Wonderful Open Farm Day read all about it…

The national Open Farm Sunday event, when farms up and down the country opened their gates to welcome visitors on to their premises, was held at Cappleside Farm, Rathmell.

The amazing sum of £986.70 was raised; the cake stall alone raising £275.

Refreshments including a barbecue, hot and cold drinks and cakes, were provided courtesy of Rathmell Reading Room Committee with all proceeds going towards the provision of an emergency Defibrillator in Rathmell. The Open day was run in conjunction with Co-operative Food, who provided all the burgers and sausages for the barbecue, and Dunbia who process the meat from the beef cattle produced on the farm.

There were displays showing different aspects of the farm business, which in addition to the organic beef herd, included a small-scale forestry business where all the timber is grown, harvested and processed on the premises.

The weather was wonderful as was the whole event, attended by many local people from Rathmell Village; also visitors from further afield, due in part to some excellent publicity preceding the event.

The Tour de Rathmell & Wigglesworth raised the grand total of £443.00, half of which will be donated to the Clapham Cave Rescue Organisation; the other half being donated to the Rathmell Reading Room.

‘Malcolm and Jonathan completed six laps in all – 42 miles, not bad for such a warm though beautiful day – weren’t we lucky!  The final sixth lap was completed after an extended pit stop in an old barn situated some where between Wigglesworth and Long Gill; the heavy downpour and thunderstorm accounting for this!  Both arrived safely back just before 5.30pm.”

Entertainment was be provided by Craven Flagcrackers , who performed their traditional Morris dancing,

and live music was provided by folk singer Phil Friend and multi-instrumentalist Ciara Parkinson-Jones.