The North
Our largest region, the North encompasses the wild majesty of the Scottish Highlands and the picturesque rolling countryside of the Yorkshire Dales, dramatic windswept coastlines of Northumberland and the glittering tranquillity of the Lakes. Our northern businesses often embody the same intrepid spirit and down-to-earth friendliness that characterises their region.
The North covers rural businesses in Scotland, Northumberland, Cumbria, Durham, Tyne & Wear, North Yorkshire, West Yorkshire, East Riding of Yorkshire, South Yorkshire, Lancashire, Greater Manchester, Merseyside, Isle of Man and Cheshire.
Key Dates for the North:
31st May 2018 Entries Close
w/c 4th June 2018 Judges’ Shortlisting
w/c 11th June 2018 North Shortlist Announced
17th July 2018 Final Judging Day
9th October 2018 – North Region Awards Ceremony
The Last Drop Village – Hotel & Spa
Late February 2019 – National Final Awards Ceremony
Brand Ambassadors for the North
Our Regional Brand Ambassadors work with us to understand and communicate with the rural businesses operating within their region, helping us to achieve our vision of bringing together businesses in each region to celebrate success and build valuable relationships amongst rural business owners.
Kate Balchin
T.Mellor and Son
T.Mellor and Son is based on our fourth generation family farm and comprises the following businesses – Wold Top Brewery – brews award winning ales using home grown wheat and water from the farm’s borehole; Agricola Bottling – a specialist beer and spirits bottling business and Muddy Souls Events – a weddings, events and party venue.
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Hunmanby Grange, home to T Mellor and Son is a farm high on the Yorkshire Wolds where the hills roll down to the North Sea.
Our family has farmed 600 acres high on the Yorkshire Wolds for generations. With revenue from traditional income streams falling in the early 2000s, we concluded that diversification was a necessity.
Our first diversification was a brewery where we profited from the fact that our area boasts some of the best land for growing barley in Europe. Next came a specialist bottling business to service the brewery and the final diversification business is a wedding and events venue that takes advantage of our stunning rural location, National Garden Scheme garden and our beer to create a very unique experience.
We are proud to brew our award-winning beer using 98% British ingredients and that 95% of the barley comes from our own farm.
The brewery is housed in a sympathetically converted barn. We can guarantee that we only get our own barley back because we negotiated a deal with Flamborough maltsters, Muntons (almost within sight of the farm and brewery) whereby they malt our barley by the lorry load. For us it hugely reduces transport and associated costs and for them it means that they can look after the smallest customer on their doorstep, thus creating a true rural partnership between large and small businesses.
We nurture the environment that rewards us with both quality ingredients and a beautiful home. The farm is part of Stewardship schemes with Natural England and our 35 acres of species rich chalk grassland that is home to varied flora and fauna is of paramount ecological importance. We are also proud to be working with the RSPB to promote the varied birdlife on the farm.
We lead by example and the green ethos is firmly embedded in our business and embraced by staff as a matter of course. They appreciate that they are blessed to work in such a beautiful environment and that we’re all responsible for maintaining and sustaining it. Some of our staff bike to work regularly and two even run to the office!
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Darren Marcangelo
herdysleep
Launched in February 2017, herdysleep is the first mattress of its kind to combine the luxury of craftsmanship with the compact convenience of a bed-in-a-box. Traditionally tufted and finished by hand, each mattress contains up to an industry leading 6,000 pocket springs, topped with a cloud-like blend of cotton, cashmere and wool from local Herdwick sheep.
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Founded by Lake District brand Herdy in collaboration with luxury British mattress makers, Harrison Spinks, the Cumbrian herdysleep brand champions both luxurious comfort and social responsibility. Committed to keeping a rural heritage trade alive, herdysleep pledged to pay the local Lake District farmers twice the market rate for each kilo of Herdwick wool it buys. It takes a year to farm a Herdwick fleece and there’s at least one that goes into each herdysleep mattress.
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