Value for money. Small family-owned farm with their own farm shop, coffee shop and very…read morechildren-friendly! I didn't go into the shop but did get time to enjoy cream tea in the cafe. For only £2.50, I enjoyed a pot of tea, with extra hot water should I have fancied more, a warm home made fruit scone served with clotted cream and jam! It was delicious! The staff were lovely and checked to see if I enjoyed the scone and if I wanted a bacon sarnie to take with me! The coffee shop also had some farm-themed gifts, greeting cards and nik-naks for giving your home a touch of country feel. The place had been newly finished with extra seating inside next to a cosy log burner. There is also extensive seating outside where there is also a mini bouncy castle! I will be popping by again to pick up some meat soon but wanted to share it with you Yelpers now as its a bit of a hidden gem. Bring your family here this weekend (if the weather is not too grim)!

This is exactly the type of place I've been searching for since moving to the area. All other…read more'butchers' I've been to around here don't stock the cuts of meat I'm usually after...bone in pork shoulders and beef ribs or they are overly expensive. Here they will butchers cut you wish as they deal in whole carcass and the prices are very reasonable...£3.50 for brisket and beef ribs is very cheap compared to most places. It is a very clean place considering it's on a farm. There is also a tea room and small pet shop to visit.

A good old fashioned greengrocers, they supply most of the business's in Holmfirth with fruit and…read moreveg so it must be good. Small area to front covered in a vast aray of fruit, veg and seasonal plants. It is one of the few places in holmfirth to get fish and inside there is all the basics like sauces and gravy browning. the quality and service is as would expect. old style courtesy and charm

These guys have all types of fish sourced from crossed the globe. They also take seafood orders for…read moreall specialty dishes. They staff are very helpful, friendly and very competent about what the are selling. I also like the oval shaped display plan the shelves are laid out it gives the customer a good mini tour around and see their fresh product. Another added bonus is that it is located in a spacious food section of the indoor market and the place is very clean and tidy. If you lucky you might find a unique catch on display when you visit, last year they had a 1.2 metre Swordfish caught from somewhere in West Africa on display.

I only give this place 4 out of 5 as I haven't yet bought anything…read more I was drifting back through the market towards the inexorable Easter pull of Hotel Chocolate, when I came face to face with the Conger Eel in the accompanying photo. I'm sure the slippery fella was included in the list of 10 Most Diabolical Fish on Earth that I was reading about on-line the other day. Anyhow, face to face with my sub-aquatic nemesis, I was truly amazed by this place. They have just about every possible type of fish and seafood one can think of, and more besides. I don't know how common this kind of comprehensive fish/seafood emporium is elsewhere, but I reckon it has to be worth a visit to Manchester alone and if you have some small children you could take, all the better! It's like some kind of edible museum. An aquarium of exotic tastes, no less. The staff were incredibly friendly too. I was told that the Conger Eel is often bought by African customers and you buy it by the slice. Other residents included huge bream and carp, a plethora of jet black catfish nestled barb to barb at the front of one side of the gargantuan oval counter and several decapitated fish heads, which according to the monger, are bought and used for fish stock. Further still along this plank of plenty, was the seafood section replete with pink spider crabs, king and emperor prawns, and an assortment of shellfish that ranged from cockles and whelks to oysters. What a place. Fin.

A nice afternoons walk about the mere. Always seems bigger than i remember, not that my dog minds…read moregetting an extra walk. It is located very near to the m6, but due to the thick forestation you really do hardly notice. Some of the fishers can be a little rude, and despite them wanting you and your dog to tiptoe past, wont shift all their gear so you can actually get past! There are plenty of dog poo bins arond so you can easily clean up after your dog without having to then carry it around with you, which is always a bit of a downer when walking a dog! The summer is especially nice when the trees are all out in the bloom and the smells are all lovely.

