Top-quality produce and a talent for hard work have seen this farmer’s daughter join the rest of her family in making Ardross Farm Shop one of the best in the country
Is anyone actually going to come to our farm to buy some beef?” This was the first question Claire Pollock asked when her parents told her about their idea to open a shop. It was fifteen years ago and money was tight for the Pollocks. Tenant farming wasn’t lucrative, and they had three university-bound daughters who, they kept reminding them, were getting more expensive to keep. Fiona and Rob had to think hard to fix things. Would Fiona go back out to work? Should they do more contracting? Could they come up with a business plan? After weeks of deliberating late into the night, their idea was ready.
“Eventually, Dad phoned Mum to tell her he had taken one of the animals to the butcher and it would be back in three weeks, so we’d better get busy and make a shop,” explains the highly motivated Claire, who, at the helm of this buoyant east-coast business, is an accounts and finance graduate. “I always said I would have nothing to do with farming or the shop. I wanted a nine-to-five job with a good wage at the end of it. But it wasn’t long until I decided farming was in my blood and that it was time for me to come back.”
This story is from the March - April 2019 edition of Homes & Interiors Scotland.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 8,500+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber ? Sign In
This story is from the March - April 2019 edition of Homes & Interiors Scotland.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 8,500+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber? Sign In
Escape EASTSIDE COTTAGES
This tiny house, full of clever architectural solutions, is hidden away in a valley near Penicuik
THE WRITE ANGLE
This glasshouse in Edinburgh was a necessary upgrade for two writers who needed an escape from family life
Turn back the clock
Sometimes we have to look back to step forward. This home was stripped of its ultra-modern interior - and it has never looked better
A place of our own
Bold, brave choices paid off handsomely when the owners of this Edinburgh flat decided to put their stamp on the place
REFUGE FROM THE STORM
Two hundred years of Atlantic gales reduced this cottage to a wreck. Now, though, the gently restored Mull bolt-hole has a brighter outlook
The starting point
As the first project of both its original architect and the one who would reshape it 150 years later, this little coach house in Argyll has been on quite a journey
MORE THAN SKIN DEEP
The beauty of this Edwardian home lies not just in its gorgeous surfaces, but in a full-scale retrofit that's made it as energy efficient as a new Passivhaus
SPACE TO BREATHE
Several ugly extensions marred this cottage in rural Aberdeenshire until a rethink gave its owners a simplified layout and much more eco-friendly home
MELANIE O'DONNELL - Ceramic artist
The best thing about creating ceramics is the way you can get lost in another world.
Reading LIST
Design that will stand the test of time is the focus of our latest batch of books, all of which deserve a prime spot on a very stylish coffee table