Prime quality free range pork and chicken, lamb, eggs, honey, fresh veg, handmade pies and chutneys – all within 10 minutes of Aldershot town centre.

Hard to believe – well, it’s true.

Hunts Hill Farm at Normandy offers a range of farm produce, all reared or made on the spot, either from the farm shop or to order.

Hand made items such as fudge, ready meals and cakes are sourced from other local producers, carefully chosen for quality and taste.

John and Georgina Emerson have run the farm since 1988, after deciding to semi-retire and sell their previous business.

Now they are busier than ever, expanding the business and keeping an eye out for the next opportunity.

“We started selling produce at farmers’ markets in 1991, at Petersfield and Crowthorne and were among the original stallholders at Milford and Winchester farmers’ markets,” said Georgina.

They also helped set up the markets at Waverley and Guildford.

The farm itself raises chickens for meat and eggs, ducks, pigs, sheep and lambs and bees.

The sheep are Badger-faced variety, the pigs Saddleback, Tamworth and Black Berkshires – each with particular characteristics of taste and uses.

A new offering is Surrey rose veal, available this week from the shop.

Georgina and John source their calves from the Loseley estate in Guildford, famous for its Jersey herd’s produce.

The male calves are surplus to the dairy industry’s requirements and the Emersons now rear just a couple at a time to supply rose veal – humanely produced to rigorous standards.  Rose veal is now endorsed by celebrity chefs Gordon Ramsay, Brian Turner, Jean Christophe Novelli and Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall. It is currently being championed by TV’s Janet Street-Porter in her crusade for British food at its best, most recently on The F Word on Tuesdays.

The Emersons were devastated by the effects of last year’s foot and mouth outbreak at neighbouring farms.

While Hunts Hill remained disease-free, all their livestock was slaughtered as a precautionary measure. “We lost everything,” said Georgina, recalling the horrendous days and nights at the time their livestock was destroyed.

Things are looking up however, and the Emersons are well on track once again.

SUCCULENT STOCK

Chiller cabinets bursting with prize-winning sausages, steaks, joints, chops, chickens and other meats catch the eye.

Dairy items come from Leopard Dairy in Blandford, Dorset, and frozen  pies from Granny Mo’s at  Wokingham.

On the shelves are jams, chutneys and sauces – including Anila’s sauces made in Walton; Godstone apple juice, ginger wine from Wrights of Oxted. In the freezer are Hunts Hill burgers – pork or beef – sausages and pork ribs just right for a barbecue.

Fresh vegetables come from Normandy Therapy Garden project, sold for no profit by the Emersons on behalf of the people who work there. Strawberries come from Tuesley Farm at Milford and Secretts.

Special orders for functions – including whole pigs for hog roasts – are a substantial part of the business.

Butcher Peter Callender and sausage-maker Mary Peyton are kept busy at Hunts Hill Farm.

Mary’s sausages have been a runaway success since she started making them – and now the shop proudly displays certificates her bangers have won at national level.

Customers come from far and wide to stock up here.

Colin and Jill Last from Sandhurst insist they go “nowhere else” for their eggs.

They became regular customers of the Emersons at Crowthorne market – which has since become defunct, but the Lasts make the trip to Normandy on a regular basis for their eggs, juice, meat, burgers, chicken “and turkey at Christmas,” said Jill. “We’ve been customers since the beginning, and you get what you pay for; we’d never buy eggs from anywhere else,” said Colin.

The shop is open Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays 9am to 6pm.

Hunts Hill Farm, Normandy Common Lane, Normandy GU3 2AP. Phone 01483 811840.