Willow Grove Farm is a mixed farm situated in the southern most tip of the Calder Valley in West Yorkshire. The farm is situated on the confluence of the Rivers Aire and Calder and sees the water of around 18,000 square kilometres gushing by every year. Owned by the Earl of Mexborough since the early 18th century it has been tenanted to only a few families.
Edward Wright came here in the early 1
980s with his family, having taken over the tenancy on his fathers land who was also a tenant of the estate at a different farm stead. Edward farmed 15ha of land and had a herd of breeding pigs 50 strong.
In 2018 his grandson Joshua took over the tenancy and with it began farming a further 90ha of land. Joshua, together with his partner Luke are now farming 105ha of land growing cereals, beans and grass, and also have a small farm shop selling pork from their own pigs, farmhouse bakes from their own farmhouse kitchen, hay from their own grass fields and eggs from their own hens.
Josh and Luke have plans to further increase the shop and take it from a small honesty box style set up to a community farm shop offering a place to take a break from the fast pace of our society.
On top of this they intend to increase their pig herd in order to keep up with demand in the shop and keep supplying local products at reasonable prices!
