Cashmere goats are big draw in Angus

They're all over for this year but there will be more in 2025.

By Keith Findlay

September 2 2024, 5:00pm

Guest on the final tour of the year at Lunan Bay Farm. Image: Wallace Ferrier

International tourists are lining up to come and see the Cashmere goats at Lunan Bay Farm in Angus.

Jillian McEwan, who runs the farm with her husband, Neil, told The Courier bookings for their tours for 2025 are coming in thick and fast.

“We’ve already had bookings from international tour operators from America and Italy, as well as for corporate events,” Gillian said.

Goat visits are soaraway success

She was speaking just the day after the farm’s final Scottish Cashmere Farm to Fibre Experience of 2024.

The exclusive tours – no more than 15 people each time – have been a soaraway success, with all of them sold out,

Lunan Bay also had more than 3,000 visitors through its farm gates for its three-day Goats in Coats event earlier this year.

Gillian, with some of her herd. Image: Kim Cessford / DC Thomson

The McEwan’s have kept goats on their farm since 2016 and launched their agritourism venture last year.

Tour guests are promised a “fully immersive, intimate experience learning how we produce our Scottish regenerative Cashmere”.

They get to help gently comb the goats to harvest fibre and learn how this is then processed.

Farm manager Fred Porchez with pots of Cashmere getting dyed. Image: Wallace Ferrier

They also experience and try hand spinning, see a demonstration of the key steps involved in converting fibre into yarn and learn how to dye the fibre with plant extracts.

More tours will take place next year, Gillian confirmed.

There were 10 of them during 2024.

“We’ve over 150 kid goats on the farm now,” Gillian said, adding: “People can come and visit them and take a deeper dive into Cashmere production.”

One of the goats getting combed at Lunan Bay Farm. Image: Kim Cessford / DC Thomson

Lunan Bay is believed to be the UK’s only commercial producer of homegrown, regenerative Cashmere.

Working regeneratively means the fibre is farmed in a way that supports nature.

Every Spring, the team at Lunan Bay ethically harvests their goats’ cashmere fibre, their winter undercoat, by hand combing to leave them with glossy new coats for the summer.

Small batch processing in the Borders

The raw Cashmere is then expertly processed in small batches at an artisan micro-mill, The Border Mill, in Duns in the Scottish Borders. It is then blended with fleeces from the farm’s Shetland Sheep, which are also managed regeneratively, for a range of products.