✓Happy wildlife ✓Happy valley ✓Happy farmer Denis Moors, High Ash Farm.
Agriculture has always been a major industry in the Peak District but the last 70 years have seen major changes, with more to come. Farming and land management in the National Park provides around 3,000 jobs*, just over half are part-time. In the South West Peak, part time farmer Denis Moors talks to Alison Riley about how he manages 50 acres and a hostel.
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enis describes himself as a part-time farmer as his main business at High Ash Farm is the sixty-bed schools hostel he has run since 1986. A former teacher, originally from Stoke via South London, he saw the Peak District as the ideal location for the business, with city schools and industrial museums on the doorstep. Denis champions wildlife and the environment to visiting youngsters. High Ash Farm is a small upland farm of 50 acres at Barrowmoor, near Longnor. It has
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www.peakdistrict.gov.uk
*Defra Agricultural Census
a mixture of species-rich hay meadows, acid grassland and rush pasture, through which several watercourses and a tributary of the River Manifold run. “The farming side helps the kids get a smell of it,” Denis says. Apart from grazing and haymaking down the years, and the trees planted by the previous farmer, Denis believes the land has been relatively untouched for a hundred years. “The farm has always been low intensity and we’ve never spent any money on weedkiller or fertilizer. A neighbour takes hay off for us
and grazes the pastures with his cattle. The cattle are White Park, a traditional British breed with long horns. The kids think they are all bulls because of their horns and that if you wear red they will chase you – we have plenty of misperceptions to put right and teach the kids how to be in the countryside.” Unlike others, Denis is not dependent on making a profit from the land by maximizing production. He uses the hay as an example for the youngsters: “Let’s say we sell the hay for £1 a bale, if we put fertiliser
