Elston Farm is a regenerative farm on Devon's red soil — red deer and native British cattle grazing a landscape of more than 12,000 planted trees, at the heart of a twelve-year scientific trial. It is also the home of M C Kelly, catering butchers to the West Country since 1956.
A morning at Elston — Andy and the dog, the herd, the deer, the trees
The Gray family has farmed this corner of Devon for generations, across more than one farm. Today Elston runs red deer and native British cattle together on permanent pasture, between alleys of oak, alder and Scots pine planted through the grazing — measured year on year by Britain's oldest agricultural research institution.
We don't usually talk about most of what happens here. This site is where we start.


From Edgar's bullock to the farm today — and the butcher's shop founded in 1956.

The silvopasture trial: 5,600 trees in the science, 12,000 on the farm, and what the worms say.

Our own red deer, and the wild harvest of the nation's forests — through one larder.

Native British breeds, one hundred per cent grass-fed, from our pasture and farms we know by name.
“I'm a commercial farmer. This is a commercial enterprise and I will make it make money.”
Andy Gray — The Observer, May 2021