Farm Animals

Visit the farm and meet our mischievous goats, curious curly coated pigs, and George our resident gander. Be sure to pick up some animal feed from our shop and enjoy time interacting with all our animals - you’ll have some new friends in no time – at least until you run out of food!

We also keep several varieties of chickens and ducks. The Anglo-Saxons kept these birds not only for their meat and feathers but also for the eggs which were not only eaten but used to mix the inks which the monks used to illustrate their manuscripts. The oxen we have on site are Dexter bullocks, black or brown in colour and smaller than most modern cattle.  They are about the same size and shape as the cattle of the Anglo-Saxon era and similar to the animals, which would have worked daily on a Anglo-Saxon farm to pull ploughs or carts.

Our sheep are small and sprightly. Kept mainly for their wool, spun and then woven into cloth this was valuable not only to provide clothing locally but as a trade good which came to be valued throughout Europe in the later medieval period. The animals we have on our farm are similar to those the Anglo-Saxons would have kept, and are generally smaller than those we usually see today – giving a feel for what animals would have been like during Bede’s time.