There are 2 car parks for Shakerley Mere either side of the lake, one tarmac and one rough gravel…read more The tarmac one is only small, so often gets full. Toilets available in this car park. Popular with dog walkers and for people wanting to fish. The path runs right next to the M6 motorway, but you can hardly hear the noise. The lake is a murkey brown colour, and is home to swans and other ducks, and birds. Picnic tables are scattered around the paths, so is good in the summer. Best of all, its FREE!

This Farmers Market was recommended to me by fellow Yelper Gareth H who lives around these parts…read more Ashton Farmers Market takes place on the last Sunday of every month, 9.00am to 3.00pm, although in hardcore market tradition the action is better earlier in the day, with packing up starting as early as 1.30pm or whenever the stall in question has more or less sold out of stock. The stalls are housed outside in the shelters that are otherwise home to the outdoor section of Ashton Market, and indeed the indoor market opens for the earlier part of the Farmers Sunday, plus there are a few of the three dishtowels for £1 outdoor stalls open and looking to cash in on some of the trade passing to the farmers stalls! While there are some good artisan foodie markets in Manchester, I still think Ashton Farmers Market is worth a visit from further afield. While there are good cheese and chutney companies and cupcake makers here, you can tell from the ruddy faces, manner and vehicles of the majority of the stallholders that these are authentic diversified farm businesses or at least rural cottage industries. There is an impressive amount of cooking done from scratch on grill plates and the odd chargriller fashioned from an oil drum cut in half! Vegetarian choice is at least adequate, I would say - even farmers seem to be moving with the times, or at least this forward-looking bunch have. Other stalls include a tea stall with urn (£1 a cuppa), seasonal fruit and veg straight from the farm, garden plants, hand knitted goods and some other random stuff, all of which are done with a lot more TLC than your average high street store. Business is brisk, I was pleased to note. Stating the obvious, but if it is a proper rugged Farmers Market you are after, you need to get out a bit from the centre of the city. For example, Ashton seems to be on a circuit of Farmers Markets which include Todmorden and Hebden Bridge. And there seems to be a similar circuit down Cheshire way, taking place once a month in places like Lymm. Do let me know if you have experiences of good farmers anywhere near Manchester or in Lancashire. If you live anywhere near, or are passing near Ashton and looking for a bit of local flavour, Ashton Farmers Market is definitely worth a visit.

Well that was an enjoyable couple of hours spent at the farners market today…read more There is lots of stalls at this one which is always a plus,and it was the usual fare,lots of nice looking cakes,some seriously good pies and breads,lots of meats,from the usual beef to wild boar and venison. We tried some seriously good cheeses making it hard to decide which ones to buy! The star of this market and any other market they appear at was Robinsons Bakery,seriously it should be made a crime to not buy something from them,their goods are so nice and they are such lovely people. Mrs Z bought some bread and a Manchester tart from them and I had a Vienese finger (ooer!) because they are seriously addictive! Also from the market we bought what can only be described as a slab of meat and potato pie and a walnut batard. It would've been easy to buy more stuff,but we would run out of room! Held on the last sunday of every month this is one Farmers Market that is well worth a visit....

Fantastic place! no other farmshop within id say a good 10-20 miles can compete on the…read morerange/quality of keelham! great produce! only problem is they have well outgrown there current store! by a mile! everytime we go in now your litrally falling over people

Brilliant farm shop and very competitive prices friendly staff and more than adequate parkingread more

Amazed by this place…read more I haven't seen anywhere like it since my travels to Portland. It has a real community atmosphere. Everyone involved, from the growers to the staff to the people shopping, care and it really shows. It's honest. It's exactly where you want to buy your vegetables. There's soil on the fresh produce. Actual soil. No cellophane, no unnecessary packaging, no nonsense - just tasty, local food. The shelves are clearly labelled and well stocked with interesting offerings. They have your staples - potatoes, all the usual veg, cereals, spices, fruits as well as some more unusual choices when/if it's in season. Prices are reasonable and when you pay you feel like you're contributing - something you never experience in a chain supermarket. There's a play area for kids and free apples to keep them occupied - with a little compost bin for the cores. A big green thumbs up.

