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Sharpham Park

Roger Saul tells us how he and his wife Monty have gone from having a passion for fashion to being inspired by spelt, an ancient cousin of wheat, with a unique nutty flavour perfect for bread, biscuits and breakfast cereals and ideal for those with a wheat intolerance.

Our entry into food was through Charlton House; we built the hotel up, to probably one of the best-known boutique hotels in the UK. The food was critical for Charlton House, it quickly became clear that the expectation was for Michelin star standards. We learnt to understand food and food standards. Adam Fellows was a fabulous chef, after 8 years or so it was time for him to move on and do his own thing.

The farm at Sharpham Park, alongside our family home, near Glastonbury, came up for sale in 2004 just as we came out of Mulberry. It was one of life’s serendipity moments, something that was meant to happen.

When we bought the farm, we knew the history because we’d lived here forever. With my experience of brands I knew that there was no way we were going to be able to farm here successfully unless we went vertical and took it through from farming to final products. We asked ourselves, could we do a vertical operation? We eschewed the Michelin star approach that worked for Charlton House, it didn’t seem to match what we were trying to do here, rather than taking the very best ingredients from round the world, what we wanted to do was to see if we could find right animals, to take through to the table.

We knew the land was very good, but we only found out as we did more and more research that Sharpham Park had been a medieval deer park, fully established as early as the year 1250. We developed a plan to try and take it back to the way a deer park would have operated then. As we did the research we discovered that in those days big parts were let to sub-tenants to farm, the fields still bear their names today. They all farmed different things, there were pigs and cattle, there was leather tanning and they pollarded trees for fencing. There was also a very early decoy duck pond and a rabbit warren, which was quite a prestigious thing to have in medieval times. A lot of mini industries were working together. There was no way we could practically do that today.

Going back to the Mulberry days, we always looked at what were the products that we got the press out of, the window dressing. They would catch the imagination and bring people in; very often the team would get confused over what was the volume product that you make the real margins out of! Here, we looked at the park and knew we had to bring deer back in.

We checked the history to find out what breed of deer they kept and found they had red deer, although they probably had fallow as well. We knew they had sheep and cattle; the best record was of ‘big white and red cattle’. The cattle in those days would have been very big animals, white park was nearest we could find. We went to the best butchers in country and asked them what breeds were best for taste. White park produce very marbled meat, with a quite strong, almost gamy taste. That’s where we started to learn that the taste of meat is about the type of animal, the age of animal and what you feed the animal. We found about 500 breeding animals in the country and bought them 3 here, 5 there.

We started to look for sheep, and thought it would be interesting if we could perpetuate and encourage rare breeds during the process, but the final choice came out of a desire for the best taste. It was a period when the ideal for lamb was the American-style, barley fed animal, to give creamy white fat, but this gives a bland taste. I discovered that feeding oats gives yellow fat with more taste. And spelt is the best food of all, because it has slow release energy, and it’s got very high protein. Our varieties Manx Loghtan and Hebridean have low fat and low cholesterol levels. We also found that hoggets, aged 12-18 months, have less fat than lambs, so it’s a combination of the variety and the fact that they’re hoggets. Having our own butchery at Kilver Court was best decision we made, how the meat is butchered is the making of it.

Records showed Sharpham Park was a very successful wheat farm in 1800s, in 1844 employing 20 men and 7 boys, a very important farm, one of the best in Somerset. My sister had cancer, she alerted me to spelt. We started reading about the health benefits and interesting things about it. We tried to buy some, but couldn’t find any in the UK and ended up buying seed for trials from Italy, Germany and Austria. We found we had something quite magical with spelt. The reason no-one else does it is because spelt gives a poor yield compared to wheat and on top of that you lose 40% into chaff. Having learnt how to grow spelt we faced the problem of de-husking, we didn’t know a combine harvester couldn’t remove the husk. Burcott Mill, a lovely tiny operation helped us at the start; they gave us one set of stones, but they could only do 30 tonnes per year, it wasn’t enough. Bigger mills all do different grains, this would have been a cross-contamination risk, for those who have wheat intolerance, and so we had to go on our own. We set out to build own mill, it took 2 years to find machinery and get the plant commissioned.

We opted to go organic from the start and sowed 50% organic spelt and 50% conventionally grown wheat. This gave us a graphic lesson in what conventional farmers do.

We grew our conventional wheat hedge to hedge and watched the contractors using fertiliser, pesticide, growth inhibitor, etc, about 6 applications in all. Monty in particular, because of her interest in wellness, said “are you sure it’s not damaging atmosphere and leaving residues?”

For the spelt we put in 6m margins around the edges of the fields and practised countryside stewardship, clearing out the ditches etc.

One key lesson that sticks in my mind is clearing the pond. It hadn’t been cleared for years and dirty slurry came up. We spread it on the top fields with a big pipe. The next day, a pond a mile down was black. I realised, ‘oh dear, it doesn’t filter through the soil, it comes out further down in water course.’ We had lots of little oh dear moments.

When the contractors asked if we wanted them to sell the wheat, we said yes. They said they sell to chicken farmers and it suddenly became clear. Who eats chicken? Us. All that stuff sprayed on goes into the only foodstuff the chickens eat, that’s what their body mass is.

There is absolutely no substitute for organic, it’s the only discipline where the farmer self volunteers to follow a method which you as a consumer know doesn’t involve pesticides, antibiotics and so on. It’s about a farming method that completely respects the cycle of life within the countryside. I’m absolutely convinced that unless we make radical change we will have serous problems in this country.

I’ve learnt that I’m really lucky to be doing what I’m doing now, I’m at the forefront of agriculture and the environment. It’s not about bullying people into doing things, but about giving them an interesting option that intrigues them, captures their imagination and perhaps helps them start a big or a small journey, looking at things a little more closely.

Sharpham Park’s range includes cereals, mueslis, granolas, puffs, biscuits and of course flour. Products are sold online and from Kilver Court, where dishes, such as 'speltotto' are made with spelt are served in the Harlequin Café. Click here for details.

Sharpham Park supply retailers nationwide, includingClaridges and Harvey Nicholls in London and more locally Jon Thorners(Shepton Mallet), Apple Tree Farm Shop (Yeovil) and Earth Fare (Glastonbury).

Click here to find out more about spelt, and here for spelt recipes.

Kevin McCloud named Sharpham Park Mill as one of the most inspiring food buildings in Somerset. Click here to read more

Roger Saul is a key player in the Soil Association Food for Life initiative. In the New Year we hope to publish a follow up article about this and the work being done at Kilver Court to educate children and their parents about healthy eating and growing food for the future. Please register for our e-newsletter from our homepage if you would like us to let you know when it is published.