Helen has been farming animals for many years in South Devon, after training in animal husbandry at Seale Hayne Agricultural College. She is completely committed to the health and well-being of her animals, allowing them to grow naturally and happily in the Devon countryside.
The proper, old-fashioned, true flavour of traditional pork has been sacrificed over the years as supermarkets have encouraged farmers to raise faster growing and much less tasty breeds.
These modern, intensively raised breeds produce noticeably paler meat with hugely inferior flavour which lacks the succulence of our traditional, native breeds of British pig.
Helen farms only traditional breeds. All the piglets on her farm near Buckfastleigh are produced by crossing her Saddleback sows with her very own Welsh White boar. A policy of late-weaning and careful feeding allows for a slower and natural growth rate which in turn produces her much sought-after Proper Pork.
The timeless tranquillity of Colston Farm, nestling between the banks of the River Dart and the folding hills of South Devon reflects farming life as it has been for four generations of Wakehams. When Great Grandfather farmed here there were no tractors - horses did all the work. They delivered the milk to Buckfastleigh that he had milked by hand early in the day in the little shippon. They took stone up the road to rebuild Buckfast Abbey. They harrowed and worked the fields and cut the hay.
Apples were picked by hand - as they still are today - in the seven acres of old orchards and made into 'Colston Cider' in the pounds house. The locals who helped at the weekend were paid in cider and potatoes. Now the apples go a few hundred yards down the road to make organic apple juice.
Traditional farming, where the animals' comfort is paramount, has been lost to industrial farming in so much of the country, but not here at Colston. Primarily a beef and sheep farm, Helen's first two sows arrived over twenty years ago. |
Fashions and technical changes have effected other farms while life at Colston has gone steadily on practicing the same traditions as always. We are contented people caring for contented animals. The way of life here at Colston is reflected in the quality of the end product - irresistible pork - the likes of which are gradually becoming a thing of the past around much of the country.
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