Shepherd pays £1 a year to live in spectacular £1m farm
Dan Jones from Anglesey appointed by the National Trust to take on the 145-acre farm on the North Wales coast in bid to protect rare natural landscape
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Your support makes all the difference.A shepherd and his family are paying just £1 a year to move into a £1 million farm to protect its rare and fragile coastal landscape.
Dan Jones, 38, from Anglesey, has been appointed by the National Trust to manage Parc Farm on the Great Orme, North Wales, in ways that support rare habitats and plants such as the Great Orme berry which grows nowhere else on Earth.
Last year, the organisation bought the 145-acre farm, with its views of Anglesey and the coast as well as grazing rights to 720 acres of headland, to protect species and habitats and save fragile grasslands from being turned into a golf course.
The trust offered the 10-year tenancy of the farm for just £1 a year for a farmer willing to adopt “nature-first” approach to grazing the coastal headland, in a search that attracted thousands of applications from around the world.
Meanwhile, plant conservation charity Plantlife pledged to buy the new tenant the flock of sheep needed.
Mr Jones is joined on the farm by his wife Ceri, 39, son Efan, eight, four sheepdogs and a flock of 295 Lleyn and Herdwick sheep, which they aim to grow to a flock of 400, farmed primarily for meat but also for wool.
His flock will graze the farmland and the headland, with a specific regime to ensure the landscape's habitats and species are not lost.
The headland is designated as a protected area for nature and its fragile limestone grasslands are home to sub-species of silver-studded blue and grayling butterflies and rare plants including the Goldilocks aster and the spiked speedwell.
The Great Orme, which attracts 600,000 visitors a year, also has a growing herd of Kashmiri goats descended from some gifted to Lord Mostyn by Queen Victoria.
As shepherding large sheep flocks on large open headland that is popular with visitors is difficult, grazing has been intensive and limited to the more fertile and protected fields within Parc Farm, causing thick grass and overgrowth on the headland.
Despite tricky conditions on the exposed and unfenced headland, it is hoped the new regime will see sheep graze through the grass to expose limestone rock and allow small delicate flowers such as hoary rock-rose and spiked speedwell to thrive.
Mr Jones said: “Despite the challenges I am really looking forward to managing the land in a way that is good for the land, good for nature and good for visitors.
“Working with my dogs I'll be able to encourage the sheep to graze specific areas of the heathland to the right levels and at the right times to improve habitats for both plantlife and wildlife.
“Because grazing the wider headland has been a challenge, nature has suffered and we want to reverse that trend.”
Press Association
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