A working farm, not a field with a tap
250 acres, a pedigree Sussex herd, and a year that does not stop
Goffsland is a family-run farm of 250 acres in the Sussex Weald. The cattle and the sheep are the business; the five-pitch Certificated Location sits at the quiet end of it.
The stock
Sussex cattle and a small flock of sheep
The Sussex is the county's own breed: deep red, short horned, thick set, and bred for centuries to do well on Wealden clay. The pedigree herd here began in 2003, after a run of years that had taken the farm from dairy to arable and back again. The sheep flock is small and runs alongside them.
Both produce prime beef and lamb for local butchers and farmers' markets. Beef young stock go at eighteen to twenty-four months, usually in the autumn or in May. Nothing about that timetable bends for the campsite, which is rather the point of staying on a farm that is genuinely being farmed.
The land itself belongs to the Burrell family of Knepp Castle at West Grinstead, the estate behind the Knepp Wildland rewilding project. The Livertons have been the tenants since 1985, and both sons now work here too, on contracting and haylage.
The farming year
Come in March and you will be here for lambing
The farm looks completely different depending on the month you pick. This is roughly how the year runs.
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Winter
The cattle are housed in the yards. The ewes come indoors about a month before they are due.
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From the end of March
Lambing. Ewes and lambs go out to the fields at two to three weeks old.
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From the end of March
Calving starts, and the pedigree cattle go out to grass through April and May.
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June to mid-August
The Sussex bull joins the cows and calves out in the fields.
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September
The lambs are weaned. Some of the females are kept back as replacements for the flock.
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October and November
The cattle come back into the yards, and the calves are weaned early the following year.
Conservation
Ten years of stewardship, and 800 metres of new hedge
The farm spent ten years in Countryside Stewardship and is now in the Higher Level Stewardship scheme. That is not a badge, it is a set of commitments about how the ground is worked.
Grassland is managed traditionally, with hay, haylage and silage cut to encourage variety in the vegetation rather than flatten it. Hedges are allowed to grow to two metres and are cut less frequently. Eight hundred metres of new hedgerow have been planted. Every arable field is left with an uncultivated margin for habitat, and some of the grassland is managed on organic fertiliser alone, with no chemical weed sprays at all.
Volunteers from the RSPB Volunteer and Farmer Alliance have surveyed the birds here twice, in 2005 and 2010. The most recent count published for the farm records at least 46 species using the land, 8 of them on the at-risk list.
Walking the farm
Rights of way in several directions, and a pub at the end of one
Public footpaths and bridleways cross Goffsland in several directions, so the walking starts at the pitch rather than at a car park. One of the paths through the farm leads to a nearby pub serving local ales.
Dogs are welcome, and the only thing we ask is that they are kept under proper control around the cattle and the sheep. Lambing and calving both run from the end of March, and that is the time of year to be most careful.
Read on
Stay on the farm
Five pitches, at the quiet end of 250 acres
Open all year to members of the Caravan and Motorhome Club. Tell us when you would like to come.