History

A brief history… HG Hayter & Sons, Est. 1917

In 1917 Henry George Hayter became the new tenant of Rowe Hill Farm with his wife Edith and their two sons Bob and Fred, and H G Hayter & Sons was established. Rowe Hill Farm was then part of the Bankes Estate (Kingston Lacy Estate) which in 1919 was put up for auction when a large portion of Kingston Lacy was sold off and Henry Hayter was able to buy the farm.

Initially the farm was a mixed animal and arable farm, which progressively turned toward dairy. Bob and his wife Winnie had two sons and lived at Lower Rowe and Fred and his wife May and their son Ken and daughter Anne, lived at Rowe Hill Farm. Bob and Fred continued to run the farm together until Bob wanted to retire in 1975 when Fred’s son Ken bought his uncle out of the farm. Ken and Ann made a number of improvements to the farm and installed a new milking parlour.

In 1984 Ken and Ann moved from the Bungalow opposite the farm into the farmhouse after work was carried out to split the house into

two to allow Kens parents May and Fred to live in an annex with Ken, Ann and their two boys Neil and Phillip in the main house. Neil and Phillip were soon put to work on the farm as boys and attended local agricultural college Kingston Maurward.

However, following on from years of expanding hay sales in June 1998 the Hayters decided to start selling horse and dog food and Hayters Feeds was born.

This was situated in two small rooms in an out building in the yard that had once housed some of the milking parlour machinery. 

Since then Hayters has expanded on a regular basis firstly into the whole of the out building and then into the large barn. Having outgrown this in 2011 when Phillip returned, the family business moved the shop back into the original outbuilding with the barn still being used for large bags of feed.

Today Ken and Ann still live at Rowe Hill Farm as does elsdest son Neil and his wife Gina, and Phillip, his wife Marie and their sons live locally. All members of the Hayter family work for the business.