Sheepdrove Organic Farm is a farm near Lambourn, West Berkshire, England. The farm gained a public profile when Juliet and Peter Kindersley took the UK government to court over its handling of the 2001 outbreak of

foot-and-mouth disease Foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) or hoof-and-mouth disease (HMD) is an infectious disease, infectious and sometimes fatal virus (biology), viral disease that primarily affects even-toed ungulates, including domestic and wild Bovidae, bovids. The vir ...

. They also campaigned for a different approach to the 2007 FMD outbreak. The Kindersleys established Sheepdrove Organic Farm during the late 1990s after the acquisition of land neighbouring their home at Sheepdrove Farmhouse. The holding was put through organic conversion under

Soil Association The Soil Association is a British registered charity focused on the effect of agriculture on the environment. It was established in 1946. Their activities include campaigning for local purchasing, public education on nutrition and certificat ...

UK certification and uses an organic rotation system with a broad range of livestock and crops and has a policy of

environmental sustainability Sustainability is a social goal for people to co-exist on Earth over a long period of time. Definitions of this term are disputed and have varied with literature, context, and time. Sustainability usually has three dimensions (or pillars): env ...

Location

The farm is situated on 900 hectares of chalk downland in an area that crosses the boundary of Oxfordshire and Berkshire, near the village of

Lambourn Lambourn is a village and civil parish in Berkshire, England. It lies just north of the M4 Motorway between Swindon and Newbury, and borders Wiltshire to the west and Oxfordshire to the north. After Newmarket it is the largest centre of r ...

. The local landscape is recognised as nationally important, being in the

North Wessex Downs The North Wessex Downs are an area of chalk downland landscapes located in the English counties of Berkshire, Hampshire, Oxfordshire and Wiltshire. The North Wessex Downs has been designated as a National Landscape (formerly known as Area of ...

Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty An Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB; , AHNE) is one of 46 areas of countryside in England, Wales, or Northern Ireland that has been designated for conservation due to its significant landscape value. Since 2023, the areas in England an ...

The business

It is a diversified farm, producing crops and livestock, processing and marketing its food, and with additional enterprises. On the site are Sheepdrove Event Venue, facilities for on-site butchery, organic herb plots, and rented housing. Sheepdrove Event Venue was opened in June 2004 by

Prince Charles Charles III (Charles Philip Arthur George; born 14 November 1948) is King of the United Kingdom and the 14 other Commonwealth realms. Charles was born at Buckingham Palace during the reign of his maternal grandfather, King George VI, and ...

. It has a timber frame, cedar roof shingles, wooden panel interiors, a wall made of re-utilised chalk and panels made of recycled plastic. The building gained the 2005 Special Award for Sustainable Architecture from the

Civic Trust Awards The Civic Trust Awards scheme is a British awards scheme to recognise outstanding architecture, planning and design in the built environment. It was established in 1959, and is the longest-standing built environment awards scheme in Europe. The ...

. The venue is licensed by

West Berkshire West Berkshire is a unitary authority in the ceremonial county of Berkshire, England. It is administered from Newbury by West Berkshire Council. History The district of Newbury was formed on 1 April 1974, as a merger of the borough of Newbur ...

for weddings. Projects at the farm include: * The reedbed water treatment system: waste water from the farm, conference centre, processing unit and houses is treated in the

constructed wetland A constructed wetland is an artificial wetland to treat sewage, greywater, stormwater runoff or Industrial wastewater treatment, industrial wastewater. It may also be designed for land reclamation after mining, or as a Flood mitigation, mitigatio ...

of a reedbed system. Sheepdrove has entered the Defra agri-environment schemes to help support farmland

biodiversity Biodiversity is the variability of life, life on Earth. It can be measured on various levels. There is for example genetic variability, species diversity, ecosystem diversity and Phylogenetics, phylogenetic diversity. Diversity is not distribut ...

including special measures to restore habitats such as Sheepdrove Rare Butterfly Project which aims to attract marsh fritillaries. The farm has records of 25 species of butterfly, 10 species of bee, 6 species of bat and 104 species of bird (including 5 types of owl). Notable plants include the goldilocks buttercup, field gromwell and Venus's looking-glass.

References

External links

*
Sheepdrove Trust entry at Opencharities.org
{{coord, 51.5339, -1.4837, display=title, region:GB_scale:5000 Farms in England Lambourn