September David Cross, farming in partnership with his father John Cross (HND 76/79) as tenants of the Sedgeford Hall Estate, has become one of the new Monitor Farmers in the knowledge-sharing network run by the Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board. They manage a closed flock of 900 ewes alongside an arable enterprise including barley, wheat, potatoes and sugar beet. October Kit Papworth (HND 89/92), whose father died in 2018, took part in an online mental health webinar aimed at preventing suicides in farming. 133 people in the farming community lost their lives to suicide in 2019. Another speaker was Emma Haley, charity manager for the mental health charity YANA. The first grapes have been pressed at a new winery on the family farm of Robert Perowne (FC 74/75) near Burnham Market. Cobble Hill is a 9 acre vineyard growing Bacchus, Chardonnay and Pinot Noir grape varieties which were first planted in 2016, with the first wine produced in 2018. The 2020 Cobble Hill Bacchus wine won a Silver Medal at the Wines of Great Britain Awards.
A year on the Marsh The Lincolnshire Marsh is an area of land
further south. This is ‘strong’ land by
running along the coast from Grimsby in
anybodies measure.
the north to Skegness in the South. It is bounded in the east by the sea and in the west by the chalk escarpment of the Lincolnshire Wolds. People often consider The Marsh as part of the Lincolnshire Fen, but mention this to any true Marshman and they will soon put you right. The Soils on the Marsh are mainly heavy clay a world away from the silt or peaty Fen soils seen
After moving up from Wiltshire in 1970 to Authorpe, halfway between Louth and Alford, the Marsh became my home. Dad was a Farm Manager on a large, very modern pig unit, and I, along with my sister went to school in Louth. I left school in the summer of 1976, after completing my A levels and after a short break looked to start work at Glebe Farm and so begin 21
