Four generations of the Little family have been farming for the past 70 years at Rettendon Place in Essex. In 1936 Herbert Little, his son Frank and daughter-in-law Ivy, together with their son John, moved to Rettendon Place Farm as tenants to the New England Company, bringing their dairy herd with them. Herbert and Frank cleared the over grown land by hand, with the help of many local families, in order to establish their arable and dairy farm. John is proud to maintain his contacts with the village, and in particular, with many of the families who have worked on the family farm over the decades.

During John's early years whilst still at school, he bred pigs, and later, after marrying his wife Margaret, they purchased a farm of their own, nearby at Stock, where they raised their three children, Anna, Richard and Katy. They continued and developed their activities into poultry, pigs and through a friendship forged from a shared passion in pigs, in 1973 with much encouragement from Derek Vaughan of the St. Mary's herd in Kingsland near Leominster, pedigree polled Herefords. John and Derek are still the best of pals today, after all their very many years of varied and shared pig and cattle experiences and stories!

Some years later the farm adjacent to Rettendon Place became available and was acquired, together with a commercial beef herd, growing the original family holding to 800 acres. The success of the farm continued, and when the freeholders decided to sell Rettendon Place, John had the foresight to acquire it. From the new enlarged holding the activities of the farm were consolidated to arable and pedigree Polled Herefords only.

The Hereford herd was developed using bulls imported from Canada, from which a highly successful reputation was established and maintained. Unfortunately due to the compulsory purchase of large areas of land for three new trunk roads, the farms were separated and many large areas of land were annexed. This followed hard on the heels of BSE and the Foot and Mouth outbreak in 2001 which so badly affected the industry. It was decided that the family would sell off a large part of the farm, together with the Hereford herd, which was sold in its entirety to Gerald Blandford at Temple Court Farm, Bosbury Nr Hereford in November 2003. This left the original Rettendon Place farm with 400 acres of arable and meadow land.

Present day

In the Autumn of 2006 John's youngest daughter Katy, and her husband were given the opportunity to acquire the holding to re-establish the Hereford herd so missed by John, Katy and the rest of the family. Over the past few months a number of well bred females from around the country, many with original blood lines dating back to John's breeding, have been sourced and purchased, and are now happily gracing the meadows around the Church at Rettendon.

A key purchase has been Reydon 1 Tremendous, runner up for Sire of the Year 2005 and top polled sire of the year 2006, originally bred by John in 2000. We are indebted to Gerald Blandford and his family for their excellent stewardship of the original herd and Tremendous, and the subsequent success they have enjoyed, raising the profile of both the Bosbury herd and now, the Reydon herd.

We have embarked on a steady and sustainable increase in top quality, including world class, females, successfully reintroducing some of the original female lines back into the herd. We are delighted that Tremendous has now come home to compliment our recently purchased cows. In April 2007 we had our first calf, Reydon 1 Phoenix a 57Kg bull calf, followed closely by Angelo, Ariel,Sonny, Alfonso and Augustus. Our breeding schedule presents exciting opportunities and we very much look forward to more safe deliveries of Tremendous calves.More to follow as the months roll on.....