Going back far enough (and plenty of articles have been written) Alderney’s agriculture had been based around the French Normandy strip farming where the land was split up between the islanders with common land for all to use and 3 blocks for each person, of good, medium and poor land.

There were no TV's in those days and everyone had big families, so when the land was passed to the next generation it was split up equally with a portion of each type of land to each of the family members.

With the land being split up so much, some plots became as small as one tenth of an acre; each farmer would tether his animals on his own strip and no fences were built, nor water supplies laid on to the fields, right up to the 1990s.

Tracks snake through the land called “routes de sufferance” (meaning I suffer you, you suffer me) touching each plot where anybody could drive their horse through to get to their plots, but at certain times the routes could be planted and only access on foot was allowed.

As time went on these routes became permanent tracks although not public footpaths. All residents have access to them now but only with permission of the land owners — it's a case of “use them, but don’t abuse them”.

In the 1800’s agriculture was the main industry and high numbers of over 500 head of cattle were recorded. Cows and bulls from Jersey and Guernsey would first be shipped to Alderney as the harbour was better suited to the transatlantic ships. The American buyers came to view and purchase the good ones for as much as 100 guineas and to own such a cow was of great importance to them.

There is much mystery around the “Alderney cow”, however my interpretation is that Normandy cows were brought here by the French and as time went on, the Jerseys/Guernseys that had been brought here occasionally got loose. With nature taking its natural course, the Alderney ended up a hybrid of the three, like Jack Russell dogs, becoming a breed in its own right.

Since then however the Alderney has died out, with the Guernsey becoming dominant since the Second World War.

The dairy was government-run but by 1995-ish was losing so much money it was decided to close it down, leaving the two remaining dairy farmers with no market for their milk! Between them they took on the running of the dairy but this didn’t work out and finally, John Le Cocq and his wife were left to run both their farm and the dairy. By then, the old State Dairy building was in such poor condition that the State wanted to condemn it as being unfit for use.