the centre.

She said: “I want to bring out the very best of the team, because they are the biggest asset here. I want utilise their knowledge and passions for the charity.

“William Scott Abbott was very clear about why he wanted to set up the trust and I want us to carry on that mission.

“Sacrewell has so much to offer our community, and tourists from further afield.”

And Debbie’s past experience holds her in good stead to achieve her ambitions. Her most recent post was as the general manager at Erddig Hall near Wrexham where she fronted the Erddig Glow, a Christmas illuminations event which lit up the site and attracted hundreds of visitors.

She said: “I wouldn’t have made the move from my beloved Wales if there wasn’t great potential at Sacrewell. It was a big decision and one we are very happy to have made.”

Debbie has moved to the nearby village of Wansford with her husband Brian, a nature conservation consultant, and is planning on spending her spare time exploring the area through their mutual love of heritage, conservation, walking and sailing.

To contact Debbie, please e-mail info@sacrewell.org.uk or call 01780 782254.

Back to basics

Sacrewell got back to basics with a group of children from Kings Cliffe and Nassington recently, when they came along to do a den building activity.

Using materials they could find in our woodland, pallets, sacking and a lot of string, the group aged between six and 11 from youth club Underground, spent one-and-a-hours designing and building their own woodland retreats.

We think they did a fantastic job.

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Mill opening

We’ve had some great feedback from the opening of Sacrewell Mill last Friday and the visitor book in the mill house is already filling up with some lovely comments.

On the Friday we held a press opening for journalists, bloggers and photographers to come along and meet the people behind the project and have a tour of the mill.

The Rutland and Stamford Mercury focused on the reaction of people who used to live and work at Sacrewell in its article, which we thought we would share.

Thanks to everyone who has visited so far for their encouraging and thoughtful comments.

The British blues

Not only do we have a litter of 10 rare breed piglets to meet this summer, we have just bought two British Blue Cross heifers.

The calves are only one month old and will be reared by our rangers in the Animal Village until they’re old enough to go outside and graze.

Not yet named, the calves are a British Blue/Fresian cross usually raised for meat, although we would like to keep them to breed with and to graze our paddocks.

The calves are stabled in the Animal Village, and you can watch a video of them meeting our summer intern, Jack: