All creatures great and small

THE PRINCESS ROYAL, whose role promoting traditional mixed, organic farming with native breeds is often overlooked, invited COUNTRY LIFE to her Gatcombe Park estate in Gloucestershire for her 70thbirthday issue, for which she was Guest Editor. Here, elegant Thoroughbred bloodstock was turned out with the great chunky Suffolk horse Winnie–pictured greeting Doris the English bull terrier. There were Gloucester Old Spot pigs, Buff Orpington chickens, Highland and White Park cattle and Wiltshire Horn sheep to be admired, too.

‘Organic has become a more difficult market over the years,’ suggested The Princess Royal. ‘I think perhaps the emphasis now is more on buying local and in looking after your soil. We have to keep finding more imaginative uses for land.’ (July 29, 2020) KG