My morning stroll takes me into Chipping Vale. On a four-mile walk deep in the Lancashire countryside, I don’t see a single cow in the fields.
Down the lane to Longridge House, their new sign is up. 
There is a touch of Autumn to the isle of chestnut trees. 
The renovations to the hotel are coming to a close. 
And then I’m in the fields. Mainly newly cut, looking very green against the backdrop of the Bowland Fells. 
But look closely, and there is an Industrial landscape developing on the farms. Large sheds are being built everywhere, presumably, but I may be wrong, for housing cattle. 
These industrial-scale sheds are transforming black Moss Farm.
Come back in six months and see the finished product. I walk on, rather mystified by the whole process and let my eyes take in the larger scene, first the Bowland Fells and then Longridge Fell. Nothing changes up there.
I’m heading for Knott Farm, which I have not visited since the farmer, whom I knew, died a few years ago. There are some of those new gates, but not many people come this way. 
The farmhouse has had some work done to it, but overall, the property looks abandoned and unloved. This was a living farm at one time in the same family for generations. The date stone says 1888. 
I come out by the hard-working egg farm and cross straight over the main Chipping road and take fields and farm tracks to climb the lower slopes of Longridge Fell. 
The Sloes and Rose Hips are ripening fast, a bumper crop this year.
I have time for some blackberry picking. 
There is a footpath linking the farms lying halfway up the hill. It will have been used for many decades. The little clapper bridge is worn by the passage of countless feet and hooves.
And what a view from up at this modest elevation. But not an animal insight. 
I link the footpaths and little lanes past the farms. 
I’ve never discovered what this is.
An English country garden.
Just for the record, in case AR is reading this, some farmers hang onto their vintage tractors. 
As I approach Little Town Farm, I realise all the cattle are under cover, hence my header photo. A huge square footage of sheds. The cows must be put out to graze from time to time, but the majority of the fields are cut for silage for winter, if not all year round, feeding. Four robotic machines do the milking of the 190 cows on this dairy farm.
This is a progressive farm agriculturally and has also diversified into a farm shop, a cafe, and a garden centre. The needs of modern farming. And they are busy today, so it must be successful.
Things are changing, but I’m still privileged to live on the edge of this glorious countryside and glad to have you along.
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I hate seeing cows with their heads poking though those metal grilles, they look so confined. I like the English country garden, very pretty, and the vintage Nuffield looks in good condition, got decent tyres on it too.
Yes the cow looks so sad.
Do you think dairy farming has declined, or has the methodology changed to that more intensive indoor system, or is it a combination of both? I have seen plenty of cows in fields recently so I wonder if that locality is an exception? Anyway, an interesting walk. When I arose this morning, like you, I sensed autumn in the air.
Don’t know. A lot of farms around here are building bigger and bigger cattle sheds. The fields seem to be used for multiple cuttings for silage.
Next time I’m through that farm, I’ll try and seek out the owner and ask her.
Intensive stock rearing leaves me cold. Animals need space and air. I can also feel autumn in the air and as usual I am happy and sad. This year has raced past me.
Apparently, the meat doesn’t taste as good, not that a vegetarian like me would know.
I also suspect that when they are released into the fields, they are more aggressive, hence the increasing number of walkers’ deaths in recent years.
Of course I read your blog. The Nuffield 4/60 is a good machine build between 1961 and 63. 50hp. Nuffield is named after Lord Nuffield who everyone will know as William Morris. Morris the car maker got his Peerage and named himself after the village he was born in. I think the tractor reg number is Worcester based.
The one behind the Nuffield is a David Brown 1690. (A guess from the bits I can see). All the cows are still out around our neck of the woods and there was plenty still in the fields when I came back to Manchester from Oxford this week on the train.
Thanks Alan.
Such pleasant countryside near where you live. Could be easily ruined by development and those awful farming practices.