Gather

Words Claire Bowman Photography Katharine Davies

Rhian Rochford isn’t one for favourites but when it comes to her 60-strong flock of sheep, she has a soft spot for one in particular – a handsome, prize-winning Black Welsh Mountain ram called Cowboy. Bounding across the field to greet us, ‘the king’ as she affectionately calls him, is as soppy and eager to please as any family dog.

‘He’s a big softy and loves a cuddle,’ says Rhian, proffering a handful of feed to Cowboy and his entourage of woolly friends. ‘He’s my baby – I think I spent more time with him than I did with my husband Mark last summer! Black Welsh Mountain sheep are a great breed and the females make excellent mothers as they lamb easily and often produce twins. They are very hardy and will live happily on exposed hillsides all year long.’ >

In the next field of the 25-acre family farm in Charlton Musgrove, a flock of pedigree Coloured Ryelands belonging to her 11-year-old son William bob over to say hello. ‘William was just nine when he told me he’d really like his own breed of sheep,’ explains Rhian, who was about the same age when she was given her first flock. ‘He came across the Ryelands at a show and said, “Mum, they’re really friendly and cute.” I thought, You know what, they’re the perfect breed. They are one of our oldest native breeds – in fact, Queen Elizabeth I liked their wool so much she would only wear Ryeland stockings. They are so placid and good-natured and they’ll come running out to you in the field just for a cuddle. They are the real-life teddy bears of the sheep world.’

On this rainy winter morning, the Ryelands resemble big, wet sponges – albeit sponges with colourful bottoms, due to the bright ‘raddle’ paint that has transferred during tupping. Zelda, Boo, Alberto – they all have names, and Rhian doesn’t forget a single one. ‘They are like family,’ says Rhian, as they flock excitedly around her feet.

Rhian, a small animal vet at Friars Moor, and her husband Mark, who works from home in marketing, have William and his beloved Coloured Ryelands to thank for sparking the idea for their new ‘side hustle’. Launched last September at the London Sheep Drive, ‘Gather’ buys sustainable raw wool fleeces from native pedigree smallholders from across the South West and weaves them into beautiful, traceable heirloom blankets.

‘I knew during the pandemic that I wanted to do something with the Ryelands’ wool but I didn’t really have quite enough to send down to the spinners in Cornwall,’ explains Rhian. ‘So I put out a message on Facebook on both the Ryeland and Black Welsh Mountain Sheep Breeders Association pages, asking, “Has anyone got any wool I can buy”? The next day I had 500 fleeces promised to me! I was like, OK, so there’s a real opportunity here – there are all these smallholders who haven’t got anywhere for their wool to go. We make sure the breeders get the money they deserve for their wool and we bring it together from all over the South West. That’s why we call ourselves ‘Gather’.’

And gather it most certainly does – all three woolly tonnes of the stuff – in the farm’s new barn. ‘William and his sister Elise love it because it makes the perfect trampoline to practise gymnastics during the school holidays. It’s the ultimate soft landing!’ says Rhian, pulling a handful of chocolate-brown wool from a sack to demonstrate its undeniable springiness (and a pleasing absence of ‘dags’ – dried clumps of dung to you and me).

From there it’s down to Launceston in Cornwall, where the fleece is washed and sorted, scoured, combed and spun into yarn, before heading up to Yorkshire to >

be woven to the specification of designer Rebecca. With Mark’s creative stamp on the brand – he is responsible for the look of everything from the labels and the logo to the packaging and the hangtags – the finished wool blanket is then tissue-wrapped and decorated with a sprig of lavender, ready to hygge the homes of customers up and down the country.

The ‘field to throw’ story is so compelling, in fact, that it recently caught the imagination of TV’s Kate Humble. ‘I’d been collecting wool from Kate’s farm in Monmouthshire, Humble by Nature, for a while and had signed up to do one of her workshops. I got talking to Farmer Tim, who runs the farm, and he said to me, “I love what you’re doing, and I want to get behind it. Kate’s covering sustainability in the next series of Escape to the Farm – can you come and film with us?” I didn’t need to be asked twice! We also took part in the filming of BBC1’s The Farmers’ Country Showdown.’

In fact, showing off her woolly friends to the best of their potential and winning lots of rosettes along the way is what Rhian loves best. ‘I’ve done quite well with my sheep in the last couple of years, including winning the UK’s Ram of the Year, which was fantastic,’ she beams. ‘I grew up with livestock – it’s the reason I became a vet – and when I was young my mum had a smallholding with a flock of Suffolk sheep and some milking goats. Later when we moved to Dorset we started breeding and showing and judging Dexter cattle. My sister and I had our own bottle-fed lambs to breed from. When I moved out of our family home to a smallholding of my own with Mark in 2010, my parents bought me a flock of four pedigree Black Welsh Mountain ewe lambs, and the numbers have been rising ever since. Mark jokes that I’ll go off for the day after promising not to come back with any more sheep, and as soon as I pull into the farm he’ll hear the sound of bleating coming from the back of the truck! I love my little sheep so much.’

This is why, despite the hard work and interrupted sleep, you won’t hear Rhian grumbling when lambing season rolls around. ‘Besides, we’ve got cameras in the barn so I can keep an eye on the ewes in the middle of the night. And because I know my sheep so well, I have a fair idea of when they are going to lamb. Elise and William are very good at helping out, too – they’ll be down in the barn before school, checking on them. Lambing season might be a crazy time of year but it’s also my favourite time of year.’

And with that she pulls on her wellies and heads back out into the field to tend her flock. There’s a Coloured Ryeland that needs her attention – and maybe just a little hug.