In It Together
Country Smallholding|February 2017

Members of the Barrow family all help on their Suffolk smallholding, and campers enjoy the ‘good life’ experience too. John Wright reports.

John Wright
In It Together

Jackie and Giles Barrow moved out of London 11 years ago and rented three acres with farm buildings near a pretty village in east Suffolk. Delighted to be in the country, their start as smallholders came largely due to the kindness of the exfarm manager who began their three-year unofficial apprenticeship the moment their nice clean shoes touched the ground.

“He taught us everything,” said Jackie. “We got a couple of store lambs to raise up for meat which friends and family in London wanted, and we got started…”

Today they still live in the same picturesque area but on an 8-acre smallholding, The Mill House, with their four children aged between 17 and 23, who are all willing to help out. They have a range of rare breed livestock, including Red Poll cows, British Lop sows and a mixed flock of sheep, as well as poultry, donkeys, goats and four farm cats which their youngest son looks after.

In one half-acre corner of their fields they have established a little campsite, open from Easter until the end of September. The campers enjoy seeing the baby lambs, goat kids and piglets and eating the family’s eggs, bacon and sausages and other produce.

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