HERDWICK sheep were top of the flocks when taking both championship and reserve championship honours at Skipton Auction Mart’s annual Rare & Native Stock Breeders Auctions of rare, minority and traditional breeds on Saturday.

With another wide and diverse variety of sheep penned for both showing and sale - over 500 head were forward in total - judge Margaret Watkinson, of Hutton Sessay, found both her principals in a strong hill and heath show class.

She awarded the championship to Cumbrian Herdwick breeders, Ian and Angela Grisedale, who run the Swinside flock at Green Mount Farm, Crooklands, Kendal, with a 2015-born 2-shear ram, by Bar Field, out of a West Head dam. It sold for the leading breed price of 200gns to Jeff Ryder, of Haverah Park, Harrogate.

The Grisedales have now won the Skipton title four times in the past five years, only missing out in 2017, though they clinched the reserve championship and top price in sale with a 2-shear ram.

Standing reserve champion this year was the first prize Herdwick female, a four-year-old 3-shear from local breeder Sharon Spaven, of Jenkin Farm, Silsden Moor, with what was her very first foray into the show arena. She only started breeding Herdwicks four years ago. Known fondly at home as Bramble, the overall reserve made 100gns when joining the Grisedales.

The Parkin family, from Fulwood, Preston – husband and wife, Michael and Margaret, and their daughter Ann – were also among the prizes with their Parkfold Shetland flock, established almost a quarter of a century ago. They landed both first and second prizes in the primitive male show class with a brace of rams, the red rosette falling to their 2017-born fully home-bred shearling, Parkford Carl, sold for 50gns.

The Parkins also finished second and third in the primitive females show class, where first prize fell to a 2016 Hebridean female from Gam Farm Rare Breeds in Grassington. Their six-strong consignment all sold successfully to a top of 95gns for a Whitefaced Woodland ewe. Top price of 240gns fell to the first prize Longwool male, a 2017 Greyface Dartmoor ram from show regular D Booth, of Norbury in Cheshire. It was by a Cradwell ram, the oldest flock in Greyface Dartmoor book, and sold for 65gns to Isobel Lampkin, of Silsden.

Mr Booth also finished second and third in the Longwool females show class, which was won by Harvey Chapman, of Bedale, also with a Greyface Dartmoor, which made 65gns and was among a pen of four all claimed by Isobel Lampkin.

Another Greyface Dartmoor from S and K Watson, of Barnoldswick, made 180gns, while Kerry Hill sheep sold to a top of 100gns for an entry from Philip Ormerod, of West Marton. Catching the eye in the cattle section were Dexters from James Child, of Bardsey, Leeds, who sold a heifer for £320 and a cow and calf at £320, all by the Bardsey pedigree herd’s well utilised stock bull, Toad Hall Paul.