²ÝÁñÉçÇø

Community news: Farmer's daughter wins British Pie Awards

British Pie award finds home in Middleton-in-Teesdale

clock • 1 min read
Community news: Farmer's daughter wins British Pie Awards

Hailing from a beef and sheep farm in Wensleydale, Lydia Sunter - owner of the Middleton-in-Teesdale Fish and Chip Shop, Co Durham - was crowned this year's supreme winner of the British Pie Awards.

Over 900 pies were entered from across the country, judged by a team of 140 judges, who named Ms Sunter's minted Wensleydale lamb and potato pie as supreme champion.

See also:ÌýHerefordshire farm family reaps fruits of diversification

Since purchasing the fish and chip shop 12 years ago, Ms Sunter says she has always used meat from her family farm, near Hawes, to make the pies, including beef from the family's herd of pedigree Limousin cattle and lamb from their flock of Swaledale sheep.

Ms Sunter says she has been entering the British Pie Awards since 2016, and while they have always come home with a ticket, it marks the first time they have won a class and been crowned supreme champions.

More on Farm Life

Wildfire warning issued for farming communities in Scotland

Wildfire warning issued for farming communities in Scotland

Last year's wildfires in Carrbridge and Dava had covered approximately 11,827 hectares of moorland and woodland in what was the country's largest wildfire event

Chris Brayford
clock 20 March 2026 • 1 min read
OPINION: "Open the farm gate, muddy the public's trainers and change how they see farming"

OPINION: "Open the farm gate, muddy the public's trainers and change how they see farming"

As LEAF (Linking Environment and Farming) encourages farmers to open their gates for Open Farm Sunday on June 7, ²ÝÁñÉçÇø Guardian's editorial director Olivia Midgley reflects on the quiet but powerful influence such encounters can have on the public

clock 19 March 2026 • 2 min read
Rural poverty 'overlooked and misunderstood' by policymakers, report finds

Rural poverty 'overlooked and misunderstood' by policymakers, report finds

Rural communities have been overlooked by successive Governments, the report says, with assumptions that they are areas assumed to be 'prosperous, politically peripheral, or resistant to change'

Chris Brayford
clock 19 March 2026 • 8 min read