Grazing sheep to save a church, a report from the farmers' march and why olive oil will soon be cheap

Woolly gardeners gobble down neck-high nettles to save church

It was a plague of deathwatch beetles, leading to a £150,000 restoration deficit, that prompted Phillip Bailey, the enterprising warden of St Wolfrida’s Church in Horton, Dorset, to enlist the help of a flock of North Ronaldsay sheep to save on gardening costs. 

The 18th-century church, with 12th- or 13th-century origins and a tower on the brink of collapse that may have been designed by Vanbrugh, has a churchyard of some 1½ acres that was so overgrown, ‘the nettles were up to your neck,’ explains parish secretary Ruth Marshall. 

A former shepherdess, she sourced four sheep from a local breeder in Ferndown; they moved in last month and made swift work of the brambles, clearing four Commonwealth war graves in time for Remembrance Sunday: ‘We had two goats as well, but they were too good at escaping, so they’ve gone home.’

The rare breed, originally from the Orkney Islands, is ideal for the task, as it can withstand the cold, with no need for shelter. ‘Back in Orkney, they would have eaten the seaweed off the beaches and worked their way inland eating absolutely everything,’ says Ms Marshall. ‘This project wouldn’t have worked with any other breed. They are very intelligent — and super cute.’ Verger Jackie Lydford feeds and checks on them twice a day and many other volunteers pitch in, with their own congregational ‘flockwatch’ WhatsApp group.

‘With the deathwatch beetle eating two of our [Wimborne Minster] village churches at Horton and Chalbury from the inside out, we’re faced with a massive restoration project in the region of £300,000 and the full extent of the damage is not yet known,’ adds Ms Marshall. ‘It’s a fight for survival. Gardening in the graveyard at St Wolfrida’s costs £8,000 a year — a cost they couldn’t justify any more.

‘The sheep have been so good at bringing the community together, giving a focal point for people of all ages,’ she continues. ‘Volunteers strim areas that sheep can’t reach, such as under the yew tree. Children walk to the bus through the graveyard now, instead of along the road, to say hello to the sheep every morning. Rather than a temporary fix, we’d like to make the animals a permanent feature at Horton. We are hoping to raise money to improve our fencing and enable the livestock to stay longer, as well as for restoration.’ There are organisations that help fund restorations, explains the shepherdess, but they’ll only help if a church can prove its future and community, so the sheep at Horton are helping in more ways than one.

To donate, visit www.justgiving.com/crowdfunding/ruth-marshall and comment ‘beetle’ if you wish to donate to the restoration instead. Annunciata Elwes

Quiz of the day

1) What does a copoclephilist collect?

2) Sungold, Alicante and Gardener’s Delight are all varieties of what?

3) What is the name of Sherlock Holmes’s landlady?

4) Which country has the longest coastline?

5) What nationality was the artist Edvard Munch?

From the Farmers' March

The mood was by turns jovial and sombre, as nearly 20,000 people thronged Whitehall to protest against the Government’s plans to impose an inheritance tax that would jeopardise the backbone of the British countryside, the family farm. The plans to gather for speeches and then march to Parliament had to be adjusted when the sheer number of people meant the crowd stretched almost to Parliament Square before moving a step. Instead, children rode toy tractors to the gates of Westminster as a succession of farmers and politicians spoke of the generations past, present and - hopefully - future who have nurtured the land, livestock and the natural world. 

A minute’s silence remembered the Yorkshire farmer who recently took his own life, as well as all those who died in the World Wars commemorated in the nearby monuments. When one woman, a sixth-generation farmer, struggled to carry on with her speech, a spontaneous ripple of good-hearted applause gave her the time she needed to compose herself. Others emphasised farming’s role as the solution to climate change and biodiversity loss; one talked of those ‘scruffy little corners of the farm, havens for wildlife, that we have known for generations [that] would be swept away by a faceless corporation’.

One speaker urged us to make ourselves known to Rachel Reeves in No 11 Downing Street, a few yards away, and the resultant cheer rattled the windows. Labour peer Baroness Mallalieu spoke of her shame in her own party and of the cross-party support for farmers in the Lords, Liberal Democrat Ed Davey said farmers deserved better and Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch pledged to reverse the tax at the first opportunity. 

In a brief, but heartfelt speech, Jeremy Clarkson emphasised the hard graft for little reward that characterises farming, saying that the Budget was like a ‘knee in the nuts’, with not only inheritance tax, but the reclassification of farm trucks and a carbon tax on fertiliser clobbering farmers. Finally, Tom Bradshaw of the NFU raised a cheer with a pledge to keep fighting and make our voices heard. 

Afterwards, not a scrap of litter was left, but a cornucopia of food was donated to City Harvest, from leeks to fruit cakes, apples to sides of bacon. The food bank van receiving the donations was full before even half the marchers had arrived and every scrap will go to support those in need across the capital. The generosity underlined the central wish of the farmer: to feed the nation. May there always be more where that came from. Octavia Pollock

Property of the day

Welcome to the Notswolds. Otherwise known as Rutland. England's smallest county comes with all the 'ambience of the Cotswolds without the price tag', claims our writer. Feast your eyes on not just one property, but several. Don't say we don't spoil you.

Good news at last for olive oil lovers

I hate olives, but I love olive oil. This is one of life’s funny little games. What is not one of life’s funny little games is just how expensive olive oil has become. A bottle of the good extra-virgin stuff seemed to be endlessly creeping up in price, and one of the biggest fights I ever had with a former housemate was when I found out he was using my Italian olive oil for cooking. I maintain that I showed great restraint for not actively attacking him.

So good news for me, as this year’s Spanish olive harvest appears to be a bumper crop, driving down wholesale olive oil prices. According to Javier Blas, energy and commodities columnist at Bloomberg, this should filter through to retail olive oil prices very soon. Rejoice.

That's all for today, we'll be back tomorrow

Quiz answers

1) Keyrings

2) Tomato

3) Mrs Hudson

4) Canada

5) Norwegian