Sheriff Farm, Bingley: ​Masham Sheep Fair after highs and lows in a rollercoaster year

While the curtain officially came down on Yorkshire’s summer show season last Sunday at Pateley Bridge there is another popular farming event wholly devoted to one species this weekend.

Masham Sheep Fair came about forty-plus years ago when Susan Cunliffe-Lister and others brought back memories of days when Yorkshire’s largest market square would host is annual sale of over 70,000 sheep.

Breeds are judged over two days, today and tomorrow, and having started out to raise funds for Sheep Aid to help farmers in Africa it has since raised over £265,000 for cancer charities.

Pedigree Dutch Spotted breeders, young farming couple Beth Chew and Ben Whitham of Sheriff Farm, Gilstead near Bingley will be there with nine-year old son Oliver but won’t be competing as they haven’t throughout this year’s show season. Beth will be there giving support to her fellow Dutch Spotted breeders in her position as chair of the breed’s Yorkshire group tomorrow.

‘We couldn’t show at all this year because of a sheep we’d bought at market having tested positive for the virus MV (maedi-visna) and we’re not allowed to show until we are retested in November. Hopefully everything passes and we can then get back to showing. It’s been so frustrating as it went through the MV ring at a society sale, and as a result we had to cull it and its offspring, which was doubly gutting because it had a really nice gimmer lamb to the tup that we’d had as breed champion at the Great Yorkshire Show.

Undeterred and having had their fair share of woes recently with their 4000-guinea tup dying halfway through lambing; and some lambs born with Schmallenberg disease, Beth is says it has been a rollercoaster year, but that the highs still outweigh the lows.

‘There are times when you ask yourself why you’re still doing it but I love the countryside, farming, our sheep and the pigs we raise, and here on our 50-acre farm I’m my own boss, I can do what I want when I want and don’t have to go by anyone else’s rule book.

‘Ben has become a sheep guy too. He’s just started as an auto electrician at David Peel Auto Electricians in Keighley and never had sheep before. His dad had a few cattle and we’ve raised a few calves but for us sheep and pigs are quite a quicker income and less costly outlay compared to cattle.

‘We started with ten commercial sheep in 2020 at my parents’ farm. My mum is Ruth Judson who is a well-known Southdown breeder and my dad Andrew is an agricultural contractor. We lambed them and also reared 200 pet lambs, keeping the ewe lambs.

‘Back then we were buying the pet lambs for a fiver and so long as they grew and got to a shearling, we put them in lamb and lambed them. We’d go to markets, mostly Gisburn, every weekend and we’d pick up anything. We got up to 150 ewes.

It was the taking on of Sheriff Farm in September 2021 that saw their move towards the Dutch Spotted breed take shape.

‘We’d seen them at the Great Yorkshire Show in 2021. There weren’t any about locally but by chance we saw a recip ewe with twin gimmer lambs at Gisburn and bought them. We then began a grading up system using a Texel at first, but bought two pedigree Dutch Spotted rams in 2022 and began showing at Weeton Show. We bought our first pedigree shearling ewe in 2022 and put our gimmer lambs in lamb. We then bought two pedigree lambs and have continued to grow our own flock as well as buying the odd one. We now have around 30 pedigree Dutch Spotted ewes. My aim is to breed something that will one day get a triple crown breed champion at the Great Yorkshire, the Royal Highland and Royal Welsh. We’ve been placed at the other two.

‘Having breed champion at the Great Yorkshire Show in 2025 was an amazing moment. We paid 4000 guineas for him as a ram lamb in 2024. We thought we would put all our ewes to him but he died halfway through. I was devastated. Loads of people wanted to use him.

‘Fortunately, we have got semen stored. We managed to get 35 doses. That was only because a good friend in Wales who wanted to use him, who’d helped us with our Blue Texels in our first year, and wanted to use him and I engaged a semen collector service to get as much as was possible while he was down there for the day. We’re using his semen on our own but the odd straw is available.

Beth and Ben also have Blue Texel and Badger Face Texel ewes, but it is their Dutch Spotted flock and their Lode Pit pedigree prefix that is earning them a significant reputation.

‘We lamb in January and usually have two lambs and often three lambs per ewe. We cull hard as I’m a firm believer in quality over quantity.

‘I became chair of the Yorkshire region last year and I’ll be at Masham Sheep Fair on Sunday to help promote the breed which provides a carcase of really good meat reaching the same grades as Beltex and Texel lines. They’re a big-framed animal that are excellent easy lambers, great milkers, and have such natural instincts nurturing their lambs. They are also so distinctive and good looking.

Beth also spends her time at Sheriff rearing pigs.

‘We have weaners and specialise in native breeds, particularly Gloucester Old Spots, Saddlebacks and Oxford Sandy & Blacks that we take through to finishing and sell to Swaledale Foods in Skipton. We’ve also reared Large Blacks and Middle White-crosses. We go to Nicole Armstrong at Skipton who breeds pedigree Old Spots, this year someone bought a boar off her that went on to become boar champion at Harrogate; and we get the Sandy & Blacks from Emma Haines at Colne.

‘This year we’ve taken on even more. We get them at 8 weeks and finish at 100 kilos, which usually takes them until 4-5 months. We buy as soon as our suppliers have availability.

‘I was quite scared of pigs at first, but now I love them. I have one that sits down on command, which is better than I can do with Oliver!

Beth says Oliver is already getting involved in the farm and helping his granddad.

‘He helps show our sheep and helps mum and dad with theirs, he’s also off with his granddad on his contracting business at any opportunity. He sees it as his job to go with him. And he’s now got his own chickens, Orpingtons and one Porcelain Bahama. He’s only the second person in the UK to have that breed.

Beth is itching to get back to showing and fulfil her dreams.

‘We haven’t shown since Keighley Show last September. This year I’ve been supporting mum with her Southdowns, but the plan is simple for next year’s show season. We’re going to ‘go big or go home’. We’ve just got to get through our retest in November. Wish us luck everybody!