How barn owls and solar panels won a country estate near Whitby a prestigious farming award

Over the last five years, the estate has brought several wildlife habitats back into environmental management, has planted more than 27,500 trees and restored 10,000 metres of boundaries of dry stone walls and hedgerows amongst other measures to bring farming and nature restoration to work together.

John Beech, Mulgrave’s assistant rural surveyor, was presented with a certificate and engraved crystal glasses at the Great Yorkshire Show to recognise this achievement.

Mr Beech said: “This award is a tremendous honour for the Estate and a reward for all our hard-working farming team who ensure that conservation and environmental improvements are at the very top of our farming agenda.

“At Mulgrave we firmly believe that farming, wildlife and nature conservation can co-exist and this forms the basis of all that we do on the farm – from rain water harvesting to enough wild bird and pollinator plots equal to over 160 premier league football pitches, we like to think we are championship farmers.

“The Tye Trophy is extremely well-respected because it is judged purely by farmers. It makes us very proud to be recognised by our peers in this way.”

He added that while Mulgrave is primarily a commercial farm growing more than a thousand acres of cereals with Winter Wheat, Spring and Winter Barley and Oil Seed Rape grown in rotation around the fields, every opportunity is taken to maintain and encourage wildlife wherever possible.

In the last five years, several important wildlife habitats have been brought back into environmental management, including moorland where drainage grips have been blocked to re-wet the moor, introducing conservation grazing using native breeds to benefit upland waders such as Curlew and Lapwing, drilling 277 acres of winter bird food, pollen and nectar mixes and digging 15 ponds and scrapes on marginal land for freshwater pond species.

In addition, they have restored 10,000m of traditional field boundaries such as dry-stone walls and hedgerows and planted 27,500 native trees on non- productive farmland.

Barn Owls have become a common sight around the farm after several nest boxes were installed in various farm buildings across the Estate. There are 12 rainwater harvesters holding 360,000 litres of rainwater from the roofs of the farm buildings and the estate is about to install a solar panel array on the grain sheds to make the operation more energy sustainable in the future.

Late last year the Mulgrave Estate, which has its head office in the village of Lythe, also completed a pioneering £20,000 wetlands project which enhanced biodiversity and nurture wildlife on its land.

In recent months, the estate has also been working to bring redundant and derelict farm buildings back into use following renovation for local occupancy and farming tenants to take on.

Now in its 14th year, the Tye Trophy continues a long tradition of using competition to highlight some of the best farms in the North and how they are prioritising conservation, the environment and improvement.

A spokesman for the Yorkshire Agricultural Society, who thanked the estate for its “excellent” submission, explained that judging was based on the integration of wildlife conservation and environmental improvement within a commercial farming operation.