Why audiences love a taste of life on the farm
THE SHOW, FEATURING HUDDERSFIELD SHEPHERDESS AMANDA OWEN, HAS BECOME ONE OF TV’S BIGGEST HITS IN LOCKDOWN
OUR Yorkshire Farm has become one of the country’s biggest TV successes and has now been running for four years.
Following the lives of Amanda and Clive Owen, the pair are hill shepherds living on one of the most remote farms in Britain.
Amanda, dubbed the Yorkshire Shepherdess, originally hails from Huddersfield but now raises her nine children ‘free-range’ on the farm with husband Clive.
An unlikely social media star, she now boasts more than 259,000 followers and the show has an average of 3.2million viewers.
Beating both BBC and ITV in the 9pm slot over lockdown, it seems many of us stuck indoors wanted to get that change of scenery through the screen.
The latest series, filmed through lockdown, was one the Owen did themselves as camera crews were thwarted by the pandemic.
The programme isn’t just family life, but documents living on a working farm.
Narrated by Ben Fogle, viewers get to see the family carrying out their shepherd and farm duties.
The focus is on Amanda, 45, who left Huddersfield and chose to become a shepherd.
She met her husband Clive, 66, in 1996 at his Ravenseat farm, which later became their home.
The children are allowed to roam the countryside and all muck in on the farm.
The audience has so far got to see six-year-old Sidney helping to mend farm machinery and 14-yearold Reuben saving his siblings from a blizzard. Their eldest, Raven is at university and their youngest, Nancy, is a toddler. In between, in descending order are Rueben, Miles, Edith, Violet, Sidney, Annas and Clemmy.
Daniel Pearl, commissioning editor at Channel 5 said in March: “Our Yorkshire Farm is such a special programme.
“It’s more than just a heart-warming documentary, it is a deeper exploration of family bonds, parenting styles and the desire among so many of us to live closer to nature.”
Each episode spans a single season in the farming calendar.
It truly is a remote farm, and isn’t something set up just for TV.
Ravenseat Farm spans 2,000 acres, is 1,800 feet above sea level, and located threeand-a-half miles West of Keld, Swaledale.
It marks the exact halfway point along the famous, 182-mile Coast to Coast walk that stretches from St Bees on the Irish Sea to the North Sea coast at Robin Hood’s Bay, and is therefore a popular haunt for walkers.
The
farm
does
open
for cream teas but due to the fact it’s so far from the beaten track, and their heavy load of work, visitors are advised to email ahead.
The show debuted on Channel 5, and the broadcaster has just announced a new two-year deal with Amanda.
This year will see the show return with 20 brand new episodes.
So far, there have been four seasons of the show.
The new series will air April 13.