Chairman’s Tour Perfect Pembrokeshire

Chairman Meurig Raymond welcomed 38 members to Pembrokeshire to experience the rugged beauty of the Pembrokeshire coast, the varied agricultural land and its dramatic historical legacy from the post Norman invasion era.

Leaving our base in Wolfscastle on day one, we visited Puffin Produce based on and around Withy Bush Airfield near Haverfordwest. Led by MD, Huw Thomas, this is a large potato and vegetable sorting and pack house business, rapidly expanding to include more refrigerated storage units, a milk bottling facility which will require 100 million litres of milk annually and a creamery. The sorting and packing lines process 170,000 kg in each 8 hour shift producing 140150,00 kg of finished/packed produce for customers including Tesco, Aldi, Asda and other Welsh major retailers. Potatoes are sorted, washed, dried and packed within 24 hours and the business has invested £35m in the last 5 years with another £20M planned for next year. With a projected turnover of £40m, a workforce of 195, it is the only AA+ accredited potato packing facility in Wales.

In the afternoon, members were introduced to a huge diversification project - Bluestone Holiday Resort Founder, William McNamara started with the original 200 acre farm with a dairy herd whilst also growing potatoes. Imposition of milk quota’s made the business unprofitable and William and his brother diversified into the leisure sector. In 2000, William expanded into accommodation building a holiday resort at the Bluestone site. Despite planning problems and 12 years from idea to completion, Bluestone opened in 2008 with 424 accommodation units, employing 900 people and is currently developing 80 additional units. The project, blending perfectly into the topography of the land with various outdoor/indoor activities, water-park and restaurants now covers an area of some 500 acres with £100m of investment.

Day two took us to the farm of Christopher James at Stackpole. Made up of two blocks, at Home Farm and Stackpole Quay, it totals over 400 hectares. With a dairy herd of 1150 cows, the introduction of milk quota’s forced the business to change its production systems. The influence of the New Zealand grass fed rotation system was gaining prominence and Chris decided to follow this type of management system. By 2001 the farm was running two dairies with over 500 cows in each and a further purchase of 400 acres. The two sites produce 5000 litres of milk per cow per annum depending on grass quality, and all cows have potential for beef. The farm produced 350 heifers for milk and 500 for beef and the cattle are grass fed, supplemented with kale and fodder beet.

We then walked from Home farm to the Stackpole Walled Gardens. The 6 acre walled garden on the Stackpole Estate created in 1770, provided vegetables and fruit for Sir John Campbell (Lord Cawdor) and his family. The once-beautiful Georgian mansion, Stackpole Court, was demolished in 1963 and the estate broken up and sold, but the woods, lakes, and coast passed to the care of the National Trust. Undertaking a walk through the Bosherston trails, members then discovered the beautiful Bosherston lily ponds, just coming in to bloom.

Back on the coach after lunch, the party travelled to the Castlemartin Military Training Area covering 6000 acres. Established in 1938 from grade 2 farmland and parts of the defunct Cawdor Estate, it was abandoned by the military soon after the WW2, but re-instated in 1951, enabling live firing exercises for UK, German and NATO forces. Active for 44 weeks of the year, the range also provides acreage to tenant farmers for summer/winter grazing as well as summer cutting. Flimston Chapel on the West range was particularly interesting.

Ending a very busy day, the tour went on to visit the imposing and well preserved Pembroke Castle built in around 1093 by Arnulf de Montgomery in the aftermath of the Norman Conquest. The late 12th century keep has a massive cylindrical tower with an unusual stone dome at nearly 80ft high and the gatehouse has a complex barbican and no fewer than three portcullises providing formidable defence.

The castle was also the birth place in 1457, of Harri Tudur, who became Henry VII and inaugurated the Tudor line of monarchs.

On the final day of the trip, we visited the Chairman’s farm. Starting farming in 1967 (at 16 years old) the farm is owned by Meurig and brother Mansell. By 1985 they were farming 1000 acres, purchasing further land during the 1980’s and 90’s and entering a number of tenancy agreements to be farming 3500 acres today, 1420 owned and 2000 tenanted. Considerable investment has enabled larger field sizes, land drainage, 2 dairy units, grain drying and storage units and recently, irrigation reservoirs, underground irrigation mains and potato grading equipment. Currently farming 2 dairy herds of 380 and 240 cows producing 8500/7500 litres per cow and they have 500 dairy replacements, 180 beef cattle and 2200 store lambs whilst growing wheat, barley, oil seed and potatoes.

Our final lunch was at the incomparable Crug Glas Country Hotel owned by Perkin and Janet Evans. A diversification project providing a 5* guest house and wedding venue, it was the perfect ending to a memorable trip, that had included many diverse farm operations as well as some historical and cultural highlights of the area.

After an extremely enjoyable and rewarding military career, finally departed late last year in the rank of Brigadier. I fulfilled a wide variety of senior appointments in the Army, the Ministry of Defence and Strategic Command. My early years were spent in the infantry and I was frequently deployed on global operations to meet national crisis and contingent commitments, serving multiple tours in Northern Ireland, various African countries, Iraq and Afghanistan.

My final appointment was as The Army Inspector, a challenging but rewarding post. The role was independent of the Army chain of command designed to work as a ‘critical friend’ to the Chief of General Staff (Chief Exec), the Army Board and Executive Committee. reviewed the Army’s objectives and outputs, identified weaknesses and made recommendations for improvement. It was a fascinating role and one where you could genuinely make a difference.

Tom (22) has just finished his final year at Edinburgh University and is ready to take on the world, Charlotte (24) is busy working in London in the hospitality sector; my stepchildren, Cressida (29) is a barrister and Camilla (26) an investment banker, both in London, and Charlotte (19), the closest of us all to the farming community, has recently finished at Hartpury College. She studied agriculture and equine, is now running her own equine business and remains a ‘tour de force’ in the Painswick Young Farmers Club!