Seven Sisters Sheep Centre
The Seven Sisters Sheep Centre was a farm near East Dean, in the Seven Sisters Country Park of the South Downs. It held a large collection of about 50 sheep breeds, including rare breeds no longer raised by commercial farmers, and a number of Southdown sheep.
Besides sheep, other animals on display include goats, pigs, rabbits, guinea pigs, cats, geese and ducks, a cow, a Shetland pony, and a donkey.
Visitors can feed the animals feed pellets, bottle-feed the lambs, or take a ride on a tractor. Terry Wigmore, the owner of the farm, also demonstrates sheep shearing and milking.
Wigmore founded the Centre in 1987 when the estate for which he worked as a livestock manager closed off its livestock operations. He bought 120 of their sheep and began his own business.[1] Wigmore says: "We used to lamb the estate ewes through these yards, and every weekend there would be loads of people looking over the gate, trying to see in. I thought I might make a living inviting them in. The next year we started doing tours, then I decided to make it a full-blown tourist attraction."[2]
It closed in 2016.
External links
References
- "Nothing as precious as a new born lamb". Eastbourne Herald. Eastbourne. 10 March 2003. Retrieved 26 August 2010.
- Watkins, Jack (3 May 2008). "A celebration of our shear diversity". Telegraph. Archived from the original on 21 April 2013. Retrieved 26 August 2010.