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Farmer Stories

Anna Lamotte - Enterprise stacking on a mixed farm in Central Scotland

Scotland
Case Study
direct selling
Farming Champions
fibres
Diversification
fruit and vegetables
Livestock
low inputs
Mixed
native breeds
rotational grazing
stacking enterprises

All images © Claire Fleck Photography

Guardswell Farm packs an incredible diversity of products and services into its 200 acres, from a wedding venue and accommodation to market gardening and nature-friendly livestock farming. Anna Lamotte describes the evolution of the project and how everything aligns with her environmental ethos.

Situated on a Perthshire hilltop, the 200 acres of Guardswell Farm are a classic example of ‘mixed farming’. It’s a place where everything from tying the knot to buying nature-friendly farmed meat is possible, all overseen by Anna Lamotte.

Anna’s grandfather was something of a farming pioneer, selling his dairy cattle and turning to herb cultivation to meet rising consumer demand.  It proved a huge success, employing 150 staff and supplying supermarkets across Scotland at its peak. Anna quickly took an interest, and by her teenage years was involved in the business’ social media, engaging local schools and organising its participation in schemes like Open Farm Sunday.

After studying marine biology at university and attending cookery school, Anna’s plans changed dramatically when her family bought Guardswell, just a few miles from the herb farm and situated between Perth and Dundee. Her hope of a career centered on food, growing and sustainability soon evolved into an ambitious tourism and leisure venture.

“I was going to have a food truck, which would have been a shed on a transporter trailer,” Anna recalls. “I then thought it would make more sense to put the shed at Guardswell and have a place where people could come for digital-free retreats, just immersing themselves in nature with no WiFi or TV.

“The whole thing then just grew arms and legs. The big barn in the middle of the farm, called a steading, was falling down and the doorway was too narrow to get a modern tractor in. We decided we would need to convert part of that into showers and loos for our visitors, and then we thought about converting the cow shed into a place to run cookery classes.”

However, they discovered that the steading required major structural renovation to make it safe. Coupled with the renovation of the farmhouse, the installation of glamping huts and bringing cottages on the land back into use, Guardswell was transformed into a multi-purpose rural events space with accommodation for 30 people.

“At that point we still wanted to do things we felt were important, like hosting events around food and farming and opening the facilities up to local community groups, but we needed to be making enough money to do that,” Anna says.

The financial solution was to turn the main steading into a beautiful wedding venue, accommodating 150 daytime guests and 200 for an evening reception. After a year of work, the venue opened in 2017 and now hosts between 20 and 25 weddings a year. Ironically, Anna isn’t herself a fan of big weddings, and it was her ambivalence about this side of Guardswell that led to a major change of direction.

“I became really down seeing how much rubbish was generated by the weddings,” Anna said. “It jarred with our own environmental ethos, seeing all these disposable favours and decorations piled in the bins. We decided to create a sustainable events policy which says 75% of the flowers must be British-grown, places restrictions on the catering and food options, bans single-use plastics, and influences the drinks on the bar. It made it much more enjoyable, because now we work with couples who care about the same things we do.”

Creating a sustainable events policy has made hosting weddings much more enjoyable, because now we work with couples who care about the same things we do

Anna Lamotte

The next step was to ensure that the farming side of Guardswell upheld equally high environmental standards. That meant converting what Anna describes as “150 acres of ryegrass” into a pasture-fed, rotational-grazing, nature-friendly system. Step by step, they began to reclaim the fields to oversee the entire ecological, habitat and livestock processes on the farm.

Anna decided early on that Guardswell would focus on native breeds. “We want animals that are hardy, happy to be outwintered in Scotland, and are appropriate for our landscape,” she said.

The first arrivals were Hebridean sheep, around 150 of which are now at Guardswell. In 2023, they were joined by two Shetland cows with calves at foot, which rapidly grew into a herd of 26 animals. Anna is hoping to achieve Pasture for Life accreditation, with the sheep and cows staying outside year-round and feeding solely on the grass and hay produced on the farm.

Anna was drawn to Shetlands for several reasons: they are fairly small, have a good temperament - which suits a farm where they spend a lot of time among people - and are a dual-purpose breed. 

Guardswell uses a rotational grazing system, with two mixed groups of animals moving through a series of paddocks around the farm. Introducing this in recent years has not been without its challenges. “It requires a lot of human labour in terms of moving electric fences, and we’ve had to put in an entire water system for the top of the farm,” Anna says. “We’ve now got big tanks with solar pumps and some mobile troughs.”

The farm is also home to 27 Angora goats, which Anna admits are something of an anomaly in Guardswell’s set-up. “They are non-native, absolute softies, need to be in a shed for winter and require much more food and medicine than anything else we’ve got,” she says.

While their future in Perthshire is under question, the goats do provide high-quality mohair, which is spun into yarn and sold by the farm - and they spend the start of the year munching through Christmas trees that people are encouraged to drop off. They also rotationally graze, but Anna has to ensure they do not follow the sheep because of parasite issues.

The farm is also home to Guardswell Grows, a market garden originally created by Anna’s sister, which is currently seeking a new head grower. It follows organic principles, avoids tilling and chemical use, and is something Anna is eager to see flourish. “I’m really passionate about market gardens. We desperately need them because they are brilliant for a community, providing work and the opportunity to buy beautiful regeneratively-grown produce,” she says.

Anna’s husband, Digby, is also overseeing the development of Guardswell’s orchards to supply apples for his artisan cider business. (You can read more about the orchard here).

Guardswell sells its meat directly to customers through a box scheme as well as to restaurants and cafés. There’s also an honesty box farm stand and a shop for guests, offering meat and eggs from the farm’s 50 chickens. The market garden provides veg boxes too.

We desperately need market gardens because they are brilliant for a community, providing work and the opportunity to buy beautiful regeneratively-grown produce

Anna Lamotte

Anna says that, ultimately, she would like to offer local residents and visitors a wider range of products. “I’d like to do a mixed box so you can get meat, dairy, eggs, veg, apple juice and cider from us, and I’d like for people staying with us to be able to eat everything from here, with no need to go to a supermarket or shop,” she says.

Guardswell is constantly evolving, and Anna has plenty of ideas for future changes to the farming system, including reducing paddock sizes and moving animals more frequently. She also hopes to add to the farm’s extensive network of hedgerows and is considering turning the yarn into products like Guardswell jumpers or blankets to increase the profit margin from the wool. In addition, Anna is planning to install a compost heat exchanger which will run on goat hay, woodchip and apple pulp from the cider process.

Despite the huge transformations at Guardswell since 2011 - including planting 20,000 trees and a meadow outside the steading - there is still much Anna wants to achieve. “Everything we’re doing is based around outwintering, really minimal inputs and restoring pasture and habitat,” she says. “There’s still miles to go, but this is an exciting place to be starting, because it feels like we can make a difference.”