About Long Common

Long Common house was built in the late 1950's and early 1960's by Sarah father, Lord Frank Taylor of Hadfield (FT), founder of the Taylor Woodrow house building and construction group.  The farm is situated 6 miles outside Guildford in a small village nestling on the edge of the Hog's back, part of Surrey Hills.  Originally the farm was about 1,000 acres but FT (pic leftt) retired from farming over 20 years ago and downsized to a more manageable 200 acres.  He also had a keen interest in horses so there are excellent Equestrian facilities. Sarah and David took over the property after FT''s death in 1995. There is a charity set up in FT's memory called the Frank Taylor Memorial Trust.




Long Common has always been Sarah Melville's family home and owned by Sarah and her husband David since 1995.  At that time both were busy NHS doctors with a young family of 3, later to become 4 children, and so had little spare time.  Sarah now has the time and passion to bring the estate back into production, believing that the land must work to provide nourishing food; it can no longer stand idle.

In 2011 pigs and sheep moved back into Long Common Farm as part of a programme to breed and sell home-reared free range meat. The emphasis has been on breeding quality meat animals using low intensity “traditional” farming to enhance flavour and quality.  To this end native breeds and outdoor rearing prevail. The breeding pigs include Saddlebacks, Gloucester Old Spots and Oxford Sandy & Blacks and all are kept in woodland enclosures. 

---

There are purebred Wiltshire Horn sheep as well as a few cross-bred ewes and a couple of Jacobs, that produce excellent meat and are very robust.  The sheep are all kept outdoors except for lambing.

There are a number of different chicken breeds but prevalent are Light Sussex and common-or-garden Warren layers, some of which are re-homed battery hens. The hens have large woodland runs that allow them to free-range as naturally as possible. Woodland makes up a large part of the estate and there is a plentiful supply of logs, which are sold directly to customers and to other local outlets such as farm shops and garden centres in the Guildford area.