About Huntington Farm
Huntington Farm, near Lauder, is home to the Runciman family. Dougie and Heather Runciman took on the tenancy here when they married, and today the farm is worked by Dougie and his sons Ewan and Angus across some 2,500 acres of owned, rented and contract-farmed land. The farm has around 2,100 breeding ewes, a herd of cattle, and arable ground growing barley and oats.
Ewan Runciman, who farms alongside his father and brother, is a trialling man himself, a winner of the novice section of the Borders nursery league. A feel for sheep dog trialling runs in the family. His grandfather on his mother’s side was a shepherd and a noted ISDS man, the well-known handler Dave Armstrong, and it’s from that side of the family that Ewan’s love of working dogs flows. There’s a particularly special dog in his kennel today, Meg, a registered collie his grandfather gave him as a pup, and now one of his best. Ewan keeps eight working dogs in all: five border collies and, a nod to his time farming in New Zealand, three huntaways.
Ask him what he loves about the breed and the answer is simple. “It’s just in them to want to work,” he says, their instinct, their natural ability, and their eagerness to please.
Hosting the World Trials
Staging a championship of this scale on a family farm is a huge undertaking, and one the whole family has thrown itself into. Fields have been merged to make a course big enough: three of them - Lark Strip, the Bullion and the Norton - combined into one. Fences have come out, ground has been tidied, and the flock prepared so the sheep run fair for every competitor, which Ewan, as the trial’s Chief Sheep Steward, cares about more than anything. Heather and Dougie, Angus, and Ewan’s wife Alison, who coordinates the trade stands, each have their part, supported by a small army of committee volunteers.
The main field was chosen for its easy access off the A697 and because from Field One you can see the turrets of Thirlestane Castle rising above Lauder, and beyond, the distinctive peaks of the Eildon Hills away at Melrose.
Beside the competition field, an events area gathers around a market marquee full of local crafters and makers, with outdoor trade stands, catering, a bar, and screens where you can settle in with a pint and watch the action if you’d rather not walk the field. And the days don’t stop at the final whistle: across the evenings there’s a ceilidh, a speed-shear, and Scottish food and drink to give visitors from around the world a proper taste of Scotland.
For the Runcimans, that welcome is the whole point. As Ewan says, there’ll be folk who’ve travelled from all over the world, and the hope is to send every one of them home with a smile, and a warm memory of the Scottish Borders.
