We’ve been farming at Tapnell and East Afton for nearly 40 years, evolving from purely dairy to what we are today: a fully diverse agricultural business. Tapnell enjoys some of the finest views on the Isle of Wight and sits on the site of the island’s original music festival, when Jimi Hendrix rocked out! We are forever looking to maintain and improve the land we are lucky enough to enjoy.
Our family has been in farming for over one hundred years and we took over the care of Tapnell and East Afton Farms in 1982. At it’s peak the farm milked 800 cows and produced 24,000 litres of fresh wholesome milk 365 days of the year, no exceptions! We no longer milk at Tapnell, instead focusing on rearing youngstock for our dairy on the mainland and growing maize and a range of other crops as part of our commitment to an ELS scheme. Sustainability is at the heart of everything we do, whether taking water from our bore hole, using the sun to make electricity, powering our heating systems with our biomass boiler or growing maize to put into the islands anaerobic digestor, it’s truly ingrained in our approach to farming.
We aim to approach our new tourism work with the same mindset and endeavour, combined with the passion for the countryside, farming and the Island. The golden rule for us is “to pass on our farm in better environmental and productive health than it was at the beginning of our life’s tenure”.
Sitting on the site of the 1970 Isle of Wight pop festival, our farm is surrounded by small and randomly shaped fields that form the pasture and meadows of the countryside, which gently undulate with Tapnell Down to the south and the Hamstead Heritage Coast and coastal woodlands to the north. The picturesque chalk down grassland and forests to the south are not only part of the protected landscape, but are also Sites of Special Scientific Interest and described by Natural England as being “probably the best example in Britain of chalk grassland under maritime influence”. The 125m high down-land offers spectacular panoramic views to Lymington, Bournemouth and Tennyson Down.
