Sam Rawling & Lizzie Weir : Commoners, Lake District

Sam Rawling and Lizzie Weir

Commoners, Kinniside Common, Cumbria

Members of the Rawling family have been farming here since records began. Sam has followed in this tradition and now lives, with Lizzie, in Hollins Farm, in Ennerdale. They work closely with Sam’s parents, Will and Louise, and exercise their rights to graze on Kinniside Common.

“It’s a strange life, is hillfarming, but a good life,” says Sam. Lizzie agrees: “I like to use the word Grateful. Because we are lucky, even though it can be hard.”

Sam Rawling is, in his words, the ‘umpteenth’ generation of his family to farm in Ennerdale. Certainly, the Rawlings have been farming here since records began, and the farmhouse in which Sam and Lizzie now live is hundreds of years old. They have around 500 acres of inbye land (owned and rented) and use Kinniside common for grazing. Working closely with Sam’s parents, they keep herdwick sheep and some cattle: Stabiliser X and Aberdeen Angus.

Lizzie grew up in Borrowdale, in a farming family, and farmed in various places across the Lake District before settling in Ennerdale with Sam. ‘I think we're a good team,’ She says. ‘We work well together. But you have to be a mind reader sometimes!’ There’s seldom a quiet moment, with two young children to look after as well as the farm tasks, but both Sam and Lizzie are in their element. ‘We grumble about hours and time and effort and low pay and working out in all weathers,’ says Sam, ‘But then if somebody told you to stop, it’s NO! This is what I do. It's a strange life, is hillfarming, but a good life.’ Lizzie agrees. ‘I like to use the word Grateful. Because we are lucky, even though it can be hard.’

Like any farming family, the Rawlings have adapted over the years and are happy with the current stocking levels. ‘We're in a position that we're really happy with: we have a nice balance of the number of sheep for the common. It isn't over grazed in my opinion - we have a good balance of grassland species, we haven't become a monoculture of white grass, which was a concern with the reduced stocking that was demanded a decade ago, but we still have good fell and the nature up there as well is absolutely amazing. There's birds just popping out everywhere.’

Sam talks about the sheep that graze on Kinniside common as the nucleus around which their whole farming system is built. They are the youngest and fittest sheep, regionally adapted Herdwicks. They cope well with the uplands climate, and deal with the increased rain events that are happening as the climate changes. ‘Mrs. Herdwick has grazed in the pouring rain all morning, the rain stops at two o'clock in the afternoon, and she shakes herself, her coat stands up on end and she walks on.’

The herdwicks are well hefted to their area of fell. The Rawlings put a camera and tracker on one sheep last year and discovered how little she wandered. It’s just as well - if a sheep chose to, because these commons are unfenced, she could walk as far as Ambleside or Torver (both twenty miles away across the fells as the raven flies). But knowing where the sheep like to be, and working to keep them there, is part of the art of shepherding. Gathering the sheep in from the fells, which the Rawlings typically do with a group of other commoners, is a joy. ‘This is what I live for! I don't know why,’ says Sam, ‘but we just absolutely love it.’

Lizzie is passionate about commoning. Not every common is the same, but on Kinniside, she says, everybody helps each other. That just adds to the delight of being out on the fells. ‘Unless you do it, I don't think anybody will ever understand. Going out there, just you and your dog, it's amazing. And when it all goes right, that's even better.’