AS in previous years, the Beltex fixture again ran alongside the annual winter collective sale of Continental-sired ewes at Skipton Auction Mart, with a catalogue entry of 251 head sold both as individuals and in small groups, being mainly three-quarters and pure-bred sheep suitable for show lamb production.

In-lamb females averaged £285 overall, with top of the shop on price at 600gns an in-lamb pure black Beltex shearling from Foulridge husband and wife, Anthony and Emma Thompson, which joined G Rowlands in Holyhead on the Welsh coast.

The couple’s annual 82-strong consignment comprised mainly shearlings due March onwards and in-lamb to a selection of pedigree Beltex tups, whose own prime lambs have won multiple honours for the Thompsons at local, regional and national level. Also included in the run were Dutch Spotted-cross shearlings, which made to 380gns, along with six Dassenkop ewe lambs, these selling to 350gns, the whole averaging £361.

Trawden’s John Wood offered up 26 pure Beltex, Beltex-cross and pedigree Blue Texel ewes and shearlings, the former all sired by a Thompson family ram and in-lamb to a ram from George Cropper Jnr’s Hudhey flock – his own sire made 5,600gns – the latter in-lamb to a Blue Texel ram, Two Saints Eddy, with the ewes themselves either sired by a 1,600gns Dragon ram or a home-bred son of Saltaire You’re The Boy, purchased for 1,000gns. Both Blue Texel ewes and shearlings sold to 580gns, the consignment averaging £395.

Frank Joel and Jack Edmondson, from Westhouse in North Craven, two mainstays of the fixture since its inception, arrived with 68 pure Beltex and Beltex-x-Texel shearlings and ewes, which topped at 420gns on three occasions – one a Beltex 2-crop ewe in-lamb to Dooley Daffyd, acquired last year and producing some great carcases, the other a brace of Beltex 1-crop ewes also due to Dooley. The former again fell to A Wood & Sons, the latter pair to B Jones, of Belper in Derbyshire’s Amber Valley. Their annual production sale produced an overall selling average of £279.

The North Craven Davis’s were again represented by a batch of Dutch Texel and Beltex-x-Dutch Texel shearlings and ewes, a brace of Dutch Texel ewe lamb and three Beltex ewe lambs, their Dutch Texel shearlings selling to 320gns, ewe lambs to 200gns, with an overall average of £279.

Mark Worthington, who runs the Moss Side flock in Ramsbottom, arrived with a consignment of eight pedigree in-lamb Charollais ewes and shearlings, the latter selling to 350gns, the former to 300gns, the whole averaging £295.

Travelling from Rhuddlan in Denbighshire, Wales, M Williams made 350gns with a pedigree Suffolk ewe, his run of ten averaging £321, with the Dudgale family, from Stackhouse, Settle, also chipping in with a Lleyn-x-Texel ewe lamb at160gns.