Sad day today

Old Tip

Member
Location
Cumbria
Always a sad day when marts cease to trade, lot of the small ones have gone over the last twenty odd years. Friend of mine has a life long ambition to buy something on every mart in the country, he’s been to a lot all over the spot many of them gone now. He said although he’s getting older the marts are getting less so he may yet achieve his goal
 
Location
Devon
End or a era @Victor

I can recall as a kid going to Hatherleigh market to buy calves, would easily be 200+ there every week of top quality calves let alone a thriving strong store market for cattle and sheep, sadly F+M was the start of the end for this market, very clear in this part of the country the number of animals has decreased by a massive margin since 2001, one wonders if there will be many livestock farms left if it carry's on at the rate it has been, some call it progress, im not so sure!

Intresting pic on google of a Mr Harris opening the new market entrance ( ie the old market entrance ) with all the farmers dressed up in shirts and ties for their weekly visit to the market to trade their wares, any idea what year this was Victor?
 

Victor

Member
Location
Devon
End or a era @Victor

I can recall as a kid going to Hatherleigh market to buy calves, would easily be 200+ there every week of top quality calves let alone a thriving strong store market for cattle and sheep, sadly F+M was the start of the end for this market, very clear in this part of the country the number of animals has decreased by a massive margin since 2001, one wonders if there will be many livestock farms left if it carry's on at the rate it has been, some call it progress, im not so sure!

Intresting pic on google of a Mr Harris opening the new market entrance ( ie the old market entrance ) with all the farmers dressed up in shirts and ties for their weekly visit to the market to trade their wares, any idea what year this was Victor?
First thing I ever bought was a calf at hatherleigh market bought quite a few over the years
Remember the trailers queued right back to the entrance of the market with calves on board
 
That's true , up here in Stirling the ua and cally, cally nearly went down a few years back, but they managed to turn it around, to many rogue sheep dealers not paying ,
 

Sid

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
South Molton
Building houses on the site I think?
Don't give Dawn meats much time to be left there then.
Can't see anyone wanting to buy a house with a slaughterhouse behind them.


Back to OP have spent many a day down hatherleigh market, grandfather was good friends with Roger(?) Vick, he use to say to me don't stand still too long or Mr Vick will sell you as they would sell anything.
A real mixed market with loads of stalls a nice cafe and an air of fun about it.
Last time i went was for the christmas poultry few years ago. Hundreds of birds all lined up wooden tressel tables ontop the sheep pens. Andrew Varney chirping away with a long job infront of him.
Sad loss
 

GarethT

Member
Hatherleigh lad here. Quite gutted to see the end of the market.
The markets never been quite the same since F+M, I can remember a few huge sales as a kid in the 90s where you'd see cars parked for nearly quarter of a mile up the side of the a386. Never been that busy since then sadly.

The Tuesday market is at least due to carry on at least in some form or other and there is provision for it in the planning for the new development.

I think dawn meats will be around to stay for a while at least as they've just been expanding the abattoir in the last 12 months.
 
Location
Cleveland
Hatherleigh lad here. Quite gutted to see the end of the market.
The markets never been quite the same since F+M, I can remember a few huge sales as a kid in the 90s where you'd see cars parked for nearly quarter of a mile up the side of the a386. Never been that busy since then sadly.

The Tuesday market is at least due to carry on at least in some form or other and there is provision for it in the planning for the new development.

I think dawn meats will be around to stay for a while at least as they've just been expanding the abattoir in the last 12 months.
Did dawns used to buy much out of the mart?
 

GarethT

Member
So why the closure?

Is it family circumstances regarding the business?

Lack of support from farmers?
From what I've heard there was interest from outside on buying or leasing the market with the intention of carrying it on but the owners seem to have had their hearts set in selling to the developers. The market and it's car park etc covers around 10 acres so lots of cash to be made from developing it.
 

stevei

Member
Location
Devon
We went to the junk sale today just to have a last look around. Can remember going in the 1990's for my father to buy his breeding ewes and the sheep market would have been full. Then started to sell our lambs there about 5 years ago but had to stop as there were so few buyers as there was only a few pens of fat lambs. Other halfs family are big supporters of it and will miss it. Very sad when you think what it could still be if they'd really tried.
 

SFI - What % were you taking out of production?

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    Votes: 77 43.5%
  • Up to 25%

    Votes: 62 35.0%
  • 25-50%

    Votes: 28 15.8%
  • 50-75%

    Votes: 3 1.7%
  • 75-100%

    Votes: 3 1.7%
  • 100% I’ve had enough of farming!

    Votes: 4 2.3%

Red Tractor drops launch of green farming scheme amid anger from farmers

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As reported in Independent


quote: “Red Tractor has confirmed it is dropping plans to launch its green farming assurance standard in April“

read the TFF thread here: https://thefarmingforum.co.uk/index.php?threads/gfc-was-to-go-ahead-now-not-going-ahead.405234/
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