Heritage

The Foxhill
story ...

Where pedigree and commercial livestock are concerned the Alford family is steeped in tradition and success, right from the early days when Michael left school and started showing Aberdeen-Angus cattle with his Grandad.

From the early days of exhibiting commercial stock at the major winter shows, the Alford family have since furthered their livestock enterprise with the addition of pedigree Limousin, Galloway, Aberdeen-Angus and British Blue cattle, as well as flocks of pedigree Charollais and Texel sheep, all alongside Charlotte’s consistent passion for horses.

But showing at the Royal Smithfield event is where the family’s show success story really began. In 1991 Michael and Melanie purchased a Charolais cross heifer from David Sinclair at Smithfield which in turn produced a Limousin cross calf by Shatton Pedro. Named Bruno, this one went on to win the Kings Cup for the best animal bred by exhibitor in 1994 and in the same year won the junior crossbred steer championship with an animal that went on to win Limousin 2000.

Success followed a few years later in 1998 with four animals in the Smithfield team, including a heifer calf, Take That, out of the early Charolais purchase, which went on to be heifer champion.

Championship results kept flowing with Red Hawk taking the junior championship at Smithfield in 2002 and in 2003 the same steer was champion steer and reserve overall at Birmingham and heavyweight champion at the Scottish Winter Fair. His full brother, Die Another Day, took the steer and reserve overall championship at the Scottish Winter Fair in the same year.

But it was 2009 which proved to be the most successful year yet for the family, aided by Charlotte now taking a wider role in the show ring. The team, which consisted of Hanky Panky, Lady Gaga, Just Dance and Paparazzi, all dominated the headlines at the Scottish Winter Fair winning their classes and bringing home the heifer and reserve overall championship, as well as the reserve steer championship. At the same event, the pedigree Galloway steer, Superman, took the native and pedigree championship.

Smithfield is the event in the commercial show calendar that everyone dreams about winning and in 2009 dreams certainly came true as we took the overall championship with Hanky Panky, but also went heifer and reserve overall champion with Lady Gaga. Achieving this amazing win was made even more memorable as we are the only exhibitors to have ever achieved this.

In the same year, Charlotte’s calf, Poker Face, won the calf championship at Agri Expo, reserve calf at the Scottish Winter Fair, calf championship at Birmingham, reserve calf at Smithfield and then the calf championship at the Royal Welsh Winter Fair.

Continuing the strong Lady Gaga theme, 2010 saw Alejandro winning the championship at Agri Expo and the Scottish Winter Fair and Poker Face winning the championship at the Welsh Winter Fair as a heavyweight heifer.

From here on in, showing both at summer and winter events has seen the Alford family continuing to bring home the championship tickets. The commercials continued with Smarty Pants winning many local shows, as well as the Royal Highland Show and No Likey No Lighty taking steer championships both regionally and at the Royal Welsh and then the East of England Smithfield Festival.

Limousins

The Foxhillfarm Limousin herd was established in 2011 with the aim of creating an elite herd based on strong family lines to produce top quality males and females for sale in to pedigree herds.

Initial purchases included females sourced from the Bankdale dispersal sale, including Alice and Elizabeth who have already proved their worth time and time again with Alice to date grossing 500,000gns worth of progeny sales and Elizabeth grossing 250,000gns. Now their progeny are breeding exceedingly well in the herd and have been joined by choice female lines over the last seven years, such as the world record priced Limousin female, Glenrock Illusion and Corranhill Krystal.

The Limousins have taken a little back seat over the last few years while we grow the Charolais and Aberdeen-Angus herds. 2025 sees a return to the show circuit for the Limousin herd and plans a foot to offer Limousin genetics for sale. In the meantime head over to our embryo page to see what’s on offer to help add a little Foxhill sparkle to your herd.

Aberdeen-Angus

After a lifelong passion with this breed, Aberdeen-Angus cattle were re-introduced to the Alford family livestock portfolio with the purchase of Weeton-bred females in 2015 including the 13,000gns Weeton Diamond Mist M351 and the 7000gns Diamond Mist N383. To date we have sold one bull in Carlisle and have since flushed both females to Gretnahouse Blacksmith L500 and Rawburn Blackhawk L261 and both are now in calf to Rawburn Elysium F547.

Charolais

The Foxhillfarm herd of Charolais cattle was established in 2023 with all the foundation stock coming from the Gretnahouse herd dispersal. The initial purchase of Gretnahouse Jannabel, a tremendous cow by the easy calving Blelack Digger for 4000gns, was followed by further private purchases of what are regarded as some of the best bloodlines within the breed.

Charollais

The Charollais flock was established in 2006 mainly due to the breed’s ability to produce early finishing quality carcass lambs off grass with great length, easy fleshing and fantastic eating quality. Early foundation females were purchased from the Foulrice, Wraycastle, Loweyre and Southam flocks where we looked to purchase correct, well muscled and fleshed, clean females with strong family lines. Showing has been undertaken largely at a regional level with great success including winning breed and interbreed championships at Devon County, Royal Bath and West, Royal Three Counties and Royal Cornwall. 2019 saw Mike take the Charollais breed championship and later the interbreed championship with a home bred aged ewe, by Logie Durno Olympian.

Meat Trade

As well as livestock breeding, Michael and Melanie own and run Stillmans Somerset Ltd, an abattoir based in Taunton which now trades under the wider umbrella of Staplegrove Livestock Ltd.

The 100 acres situated at the abattoir houses a finishing unit for 250 head of commercial cattle for the business which offers a kill and cut service for farmers as well as supplying a number of butchers shops throughout the south west of England and restaurants from Landsend to London.

Foxhill Farm was purchased in 2004 with a further farm, Wayside, purchased a couple of years later, while in 2019 Herons Bank was purchased adding further properties to the sister business, Blackdown Luxury Lettings.