www.flawboroughfarms.co.uk

Machinery

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Information to come soon

Meet The Team

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John; Partner

John came back to the farm after studying at Sutton Bonnington in 1978. Through his forward thinking and precision mind, the farm and business has progressed to where it is today. From being a main cog within the farming business both physically and mentally, in 2013 he retired from driving the combine so he could focus more on flying his drone and the office. In 2016 he qualified as a commercial drone pilot.

Emma; Partner

Emma studied Home economics with agriculture at Brackenhurt College otherwise known as the farmer’s wife course. From 2005 to 2019 she ran Flawborough Equine, a successful rehabilitation and hydrotherapy centre for horses. This was part of a diversification project on the old crew yard/ grain store.

Tom; Partner

Tom is very much front of house and in charge of day-to-day running of the farming activities. From a young age Tom has been very hands on and brought the idea of Controlled Traffic Farming (CTF) along with many of precision farming techniques.

Tabs; Partner

Tabs graduated from Harper Adams University after studying Farm business, whilst on her placement year she joined the land agency team at Strutt and Parker. Her main role now lies within the farm office tasks include Gatekeeper, CFA arrangement correspondence and data recording.

Lorne, Forman

Lorne has worked within agriculture all of his life and also studied agriculture at Brackenhurst College. He is our long standing Forman who has been with us for over 17 years who knows all the ins and outs of the whole farm and can turn his hand to anything. His knowledge of ag-chem and its application is second to none. His main roles are ag-chem/ fert application, managing the yard, dryer and managing all primary outputs.

Lesley; Admin

Lesley has worked in the office part- time for the farm and equine centre since 2005 her main roles include the wages, HR, health and safety, training, accounts and keeping the office all in order.

Andrew; Arable Operator

Andrew joined the team in June 2016 and is a local lad, who studied at Risholme College and is the chairman of a local Young Farmers group. His main roles are ag chem application, crop cultivations and establishments. This is his second stint at Flawborough as he worked as a harvest student here prior going to Risholme.

Ben; Arable Operator

Ben joined us in May 2020, relocating up from East Sussex to became an integral part of the Flawborough team. Ben has come from an Ag service technician background with 14 years of experience in the industry. He has worked for many of the core dealers including Haynes Ag and Burden Bros Agri as well as being self-employed, where he gained great experience demonstrating, installing and maintaining machinery especially combines. Ben’s main roles are main combine driver, Unimog logistics, relief spaying and drilling.

History

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Situated on the Nottingham, Lincolnshire and Leicestershire borders, Flawborough Farms is a family owned farm and contract farming agribusiness.

The Begining

In 1954 Charles Guy Hawthorne moved to Flawborough to become the farm manager for his god father at Flawborough Hall. Two years later after the majors death Charles inherited the farm and therefore is the first generation of Hawthorne's to farm at Flawborough.

Outline of Farm

Flawborough is a small hamlet situated 7 miles south of Newark, at the northern tip of the vale of Belvoir. Alverton is half a mile to the East.
The village is approached along the crest of a hill and the farmland falls away to the Western boundary, the River Smite. This is a deep channel, with normally only 12 inches of water in, but as it is the vale of Belvoir’s “drain” it can rapidly rise over twenty feet and flood. At the Northern tip of the parish, the river Smite joins the river Devon, also from the vale of Belvoir.
The farmland was originally all pasture with small pockets of arable, no doubt due to the constant flooding, and hence the soil type is predominantly heavy alluvial clay overlying sand and gypsum. As one comes towards the village the soil turns to Lias Clay and Keuper Marl. The soil at Alverton is calcareous limestone falling away to the alluvial clay adjacent to the Rivers Devon and Winter beck.
In the period of 1955-1975, due to the post war directive of farmland having to produce food, all the little fields were amalgamated from a total of thirty five to one large one at Flawborough and three at Alverton. The hedges that remained (,the majority that were removed were Elder , dead Ash trees ,rabbit warrens and barbed wire) were kept trimmed back to the smallest size possible, having to be cut by hand.
Due to the heavy nature of the soil, winter crops including Oilseed rape, Wheat, and Beans have been the only arable crops for the last 30 years, with spring peas having been grown for the last 5. Minimal cultivations have been used since 1969 except for a period of 3 years at the beginning of the 1980’s, the beginning of the straw burning ban, when we reverted to ploughing.

Environment & Wildlife

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Even though many of the environmental schemes have come and gone, we still pride ourselves on looking after the surrounding environment, habitats and eco systems within the farm. In the winter months John makes sure the local birds get plenty of cleanings from the grain cleaner/dresser.

As of 2020 in conjunction will a local bee keeper we know have 12 hives at Flawborough tucked away in a quiet spinney at the main farm.

Areas of interest include:

Owl nesting boxes
Kestrel nesting boxes
Grass margins and buffer stripes
Wild flower corners/areas
Fallow land/ winter stubble
Old gypsum quarry natural lakes & pounds.

The Smite and The Devon are the two rivers that boarder the main farm and positioned within the farm is an old gypsum quarry which has a number of large lakes. These all attract a wide variety of wetland birds, small mammals, insects, mouths and butterfly’s. For the last 20 years there has been sightings of otters however no photo evidence as of yet...