BEEF ENCOUNTER
In Herefordshire, Jake and Ed run a farm-to-fork restaurant serving wood-fired meat from nativebreed animals. It’s been a slow burn, but now they’re leading the field
A farm-to-fork restaurant serving wood-fired meat from native-breed animals raised in Herefordshire
The barn at Lower House Farm, just outside Longtown in Herefordshire, buzzes with the chatter of guests. Chef Jake Townley is outside, the Black Mountains behind him, stoking the firepit with logs before cooking dishes over the flames. “There’s something magical about food cooked by fire,” he says. “This is the way we’ve cooked for most of human existence and I think our brains are hardwired to love smoky flavours.”
Diners inside await his wood-fired topside of beef and slow-cooked shin, pork loin and crispy cheek. Soon, they will savour this with beef-dripping roast potatoes, chargrilled greens in herb butter and smoked cauliflower cheese. They sit on sheepskin-lined benches at wooden tables decorated with vases of teasels and large church candles. Once they have devoured apple crumble, Jake and his wife Amie invite them to spend a slow afternoon wandering around the farm, visiting a nearby waterfall or tramping over the hills.
It has been almost 18 months since Jake and his brother-in-law Ed Dickson have been able to serve customers at their farm and restaurant. During the pandemic, they had to close the venue to diners, while they kept everything else going. Ed focused on caring for the animals, while Jake produced mail-order meat boxes. Now, they are gearing up for events again. This summer, they opened The Bull’s Head Inn nearby with rooms for regular dining, and began to plan feasts and large events at the farm again. They can’t wait to host weekend lunches and dinners, as well as weddings, on their land, serving the finest-quality meat from native-breed animals at their farm-restaurant on site. “We love bringing people onto a working farm and serving them the food it produces,” Jake says.
BROTHERS IN FARMS
The farm is looked after by Ed and his wife Fran, who introduced them. Jake and Ed connected immediately over their love of the outdoors, although neither came from farming families. When they met, Jake was a chef. At the Royal Academy of Culinary Arts, where he trained, he had been particularly interested in the origin of ingredients, looking into animal breeds and how they had been raised. Although Jake had grown up in London, he had spent many weekends in Monmouthshire, while his parents renovated an old farmhouse. As a child, he would pass the time with a local farmer, Bill Morgan. “He’d take me out and about and show me the sheep being sheared,” Jake recalls. “He was like a grandad to me.” Ed had grown up in Hertfordshire and was managing a loading bay for a department store until the farm idea came along.
It was Jake’s parents who spotted Lower House Farm for sale one day in the local newspaper. Jake and Ed were full of idealism and excitement. “I remember being awake all night, thinking about
The sheep eat up to 50 species of grasses and plants, including brambles, nettles, dandelions and buttercups
what we could do with it,” Ed says. They wondered if they could run a farm together. “We were daft enough to say, ‘Let’s give it a go,’” he adds.
Ed and Fran moved into the stone farmhouse behind the barn in 2015, and live there today with their children, Ben, seven, Erin, four, and Gwen, two. Jake settled in the area a couple of months later with Amie. The land hadn’t been farmed since the early 2000s when foot and mouth disease had struck. There was no fencing, let alone livestock. “It was a good thing that the place was such a blank canvas,” Ed says. “It meant we could start small and build up.”
Wild by Nature was a slow burn. Initially, Ed kept pigs, while Jake produced charcuterie, which they sold to local delis. Ed and Fran also hosted camping weekends and then weddings in the barn, catered for by Jake. It was only then that they thought about starting a farm-to-fork restaurant, putting on Sunday lunches and monthly evening feasts, with Amie running front of house.
BARN TO BE WILD
The sheep, just up the hill, are the first animals to greet visitors. Ed looks after a mix of native breeds. “We started with Jacobs, but they were a nightmare,” he says, with a grin. “They didn’t flock and wouldn’t stick to the best pasture.” He currently has “very slow-growing” Herdwicks and some Lleyns. His 40 cows include Belted Galloways – named after the white stripe around their black coats – and reddish-brown and white Herefords. They also keep Oxford Sandy & Black pigs.
Along with pork from Martha Roberts, a farmer near Abergavenny (featured in our June issue), this assortment of livestock ensures Jake and Ed have meat both for their diners and subscribers to a monthly
meat-box scheme. The box includes a nose-to-tail range of fresh and cured cuts, as well as dripping and lard, all prepared by Jake.
They own 73 acres, and are tenants of 33 more. The owners welcome Ed’s sheep onto their land for conservation grazing, which promotes biodiversity by controlling invasive plants. The sheep are also part of regenerative agriculture, ensuring farming benefits the environment. “It’s all about looking after the soil and vegetation, which then feed the animals,” Ed says. The herd eats up to 50 species of grasses and plants, including brambles, nettles, dandelions and buttercups, resulting in creamy, yellow fat and meat rich in beta-carotene.
Not that Wild by Nature caters only for carnivores. Vegetarians are welcome, enjoying dishes such as mushroom and chestnutstuffed cabbage leaves. Ed and Jake are not opposed to veganism either. “At least people are putting thought into where their food is coming from and educating themselves about food systems,” Ed says. “It’s not what you’re eating that’s important, but how it’s produced.”
Jake and Ed talk in unison about their plans for the future, which range from allowing the pigs to roam in their own woodland and getting some Hill Radnor sheep to creating a curing room and growing fruit and vegetables. For now, however, they’re concentrating on their new pub and the return of their restaurant, feeding diners from the farm. It has been a long year and a half, but they are glad to be back.