Smallholding profile: Naturally Woodland

Helen Babbs meets a flock of Whiteface Woodland sheep with a thriving soap business

- Helen Babbs

Whiteface Woodland sheep are a hill breed native to the southern slopes of the Pennines, along the Derbyshire/Yorkshire border. They were traditionally raised for meat, with a soft but quite variable fleece. But on the upper slopes of the Holme valley, Lucy Bywaters' family flock of Whiteface Woodlands have found a new purpose in life. In 2022, when buying goats' milk soap for her sensitive skin at a local agricultural show, Lucy suddenly wondered if her sheep could make soap too.

A SOAPY START

Lucy enrolled on a one day "basic soap-making" course. "Making milk soap is a little different," she explains, "as you don't want to scorch the milk. I used a traditional, cold process method, making small batches with different natural herbs and oils, from thyme & rosemary to eucalyptus & lavender. Sheep's milk has a uniquely rich composition of fatty acids, proteins and vitamins," Lucy enthuses, "so in soap it's great at moisturising and nourishing the skin, as well as being luxuriously creamy."

Most soap makers tend to source their milk from dairy sheep breeds, even buying in the milk as powdered form, but Lucy was determined to try hers from “home-grown” milk. “Whiteface Woodlands are certainly not a dairy breed,” she admits. “But they’re big and friendly, and the ewes are good milky mothers. They easily feed twins, just off poor hill pasture, so I felt with a little extra feeding, I’d be able to milk enough extra for soap.”

THE MILK TEAM