Published: 06 September 2026
If you’ve just watched BBC Countryfile and found yourself asking “where is the Holker Estate?” or you’ve searched online for Holker Hall Countryfile, Holker Farm Countryfile, or paludiculture Cumbria then welcome. You’re in exactly the right place,
This Sunday, millions of Countryfile viewers got a look at something we’ve been quietly working on for some time; a pioneering trial in “wetter farming” on our own land, filmed against the backdrop of some of the finest coastal scenery in Cumbria. Here’s the full story behind the programme, where everything you saw was filmed, and — if the episode has left you wanting to see more, how to plan a visit to Holker Hall & Gardens.
Three days of filming across the Estate
A Countryfile crew spent three days with us this summer, and presenter John Craven joined for the final day of filming and interviews. For the scenery, the crew filmed along the SSSI at Humphrey Head, the whale-backed limestone headland that rises above Morecambe Bay on the Holker Estate. It’s one of the best viewpoints in this part of Cumbria, with the coastline stretching out towards Ulverston, Grange-over-Sands and Lancaster. Open skies and windswept beauty managed for us.as a nature reserve by Cumbria Wildlife Trust.
A little further along the coast, they filmed at Barker Scar, also an SSSI on the eastern bank of the River Leven, prized for its species-rich clifftop grassland and the Carboniferous limestone fossils exposed in the rock below. The cameras also captured the wide, ever-changing tidal landscape of the Leven Estuary itself, and the quieter, greener views around Howbarrow, part of the network of footpaths that thread through the Estate’s farmland and woodland between Cartmel and Holker.
Together, these locations tell the story of an estate that’s as much shaped by coastline and conservation as it is about the Hall and Gardens most visitors know us for.
Inside Holker Estate Farm: heat, drought, and a different way of farming wet land
The heart of the programme, though, was Holker Estate Farm — the roughly 1,000-acres of sporadically water-logged land that sits within the wider Estate. There, the crew met David Harvey, Farm Manager and member of the Estate Team who leads our paludiculture research, for an in-depth conversation about the season just gone and more importantly, the future direction of travel.
It’s fair to say 2026 has been a summer to remember. The Met Office has confirmed it as the UK’s hottest on record, with drought officially declared across large parts of England. David talked the crew through what that meant on the ground at Holker Estate Farm and the validity of the case for the very different approach we’ve been trialling there in test fields. The long-term meteorological predictions are for wetter, warmer weather, which inevitably must shape our “right farming, right place” approach and both our own extensive research and nature were signalling options for change where certain specific ground conditions prevailed.
That approach is paludiculture — farming that works with wet, waterlogged land instead of draining it. Rather than treating boggy ground as a problem to be fixed, paludiculture treats it as an opportunity: crops that are happy to have wet feet, grown in a way that protects the soil, supports wildlife, and keeps the carbon locked up in our peat rather than releasing it into the atmosphere. At Holker, our main focus has been typha — bulrush — grown for its natural fibre, which has promising uses in insulation and even in fashion. Earlier this year we completed our first typha planting by drone, a first for Cumbria and a genuinely new way of establishing a crop on ground that’s too wet and soft for conventional machinery.
It’s early-stage, carefully monitored research rather than a finished formula — the honest answer, which David gave the crew, is that nobody has fully cracked the economics of farming this way yet. But in a summer defined by extremes at both ends, wet land that’s too difficult to farm conventionally, and dry land that’s struggling under drought, finding a workable way to farm our wettest fields matters more than ever. The work was recognised with the Environmental and Sustainability Award at the 2025 Cumbria Farmer Awards, and it’s exactly this kind of long-term thinking about the land that BBC Countryfile came to see.
Lunch with a national treasure
John Craven’s day with us wasn’t all filming. Between takes, he took time out of a famously busy schedule to join Lucy Cavendish, Principal of Holker Group, and Stuart Sims, Chief Executive of Holker Estate Company, for lunch in the Courtyard Cafe at Holker Hall & Gardens. It was a fitting way to close out the visit: a Countryfile legend, sitting down in the same café our visitors eat in every day, talking about an estate that’s been managed with quiet determination and an eye on innovation, by the same family for generations.
Plan your visit to Holker Hall & Gardens
If watching Countryfile has left you wondering where Holker Estate actually is, or thinking about a visit to our famous Hall, Gardens and Cafe, here’s everything you need to plan a visit.
- Address: Holker Estate, Cark-in-Cartmel, near Grange-over-Sands, Cumbria, LA11 7PL — about 5 miles south of the A590, roughly midway between Kendal and Barrow-in-Furness.
- By car: leave the M6 at Junction 36 and follow the A590 west, picking up the brown tourist signs through Grange-over-Sands and Cark.
- By train: Cark-in-Cartmel station is around a 15-minute walk from the Hall.
- Opening times (2026 season): Wednesday to Sunday and Bank Holiday Mondays, 10am–5pm (Hall 11am–3.30pm, gift shop 10.30am–4.30pm).
- Tickets: available on the day or in advance online — Hall & Gardens from £13.95, Gardens only from £10.45, under-12s free.
- Refreshments: the Courtyard Cafe — where John Craven had lunch — is open to all visitors throughout the day. Parking is free.
Holker Estate has farmed and cared for this corner of Cumbria for generations. Our BBC Countryfile visit was a chance to share that work, from the coastline, the farm, and the people behind it with a wider audience, and we hope it brings you to visit us in person.