Watertop Open Farm is the brainchild of Patsy and Terry McBride and the brothers have successfully developed the family farm into a popular Northern Ireland tourist attraction. Open for caravan and camping, school and group visits, from Easter to Halloween, the activities for day visits are now open for July and August.
Watertop Open Farm is a hill farm located six miles outside Ballycastle in the Glens of Antrim, Northern Ireland and offers a great day out for all the family. Set in the beautiful surroundings of the north east Antrim coast, the farm offers a variety of activities as well as a tea house for lunch and camping for an overnight stay.
Patsy McBride’s grandfather Dan bought Watertop farm in 1919. The name Watertop was chosen for the farm as a part of the Carey river rises as a fresh water spring nearby. The farm is a sheep farm and is home to 500 sheep and 30 cows.
In 1986 Patsy and his brother, Terry, opened the farm to the public and became the first open farm in Ireland.
Pony trekking began a lot earlier in 1969 when the Loughareema Trekking Centre was set up. This formed the basis of the open farm which has since grown into an activity based attraction as opposed to the traditional zoo-like open farms.
The McBride brothers offer a wide range of packages and facilities and activities including pony trekking, boating lake, assault course, go karting, play area, quad train and sheep shearing.
As they are located in the beautiful Glens of Antrim, visitors can also enjoy several scenic walks around the farm and its surrounding area. A trip on the ‘Paddiwagon’ will take you up into the hills of the farm giving you great views of the area, all the way down into Ballycastle and beyond.
Another part of the farm is the caravan and camping sites. They have a large area dedicated to people wishing to stay with them in Watertop and they are an ideal place to base your holiday, allowing exploration of the north coast.
“My grandfather bought the farm for £2,200 and started off with 155 sheep and 10 cows,” Patsy revealed to Irish Tractor & Agri magazine. “It was operated as a mixed dairy farm up until the 60s when my father took over the farm. He took on to bulk up the herd to 20 dairy Shorthorn cows but the herd was wiped out by TB in 1960. Nearly every herd in the Glens was wiped out that time so he changed to suckler cows and beef production.
“That, unfortunately, meant that we, literally, always ran out of money in July and August. There was no income whatsoever and it was lean time on the farm. To make ends meet, my father came up with the idea to try pony trekking and Loughareema Trekking Center was established.”
Patsy continued: “That carried on for seventeen years and then I travelled abroad in 1981, as part of young farmers club of Ulster, and it opened my eyes to other things that were happening around the world.”
Patsy got the idea for an open farm from a visit to a farm in Scotland as a Nuffield Scholar looking at farm diversification in the UK and Europe.
“I realised that nobody was doing farm diversification over here other than B&Bs. There was no open farm I knew of back then so we opened up in 1986.”
The McBride brothers’ approach to sustaining the farm business is to look at their perceived disadvantages and try to turn them into something positive and to their advantage.
They are trying many different methods of supplementing farm income, from adding value to their livestock and their existing farm enterprises, to developing tourist activities and concentrating on environmental aspects of the farm business (GFP programme, ESA, CMS.). Sustainability is the key issue.
“The majority of our visitors come from Northern Ireland, within a 70 mile radius of the farm and we get a lost of customers from Belfast,” Patsy explained.
“School tours in May and June have proven to be very popular, particularly with primary schools. What we offer is a three hour package which includes a guided tour of the farm yard and animals, a nature walk in the valley, a ride on our converted army truck the ‘Paddiwagon’ and a ride on a little quad train.”
Not content to rest on their laurels, the McBride’s added a new activity barn last year complete with an indoor traverse wall and big bouncy slide.
And looking to the future, Patsy anticipates further growth in the years ahead…
“We see us growing every year but our biggest problem is marketing. We’re good enough at the farming!”
To that end, a new mobile friendly website is currently in the process of being developed. Visit www.watertopfarm.co.uk for further information.
“The easiest way to get to us is to head for Ballycastle, take the A2 to Cushendall and you’ll find us at the top of the hill,” Patsy concluded.
Watertop Open Farm
188 Cushendall Road
Ballycastle
BT54 6RN
Tel: 028 2076 2576
Email: [email protected]
Website: www.watertopfarm.co.uk
Taken from Irish Tractor & Agri magazine Vol 4 No 6, July/August 2016
