Robinson Place Farm
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Robinson Place Farm 65 Robinson Place Farm The National Trust invites conservation management proposals and tenders for the tenancy of Robinson Place Farm, Great Langdale. Location Robinson Place Farm is located approximately 6 miles from the centre of Ambleside village, following the A593 to Coniston before turning right onto the B5343 at Skelwith Bridge towards Elterwater. Continue along this road through the village of Chapel Stile and the farm is located about 1 mile outside the village on the right hand side. The location of the farm is circled in red on the map below. Robinson Place Farm Background to Robinson Place Farm Robinson Place Farm was purchased by the National Trust in 1974 using its own Lake District funds. In terms of National Trust ownership in the valley, Robinson Place Farm is somewhat unusual in being a relatively late acquisition which followed the various gifts of land and property from G M Trevelyan between 1929 and 1944. Robinson Place Farm is situated in the eastern half of the Great Langdale valley, close to Chapel Stile, and at the heart of the Lake District National Park, and since July 2017, the English Lake District World Heritage Site. Robinson Place Farm extends to 48ha or thereabouts (118 acres) with a landlord’s flock of 270 purebred Herdwick ewes and followers. The farm comprises c. 19 hectares ‘in-bye’ pasture and c. 29 hectares of intake rough grazing. The farm benefits from the right to graze 650 ewes and followers on Grasmere Common (CL78) and has 65 stints on Great Langdale Common (CL75). Maintaining Robinson Place farm as a working farm is an important objective for the National Trust with the farm being well served with a range of mostly traditional farm buildings spread over two sites. Background to the National Trust The National Trust is an independent conservation and access charity which cares for special places across England, Wales and Northern Ireland. We are supported by some 5 million members and circa 60,000 volunteers. We are one of Europe’s leading conservation bodies and one of the largest landowners in the UK, managing approximately 255,000 hectares of land for the benefit of the nation. The National Trust manages land to achieve an array of objectives ranging from the protection of historic landscapes and features to creating and managing wildlife habitats, with sustainable farming an important mechanism in doing so. Conservation of biodiversity and landscape has always been part of the Trust’s charitable purpose. The National Trust’s Vision for Land The National Trust’s strategy document ‘Playing Our Part’ sets out our long term ambitions for the land in our care in the 21st century. ‘Our ambition is to meet the needs of an environment under pressure, and the challenges and expectations of a fast-moving world. We want to continue to maintain the highest standards of care for everything we look after, while working in a way that feels relevant and necessary to people and their day-to-day lives’. Our strategy aims to position the National Trust to play an active and leading role in reversing the national decline in nature in order to secure not only our cultural, but also our natural heritage, ‘for ever, for everyone’. The first theme of the Trust’s strategy is ‘Looking after the Nation’s Special Places’ which we will deliver by ‘always trying to conserve, protect and provide access to coast, countryside and historic homes and gardens to the highest standard’. The inscription of the Lake District as a new World Heritage Site in 2017 has confirmed the region’s status Robinson Place Farm as a ‘cultural landscape’ of global significance, highlighting it as not only one of the ‘Nation’s Special Places’, but of importance for present and future generations of all humanity. At the heart of the inscription of the Lake District as a World Heritage Site is a recognition and celebration of the significant role that traditional farming and local industry has had in shaping a landscape of such exceptional beauty. Traditional systems of land management, particularly those relating to the upland commons, distinctive vernacular architecture and persistence of local breeds are all recognised as making a significant contribution to the development of the Lake District landscape, as well as being fundamental to its future. The second theme of the Trust’s strategy is ‘Restoring a Healthy, Beautiful Natural Environment’. Our aim is to see “bigger, better, more and joined up” habitats across the nation, enabling wildlife to thrive alongside the other functions we believe land should provide such as clean water, carbon storage, flood alleviation, whilst remaining productive. This vision for our land is both ambitious and long-term. By 2025 all designated wildlife sites in our care will be on course to be in good ecological condition; we will have created or restored 25,000ha of important habitat types on our land; and fundamentally, ensure that wildlife friendly management practises are the norm across all areas of land that both the Trust and our tenants care for. The detailed solutions to achieving this will be as varied as the places themselves; but we are certain that they will be created through strong partnerships with our tenants, neighbours and others. We have been looking after special places in the Lake District on behalf of the nation for the past 120 years. It’s our birthplace, somewhere we care deeply about. At the heart of our work will always be our commitment to our conservation purpose; recognizing and protecting the special places and ways of working that define the Lake District. We've developed these principles to guide the work that we do to look after this landscape. To discover more please read www.nationaltrust.org.uk/lists/our-principles-for-looking- after-the-lakes. The National Trust’s vision for our land at Robinson Place Farm Our land at Robinson Place will be a leading example of nature friendly farming where an upland farming system is maintained and managed in a way that benefits the land and wildlife that inhabit it. The quality of the livestock, the habitats and the landscape produced at Robinson Place will widely be recognised as some of the best that the Lake District has to offer. Robinson Place Farm Across the landscape we will enhance and expand the connectivity of habitats. Wood pasture on the intakes will be sympathetically grazed with no artificial inputs or supplementary feeding to allow natural regeneration. Meadow and Hedge restoration in and around the in-bye land will encourage greater species diversity in these areas with lower intensity grazing further enhancing the wildlife potential and value. The creation of Riparian habitat along watercourses will encourage plant species like alder and willow to flourish. Within this network of habitats, areas that have the potential to be particularly species rich will be sensitively managed to allow them to flourish. Many of these gains will be achieved through determining appropriate grazing and livestock management, but supported by targeted areas of new habitat creation, utilising all available grant schemes alongside additional interventions. Changes won’t be immediate and we don’t expect you to achieve them alone, but we intend to start as we mean to go on. For the right tenant we hope this will be a long term partnership with our team of rangers and specialists who are excited for the opportunities and who will work alongside you and support you on this venture. We have included at Appendix 3 an Indicative Nature Conservation Vision for the farm. The Land The area proposed to be included in the letting is shown edged red on the attached plan in Appendix 1 together with a schedule of field numbers and hectarages (Appendix 2). All of the land included within the tenancy is classified as Grade 4 and 5, Poor and Very Poor respectively under Natural England’s Land Classification Map. All of the land is classified as Severely Disadvantaged (SDA) within a Less Favoured Area, with the majority of the Intakes being above the Moorland Line. There are three main soil types over the holding that is typical to the local area. The In- bye land is loamy and clayey floodplain soils that are naturally high with groundwater. The majority of the Intake soils are noted to be freely draining acid loamy soils over rock with some being shallow very acid peaty soils over rock. Livestock & Landlord’s Flock Robinson Place Farm is to be let as a grassland farm to support a heafed fell flock of pure Herdwick sheep and a cattle enterprise. It will be a condition of tenancy that both sheep and cattle are kept, due to the landscape and nature conservation benefits of mixed stocking and the range of habitats requiring light cattle grazing to deliver conservation objectives. The farm carries a flock of heafed, fell-going Herdwick sheep, a breed that is well suited to the farm and an integral part of its historic and cultural importance. We expect that the fell grazing will be maintained and form the basis of the future sheep enterprise on the farm. Robinson Place Farm There is a landlord’s flock of Herdwick sheep on the holding amounting to 270 ewes, 80 gimmer shearlings and 100 gimmer hogs. The landlord’s flock is to remain purebred Herdwick, and will be assessed in the usual way at a sheep viewing on handover of the tenancy. There may be additional Herdwick sheep made available by the outgoing tenant however these negotiations will need to take place between the outgoing and incoming tenant.