Farm Link
David Felce also runs Midloe Farmlink, which provides a full independent agronomy, crop nutrition and buying service to a group of local farms covering around 5,000 acres.
Good working relationships with local / national distributors gives excellent supply of products and a broad view of local trials and technical back up to put together well priced, effective crop protection programmes.The company also provides training and advice on spray applications, including NPTC City and Guilds PA1 and PA2 safe use of pesticides modules.
Countryside management can also be covered, based on work and experiences at Midloe and as a former winner of both the Farm Sprayer Operator of the Year and Countryside Farmer of the Year Awards, sponsored by Farmers Weekly.
He is an Approved Trainer for BASIS BETA (Biodiversity and Environment Training for Advisors) and SFEDI Accredited for delivering Cross Compliance advice. He has also co-written the annual training event for NPTC for the last three years and delivered it to many spray operators across the country.
For more information, please contact us
The first documentary evidence to Midloe occurs in 1135, when the manor itself was transferred from Ramsey Abbey to the Warden Abbey, at a rent of three stones of wax yearly. Essentially, a Grange was an outpost of the mother Abbey, for the purpose of supplying food and other essentials, such as the wax which would have been used for candles.
The current Midloe Grange was built by Robert Payne in around 1590 on the site of the former abbey grange. Several features around the farm survive as a direct link to the heritage of the landscape. There are a total of seven ponds of varying size, a moated enclosure, with raised internal banks and a field of ridge and furrow pasture. The field, known as ‘Horse Close’ has been continuously under pasture since at least 1630, and in all likelihood from before the dissolution. This means that the ridge and furrow present in the field can be firmly dated to the medieval period, and are thus directly connected with the former landscape of the Midloe Grange whilst held by the Abbey of Old Warden. The pasture has been managed without fertilizers and herbicides to preserve the wide range of species that grow here, several of which are scarce indicators of old lowland calcareous grassland. For more detail on the species, please see ‘Wildlife at Midloe’ page. Many of the field names in use today can also be traced back as having been in use for at least two hundred years. Names such as ‘Old Hopyard, ‘New Hopyard’ and ‘Monk’s Ditch’ again provide a link to the history associated with Midloe”
(extracts from ‘A Landscape History of the Parish of Midloe’, by Twigs Way)
