GardenCalc
The little shop with nobody in it
Me and Leo went out on the Monday to visit the farm shops on our own doorstep, and Morton Farm Shop was the first stop. It is a proper honesty shop. A little self-service room at the farm, nobody behind a counter, and a freezer full of meat that was reared on the farm and frozen right there. Frozen straight away is about as fresh as frozen gets.
It is more than the freezer too. Free-range eggs, firewood for the winter, grape jelly with a handwritten label. She has all sorts there.
Meeting Helen
There was nobody about when we arrived, so I went round the back looking for the owner, photographing the cows grazing on the hill while I was at it. That is where we met Helen. We spoke for a good fifteen minutes. She has a family there, she told me about her sons, and she could not have been kinder. Me and Leo were really surprised. We had never expected a welcome like that. They are busy people, so we did not keep her.
She told me the farm has had a really hard year with the heat and the lack of rain, and they have had to dig into their reserves. A hot dry summer is hard on a garden. It is far harder on a farm.
What we bought
About £30 of meat from the honesty freezer: venison burgers, Welsh Dragon sausages and fresh brisket sausages. Leo picked up Cumberland sausages. Actual real ones, not the supermarket ones. We had the Dragon sausages at home that same evening.
Fresh, happy animals. You are what you eat, and the same goes for animals. Mass produced, they cannot graze freely, so they are not eating well, so they cannot be healthy to eat.
Finding it
The farm is just off the motorway, down a couple of A roads, and easy to find with the signs out on the road.
Visiting Morton Farm Shop
- Where: Morton Farm, Old Gloucester Road, The Knapp, Thornbury BS35 3UF
- Phone: 01454 413415. That is the farm landline. They are usually out working, so leave a message on the answerphone.
- Open: Daily, 8.30am until dusk, self-service. Check with the farm before you travel.
- Website: mortonfarm.co.uk
Helen was happy for us to recommend the farm here and in the newsletter. Nobody paid to be on this page.
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We carried on to Easter Compton Farm Shop the same day: a bigger shop with a cafe on site and a 24-hour milk vending machine.