Feature • Farming in Snowdonia
There are over a thousand farms within the boundaries of Eryri National Park. The vast majority rear sheep and cattle — the land here is largely unsuitable for crops, and Welsh mountain ewes have grazed these slopes since prehistory. But a growing number of Snowdonia’s farming families are adding entirely new enterprises alongside their traditional livestock, and some are heading in directions nobody would have predicted a decade ago.
1. Shepherds’ Huts and Glamping Pods
Siabod Huts in the Conwy Valley was one of the early movers. Run by Menna and Emyr Williams on their 120-acre beef and sheep farm, the handcrafted wooden cabins take their name from nearby Moel Siabod and sit with views across the mountains. The enterprise has directly boosted the core farm’s income. They are not alone — across Eryri, farming families are converting barns, installing yurts and building glamping pods, often with support from Farming Connect’s Agrisgôp groups. In South Snowdonia, the Jones family secured planning consent for glamping units after a long negotiation with the national park authority, recognising it was essential to future-proof their income.
2. Craft Distilling
Snowdonia Distillery, founded by the Marshall family in 2015, was North Wales’s first copper micro-distillery in nearly a century. Their process is deliberately slow — spanning weeks rather than hours — to capture the subtle notes of foraged Welsh botanicals. The result, Forager’s Gin, has picked up international awards including a World Gin Award. Elevenses Distillery on the Faenol estate near the Menai Straits takes a different approach, using hand-harvested sugar kelp from the North Wales coastline. Both prove that Snowdonia’s raw materials — its water, its hedgerows, its seaweed — can be transformed into premium products.
3. Artisan Cheese
Snowdonia Cheese Company has become a nationally recognised brand, known for its coloured wax truckles. But beyond the big name, smaller dairies are making cheese from the milk of their own herds — some using traditional Welsh recipes, others experimenting with continental styles. Bodnant Welsh Food Centre in the Conwy Valley makes cheese on site from milk sourced across the river, and you can watch the process through a viewing window.
4. Vineyard and Orchard Farming
Pant Du Vineyard near Caernarfon combines wine production with cider pressing and a visitor café. Gwinllan Conwy is growing hybrid grapes that suit the North Wales climate. Both are proving that commercial viticulture is viable this far north and west — and that visitors will happily spend an afternoon touring vines with mountain views.
5. Conservation Grazing as a Business Model
On National Trust farms like Hafod y Llan beneath Yr Wyddfa, the farming model is being reinvented around conservation. Active shepherding moves flocks away from sensitive plants. Welsh Black cattle graze specific areas to manage purple moor grass and rushes. The farm earns income through agri-environment schemes, a campsite, a bunkhouse and walking trail access — a diversified portfolio that keeps the land farmed while restoring habitats.
6. Organic and Direct-to-Consumer Meat
Rhug Estate near Corwen has scaled organic farming to a level that supplies Michelin-starred restaurants worldwide, while maintaining a farm shop, bistro and drive-through open to anyone passing on the A5. At the other end of the spectrum, dozens of Snowdonia smallholders now sell direct through social media, using processing services like Cig Eryri to package their own-brand lamb and beef boxes for delivery across the UK.
7. Beekeeping and Honey Production
The National Beekeeping Centre of Wales is based at Bodnant Welsh Food Centre, reflecting the growing importance of managed pollination in the Snowdonia landscape. Upland honey from Eryri has a distinctive floral character drawn from heather, clover and wildflowers, and commands a premium at farm shops and markets. For farms already in agri-environment schemes that require pollinator-friendly management, beekeeping is a natural and profitable add-on.
The common thread is resourcefulness. Snowdonia’s farmers are not abandoning their land — they are finding more ways to make it pay.
