The Whitepool and Rainbow herds of pedigree Belted Galloway cattle can be found in the beautiful part of Monmouthshire, close to the Usk Valley. With the land unfortunately being fairly heavy clay, cattle have to be housed during the winter months otherwise there would be too much damage with ‘poaching', hence the need for an environmentally friendly breed of cattle.

The Whitepool herd was started in 1997 with the purchase of two older cows and a heifer from the Browhaze herd in Wiltshire. One of the cows turned out to be barren, but the other one was duly put in calf and our first Beltie arrived on 3rd November 1998. This was Whitepool Joy, who is still in the herd today.

I had bred Simmental cattle for many years, but after the foot and mouth outbreak in 2001, I decided I would concentrate on the Belties, as the breed had sustained huge losses, so all the Simmentals were sold. Cow numbers are now up to 20 head with some of the older ‘girls' well on into their teens.

On the advice of the late Miss Flora Stuart, AI was used initially and Mar-Pine Perry was her recommendation. However, once the commitment had been made to concentrate on the Belties I decided it would be essential to have a stock bull. I was fortunate to purchase Bolebec Dun Concorde from Christopher Marler when the Bolebec herd was dispersed late in 2001.

Concorde had been Junior Champion at the Royal Show, and we showed him at the Royal in 2002 when he was Male and Supreme Champion. His sons in the USA have been sold for record prices, and we were lucky enough to have some excellent progeny from him.

We now have a new stock bull Southfield Double-O-Seven and his first calves were born from September 2008 and are very pleasing. A small selection will be entered for our production sale in Worcester in October. We showed him as a junior bull in 2007, when he was Junior Champion at both the Royal Highland and Royal Shows. Semen is available for world-wide distribution.

The Rainbow Herd was started by my partner in 2004 with the purchase of two dun cows, and several bulls have been sold for breeding. Rainbow Radar served six heifers purchased from Barclosh in 2008 which are calving at the moment and look very promising.