Butchery

It is where we prepare meat from animals we breed and raise ourselves to sell direct to customers just a mile from our farm.

It is where our chefs source lamb and beef from our farm to cook pies, lasagnes and other simple, classic dishes in our Kitchen and Hotel.

It is where our expert butchers pass on the endangered skill of traditional whole-animal butchery to the next generation via their apprentices and young colleagues.

Our purpose-built butchery is at Tebay Southbound – it can be viewed through the window behind the butchers’ counter in the Farmshop. It was designed by our head of butchery David Morland when he joined us in 2007.

Whole-animal butchery means using every part of the carcass.

It pays respect to our animals and our farmers. Even our sheepskins are cherished: David salts them in a special shed on our farm and takes them to a traditional tannery to be turned into rugs and footstools to sell in our Farmshops.

The butchers’ counters in our northbound and southbound Farmshops offer a full range of meat cuts, both traditional and modern. A trained butcher is always on hand to answer questions about the more specialist cuts, such as our bestselling Barnsley chops – double lamb loin chops – and beef sirloins on the bone.

They can also cut to customers’ exact specifications from whole ribs, loins, shoulders and other whole primal cuts.

We sell lamb from our farm, where we have a 1,200-strong breeding flock.

Our Herdwick mutton comes from Herdwick shearlings, which we buy as lambs from fell farmers to come down to our richer grasses. It is a slow-grown, fine-grained heirloom meat from animals aged between one and two years old.

All the beef, lamb and mutton our farm can produce comes through our butchery. We sell it on our Farmshop butchers’ counter and cook with it in our Kitchen.

To ensure a year-round supply of native-breed beef and lamb to our Farmshop & Kitchen, we also work with a small number of carefully selected farms in our parish and our region, always within 50 miles.

We sell seasonal wild game and free-range chicken reared on pasture in small flocks by Herb-Fed Poultry in Yorkshire.

Our pork is from Cumbrian pigs.

Our butchers use it to make Cumberland sausages to their own bestselling recipe – the same sausages that we serve alongside their handmade beef and lamb burgers in our Kitchen, Quick Kitchen and Barbecue Shed.