About Us

The farm was started by Gordon Dearnley over 45 years ago; he purchased 5 acres of land. His intention was always to have a Dairy farm, but due to lack of land initially he started with Pigs. As he acquired more land he started to reduce the number of pigs and began introducing cattle into the business.

During the first several years when he began the only way he could fund the development of the business was to work full time as well, and work on the farm in the early morning and evenings when he returned. The business has grown from this initial very modest start to a farm now covering 400 acres and having 350 head of dairy cows.

The Business has moved on from running on a sole trader basis and is now run by three members of the family as a partnership. We are now a ‘producer retailer’, whereby we actually process the milk we produce in our Dairy. The milk is put into both glass bottles and plastic containers and is delivered in the local area. We started with one milk man purchasing from us for a small round, we now have 35 self employed milk men who buy their milk from us.

Due to increased demand we began to also buy milk in from another local farmer – R Waterhouse & Son, Shaley Farm at Scholes, near Holmfirth. This is a small family run farm who shares our farming values. They are also Red Tractor assured and graze their cattle in line with the Pasture promise guidelines to ensure all the milk that we process in our onsite Dairy is of the highest quality.

Around 18 years ago we also started producing ice cream, this side of the business has grown and developed into a busy tea room where we sell the majority of our ice cream from.

“I love the taste of the milk, it’s so creamy”

S Gower – Wakefield

Dearne Lea Ice Cream »

Find out all about our delicious Farmhouse Ice Cream made fresh in our Dairy....

Dearne Lea Tearoom »

Vist our traditional Farmhouse tea room set in our Dairy Farm......