ABOUT US
Five generations of the Wynne family have lived in Hope under Dinmore, in the beautiful county of Herefordshire.
In 1986 Bryan and Ann married and soon after the farm diversified from diary to free range egg production. In 1988 we began marketing our eggs to shops, hotels & restaurants under our ‘Wynnes of Dinmore’ brand and later as ‘Country Flavours’. We won many competitions through the “Flavours of Herefordshire” scheme and even had a mention in Rick Stein’s “Food heroes” book.
By 2004 we had 15,000 free range hens, 3000 pigs, cider fruit, 200 sheep, a farm shop and two young daughters. We also had two vans on the road delivering eggs, jams, pickles and cakes etc throughout Herefordshire and surrounding counties. In 2005 we began manufacturing poultry housing to become a one-stop shop for poultry keepers; providing livestock, housing, feed, supplies and free advice.
In 2007 cancer struck (Ann) and we had to change direction somewhat as we faced an uncertain future; we sold the vans and our delivery business and dramatically reduced the livestock on the farm.
By 2009 we picked ourselves up and continued expansion adding our first group of pygmy goats to breed from. We added a range of soft toys including our famous Hereford Bull. We employed a lovely lady (Christabell) to run our farm shop and from that point we went from strength to strength.
However, as some of you may know from personal experience, no one can predict the future. We were delighted that Christabell became part of our family by marriage in May of 2013. However sadly in September of that year she died of a very rare cancer. We were absolutely devastated. We nearly packed up at that point but instead our youngest daughter Emily returned to the farm to help us for a while.
The retail side grew and by 2015 we moved from our small farm shop to a large building we had converted in the main farm and included a tearoom and walkway for people to enjoy the animals we now sold i.e. poultry, pygmy goats, alpacas, ouessant sheep.
2019 – In December we opened “The Grange” as a holiday let and within days, bookings began to flood in.
2020 – The covid pandemic . Like everyone else we immediately closed the tearoom, walkway and the holiday let.
In March the media reported a possible shortage of eggs and for many people with the forthcoming lockdown, the idea of keeping poultry became a reality and sales of livestock, supplies and equipment increased.
We soon realised that the large area the tearoom and gift sections occupied in the shop were no longer required. Additionally, the products we were selling online could be packaged elsewhere.
2021 – for many years we have been known at the Poultry and Smallholder specialists and with the tearoom closed we now had the time to not only develop new business through the internet but moreover have sufficient staff available to give customers the attention and advice they required.
April 21 – We are about to move the operation out of our current shop and into an adjacent building (which ironically was the original farm shop back in the 1950’s where the late Mr Robert Wynne used to sell milk to the public) and let the shop building to a business that compliments what we do.
May 23 – We have settled in our new accommodation. Focusing now on our roots of poultry specialists. We’ve been busy the last few months lambing and kidding but with poultry season well under way we are excited to see lots of new chicken keepers starting their new adventures!
Future – Who knows? Just keep an eye of our facebook page for details.
Thank you for taking the time to read this… we look forward to seeing you sometime.
Ann, Bryan and our team (Roxy, Katie, Elaine)
