A farm shop, butchery and café on a working farm in the Vale: vegetables from the fields you walk past from the car park, our own lamb and beef, and a box you build here with this week’s contents and the price.
Shop closed for today; opens tomorrow at 8:30am. The honesty box at the gate is open
The farm
01
A converted barn with the vegetables on trestles down the middle as they come out of the field, our eggs, milk and cheese from the Llantrithyd dairy, bread from the Cowbridge bakery, honey from the hives in the orchard, jams and chutneys from the farmhouse kitchen, and a shelf of what six other Vale farms grow. The field number is on every ticket.
Our potatoes £1.
02
A box of what is in the field this week: small for one or two at £14, medium for three or four at £22, large for a family at £32. Build it on the boxes page, which lists exactly what goes in this week and adds eggs, bread and milk if you tick them, with the total before you order. Collect from the shop or delivered within eight miles on Thursday and Friday for £3.50, free over £30.
Small £14, medium £22, large £32.
03
Lamb from the flock of four hundred ewes on the hill above the shop and beef from the Hereford cross herd in the bottom fields, slaughtered at the abattoir in Maesteg, hung in the cold room here for a fortnight for the lamb and four weeks for the beef, and cut on the block at the back of the shop by Dafydd. Pork and bacon from the farm at Pendoylan; our own sausages on Fridays.
Leg of lamb £18.
04
The old dairy is the café: thirty seats inside under the beams and twenty in the orchard. The farm breakfast at £9.50 is our eggs and the Pendoylan bacon and sausage; lunch from noon is a soup, a pie and a plate of the day from whatever is on the trestles, at £11; cakes from the farmhouse kitchen; coffee from a Cardiff roaster. Open daily nine to four; dogs and boots welcome.
The farm breakfast £9.
05
Three acres of strawberries in the field by the lane, open to pick from the first week of June until the end of July, ten till six, with raspberries from the middle of July. A punnet from the shed for a £2 deposit, weighed on the way out at £6.50 a kilo. The pick-your-own page reads the clock and says whether the field is open today, and the farm gate has a sign that says the same.
Strawberries £6.
06
Trees from the plantation on the top field, cut the week they are sold, from 25 November: Nordmann firs from £35 for five feet, netted and carried to the car. Free-range bronze turkeys from the family near Usk, ordered by 12 December and collected on the 23rd or 24th. Hampers built from the shelves from £45, delivered within eight miles. Mulled apple in the café and the sheep in the barn.
Nordmann trees £35 for five feet, £48 for six, £65 for seven; bronze turkeys £13.
In season this October
Pick-your-own runs in June and July. The field opens in the first week of June 2027, about 224 days away; ready-picked punnets are not on the trestles until then either.
How it works
The butchery
Four hundred Welsh Mule ewes on the hill above the shop and forty Hereford cross cattle in the bottom fields, grass-fed, slaughtered twenty minutes away at Maesteg, hung in the cold room behind the shop, and cut on the block by Dafydd. The tag number and the field are on every ticket.
The café
Thirty seats under the beams and twenty in the orchard. The farm breakfast at £9.50 is our eggs and the Pendoylan bacon and sausage; lunch from noon is a soup, a butchery pie and the plate of the day at £11. The bara brith has a following. Dogs and muddy boots welcome; no bookings, because the orchard has room.
The caféHow we work
We do not sell strawberries in December or asparagus in October. The calendar on this website has twenty-four crops and the months they are here, and the shop follows it. What is out of season is better waited for.
The price on the shelf is the price the field needs plus a living, and it is the same in the box as at the till. A kilo of our potatoes is £1.60 in October and the same in February, because they are in the barn.
Vegetables carry the field number, lamb and beef the animal's tag and field, eggs the hen house. Ask and we will walk you up to see where it came from, weather permitting, and the children usually insist.
Misshapen vegetables go in the boxes at the same price; what is left on Saturday goes to the Barry food bank on Sunday; peelings and trimmings to the pigs; the pigs to the sausages. A farm shop that bins food is not a farm.
Customers
I build the box on Monday night when the list goes up, tick the eggs, and it is on the step on Thursday with the field number chalked on the crate. No subscription, so I skip the weeks we are away. The children fight over the strangest carrot.
Half a lamb for the freezer at £145, from the hill I can see from the café. Dafydd rang to ask how I wanted the shoulders. I have bought lamb in a lot of places and this is the first time I have been able to go and look at the rest of the flock.
Breakfast in the old dairy with the stove lit and the dog under the table, then the shop, then a walk up to the sheep. It is the Sunday. The bara brith is the best in the Vale and I have done the research.
Most from the forty acres behind the shop: you walk past the fields from the car park and the field number is chalked on the crate. The rest from six farms within twelve miles, named on the shelf. Nothing is flown in; what is out of season is not on the trestles.
Build it on the boxes page: small, medium or large, with this week's contents listed for each, and eggs, bread or milk added if you tick them. The page works out the total; press "Order this box" and the form is filled in. By Tuesday noon, collected from Thursday or delivered Thursday and Friday within eight miles. No subscription.
The calendar page has twenty-four crops and reads the clock: it shows what is in the field this month and when the rest comes back. The shop follows it, which is why there are no strawberries in December.
Yes. Four hundred ewes on the hill above the shop and forty Hereford cross cattle in the bottom fields, slaughtered at Maesteg and hung here. The tag number and the field are on the ticket; walk up and see the rest of the flock.
June and July, ten till six, from the first week of June most years. The pick-your-own page says open or closed from the clock, and a wet day closes the field; we post that at the gate and on the phone by nine.
Veg boxes and anything from the shop or the butchery on Thursday and Friday within about eight miles for £3.50, free over £30. Hampers posted anywhere in Britain for £9.95.
Small, medium or large with this week's contents listed, eggs, bread and milk if you want them, and the total before you order. By Tuesday noon; collected from Thursday or delivered Thursday and Friday within eight miles, £3.50, free over £30. No subscription.
