Exploring Middleton in Teesdale

Middleton in Teesdale is a pretty market town in the North Pennines Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB).

It grew in the early 19th century after the London Lead Company located its northern headquarters there. This is commemorated with the drinking fountain, dating from 1877, presented in honour of Mr RW Bainbridge, who was superintendent of the company.

I love the tap in the shape of a hedgehog.

There are 2 pubs, The Teesdale Arms, serving local ales, and traditional food, and The Forresters, a French restaurant, which has regular themed evenings, such as crepes or moules.

There are several cafes; our favourite is  Cafe 1618, where we've had lunch and coffee.

It has its "bistro at the back", Number 17, which we're looking forward to trying.

Middleton is a stop on both the Pennine and Teesdale ways, and is an excellent location for walking. We have several books of walks and are designing walks of our own.

A Weekend of Firsts

Over Easter we had our first guests, who arrived bearing gifts of food and drink. We had a most enjoyable weekend exploring the local area, and an evening around the Aga, with the young people beating us at Articulate.

After a hearty breakfast of Yorkshire sausages and bacon, with scrambled eggs from our hens, Simon was out building our first vegetable bed. We have a small walled garden right next to the house, which the previous owners probably used for fruit and vegetables, but appears to have been left fallow for some years. It's now slightly overgrown, but is ideal for a bit of experimental vegetable growing.

Our house in Yorkshire is less than 20' above sea level; Ladybird Farm is over 750' and 80miles further north, so a different prospect for growing. The soil here is heavier than the silty sandy loam we had in Yorkshire. It's full of stones when you dig more than a spade's depth, so root vegetables such as parsnip and carrot may be a challenge.


Using canes and chicken wire left by the previous occupants, Simon built a small rabbit-proof cage, and planted a handful of broad beans. Known as Frank's Winter Beans, these are a variety selected over the years by our neighbour, and have been extremely hardy.

Seeds were planted and we look forward to our first crop, and this delicious crushed broad bean recipe, delicious with pork, sausages, or as a vegetarian dish.

Settling In

We've had a fun few days up in Teesdale. We've had the AGA and boiler serviced, and the chimney swept, so the house is on the way to being toasty. We now have a landline and broadband, so can keep in touch, as our mobile signal is rather patchy.

 Would you like a look around?

This is the front of the building. The barn is on the right, with the cow byre on the left.

This is the barn from the back. Replacing those plastic barn doors in hardwood is one of our first projects. 

This is our view from the kitchen - we have hills! That's our barn in the middle ground; we're still discussing plans for that. Our garden is in the foreground, with our field behind the wall, stretching off to the right. 

And here are our neighbours' Herdwicks. These sheep, which were bred by Beatrix Potter, are renowned for their hardiness. They have such pretty faces, and will soon be lambing.

The Road to Ladybird Farm

Ever since we met, we talked about growing food, and keeping livestock. We bought our first house together, and cultivated a small vegetable plot, including mature apple and plum trees, and a grape vine, under glass. We then took on an allotment, and grew a wider variety of vegetables. In  1996, with 2 small children, we moved to a former vicarage, with about 1/3 acre of garden, a mature apple and plum orchard, and a handful of chickens inherited from the previous owners. Here we were able to hone our fruit and vegetable growing skills, with varying degrees of success.

Once the children had both left for university, we could see a day when we would be able to take on some acres and run a smallholding. We've been looking for a property since Master W left in 2013. We've seen a beautiful house, with much less land than was advertised; a property with over 30 acres, but no front door; a Dales longhouse which was vastly overpriced; a bastle house where the owners didn't really want to move and several others. We'd seen Ladybird Farm and not been sure it was for us, so mulled it over for a few weeks. We then decided that it would fit our plans, went back for a second look and had an offer accepted. That was back in June 2015.

It's been a long process, but on 11 February, we completed the purchase and we collected the keys the following day.

On Friday we spent the morning reacquainting ourselves with the house, and discovering new things, some good, some not so. We've met several sets of neighbours, and have invitations for tea, beer and supper. We've been out surveying the land, and planting snowdrops that we brought from our Yorkshire garden. We have lists and plans, and can't wait to get started.

Welcome

We discovered early on that our experience of books as children had been very different. Libby loved fiction - Enid Blyton, Edward Lear, AA Milne, Lewis Carroll. Simon, on the other hand, learnt to read with books about aircraft, ships and tanks.


The books we both remembered reading, were the Ladybird series, and in particular the Ladybird Book of the Farm. We have Libby's copy, published in 1958.

It's a beautiful book, encouraging small children to read using the animals of the farmyard and their young. We planned what we would do, if we could be lucky enough one day to have a farm just like that.

So welcome to our version of the Ladybird Farm. We hope you will enjoy the Tales we have to share