ABOUT THE HAMPSHIRE SHEPHERD

The Hampshire Shepherd's journey started with Iain way back in the early 90’s. I mean, how hard could farming possibly be? So he decided to give it a go. It definitely proved to be a steep learning curve. As a first-generation entrant, he had no farming background to fall back on. In those days, it was a little more of a traditional mixed operation. Not only sheep but also beef cows, pigs, chicken and Christmas turkeys. As well as agricultural contracting and contract shepherding.

It wasn’t long before Iain needed help on the farm, and along came Katie. Their farming adventure grew from strength to strength. The farming model was a little more traditional back then. Most of what we produced was sold through the local livestock market, in those days, direct sales weren’t even considered.

In the early 2000’s the business was devastated along with the rest of the British farming industry by Foot and Mouth Disease. For a few years, things were scaled back, seeing Iain initially working for DEFRA, and then travelling around local farms inseminating cattle.

In 2003 Iain and Katie married and started planning for their future, and began to rebuild their sheep flock. It wasn’t long before the family grew with the birth of Joshua in 2005, and William in 2007. The future dream team was now in place for what would become The Hampshire Shepherd.

Over the following years, the flock was rebuilt, and private lamb sales were beginning to be established. As Joshua and William grew, they became more involved in the family business. Both boys are now a vital part of the team. Joshua is a highly accomplished shepherd, and William is our retail guru. So now the focus of the business is building a future for the boys and this SEN farming family.

We started the year with so many plans and ideas, hopes and dreams, it was going to be by far our biggest year to date. We had just purchased our second Lamb Van and it was shaping up to be a crazy summer.

Although on 21 st February all this changed in an instant. Katie, my wife, the boys mother, and an absolutely integral part of The Hampshire Shepherd, very suddenly and unexpectedly passed away. This left us as a family and a business completely broken and barely functioning. It was only the fact that we had the sheep to look after that kept us all going.

Most of what we had planned for the year was put to one side whilst we worked out how to navigate this all single handedly.

As seems to happen with life, time moves on and as such life with it. As a family we did our best to rebuild our life and business. In late summer a handful of Hampshire County Council farm tenancies became available, and we applied for several of them. One in particular I was specifically interested in. It was a farm that was reasonably local, and a farm that I had some history with. Twenty something years ago I used to artificially inseminate cows, and I used to come to this farm quite often. It almost felt like fate.

So we began the application process, although I will say that I didn’t hold out much hope because we had applied for this particular farm three or four years ago and didn’t get anywhere. I must also admit that it felt wrong doing this without Katie. Anyway, long story short, in November 2024 we became the tenants of Little Church Farm.

I must admit to having very mixed emotions about the move, but I know it was the right thing to do for the boys and the business. So here we are in 2025 and we have our own farm, which is still taking some getting used to. But watch this space.

2026 at Little Church Farm started off on a bit of a difficult note. I ended up in hospital for four weeks, which left me out of action for the next six months. This basically left Joshua and William to run the farm with help from our wonderful neighbours.

By the end of the year we were getting back on track, and in November 2026 we opened our little farm shop, Little Church Farm Shop.