Unicorn is quite simply the best place ever and the eco-jewel in the crown of the noble and good…read morekingdom of Chorlton, that land of the yoga bunny, the eco-warrior and community campaign group Keep Chorlton Interesting http://keepchorltoninteresting.org/ Walking around the unusually-wide aisles of this wholefoods supermarket, it is easy to feel inspired that the times are *not* a' changing. Because they've changed. And here we find ourselves in a land flowing with everlasting organic milk and honey, and we no longer have to constantly check the label because it's all good stuff! Unicorn is a fully-fledged supermarket with the small and large trolleys to prove it, but the relaxed atmosphere and experience of the five senses being bathed in everything that is good is tangible. Starting outside the door, the Big Issue vendor deftly helped me free a trolley that was jammed, and I could feel his genuine wish to help and for my Unicorn shopping experience to be a good one. Inside. Organic seeds. Garden tools made in Wigan by a company called Bulldog. (I bought a hand fork and a 3-pronged hand cultivator, which I think will prove useful for weeding close to plants without damaging their roots.) Organic fruit and veg which is all labelled and sourced as locally as possible (e.g. Broad Beans from Gielty of Ormskirk). And plenty of choice of fruit and veg - how come supermarkets never manage to have more than a few lines of organic produce? A lovely blackboard telling what's in season and how things have been going for the farmers out in the field. Sometimes, I've seen another small blackboard outside showing how Unicorn is cheaper than Sainsbury or Tesco for the same items. This doesn't surprise me, as a good co-op is a very strong business model, without the big salaries and pressure for huge shareholder dividends of all chain supermarkets. I've not tried much from the chilled display, so I'll leave that to others to review. The dried goods are handily displayed on tiered shelves with small, medium and large sizes of each item. In the back corner, there is a lovely little play area, including a compost bin for the little eco-warriors to put their apple cores in! Every time I've visited, the play area has been very much in use, with lots of fun being had. The kids are nice to each other! The bakery and hot food takeaway is all good stuff from the best organic bakeries in the area, supplemented by some goodies baked instore. I've had great soups from here, eaten with a buttered roll or pastie, very wholesome-tasting - sweet potato or roasted red pepper, mmm! On the shelves in the middle are a many speciality ingredients which are hard to find elsewhere. From my till receipt, for example - Toasted Sesame Oil (organic), Pomegranate Syrup, Puffed Wheat (organic), Puffed Millet (organic), Polenta (organic). Even if you're not an enthusiastic cook, I would personally much rather have a breakfast cereal of Puffed Wheat with a dash of maple syrup and whatever else I fancy rather than trust the Honey Monster! Waiting at the checkout, the lady in front offered me half a organic loaf in a brown paper bag - thank you very much, madam! I always find the checkout staff and all the others very pleasant and on-the-ball - there is a maturity about this place. Unicorn is not a side-show in Chorlton it's the dominant retail model (shh - you know what I mean!) with a turnover of millions of pounds. One last thing - at the checkout, those branded plastic things that supermarkets provide to separate your shopping on the belt from the customers in front and behind are replaced by...pieces of wood! Pass on the well-worn, wooden baton and the good word about Unicorn. :-)

Was expecting a nice family day out with my mum and nephew Zion until a strange man wearing the sea…read morelife uniform grabbed my nephew and dangled him above the tank full of sting rays, he has a fear of sting rays and we took him here to help combat it however he is loosely related to famous crocodile hunter Steve Erwin giving him a generational trauma towards the creature. after words the man in uniform dropped him in and he almost drowned forcing me to jump in and save him as the man ran off screaming racial slurs at me and my one year old now traumatised nephew. Would not recommend to anyone especially those of colour. however, for those of you who enjoy stingrays, could be a fun day out :D

The best sea life centre I've been to, it's pretty and immersive and has a soft play area for the…read morelittle ones.