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Everything swine we find sublime!

The Gloucester Old Spot has become somewhat of a celebrity in recent years, revered by those as diverse as Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall and Elizabeth Hurley, who had one at the top of her wedding list!

Aptly named Helen Orchard, who founded The Ladies Well Herd of Gloucester Old Spot pedigree pigs is a big fan too.

I went to meet her on her farm in Hutton, near Weston supoer Mare, straight from a breakfast meting at The Alasia and rather inappropriately dressed in one of my few 'work outfits'.

After inelegantly chasing her latest litter of pedigree piglets across wet fields in high heeled boots to get these pictures I ask Helen about the history of these pigs. She tells me that the Old Spot was originally known as the Orchard Pig, because apple growers kept it in their cider apple orchards.  “The myth is that the spots are bruises, caused by falling apples” she says, “there are stories of the pigs becoming drunk, gorging on partially fermented windfalls too!”

Helen chose the variety for it’s docile nature (associated with it’s lop ears) and “good old-fashioned layering of fat” and bought her first sow from a Gloucester breeder as a hobby.  After 3 litters, she added a boar from the same breeder and gradually started selling meat direct to friends and family at the gate as a by-product of her hobby. 

Now with 3 sows, each producing 2 litters of 10-16 piglets a year she runs a stall at Hutton Village Market and has just started to supply local butcher Nick Osbourne in Tudor Mall, Weston super Mare.

Helen admits it is now “ a rather big hobby”, but is resisting calls to expand further. “I am in involved in too many other things” she tells me with a smile, “the pony club, the hawk and owl trust, hedge planting, field margin work and 2 holiday lets.  We have just got a press and started making Hutton Cider too.”