Emma Smalley and Terry Barlow had already led eventful lives before they began adopting alpacas and llamas.

A designer, illustrator and writer from Manchester, Emma originally had a shop in the city selling her own gift products as well as her three children’s books and met partner Terry - a former intelligence officer, tank commander and marksman in the King’s Regiment - at a craft market while he was working on security.

The couple moved to the Lake District to run their shop and tearoom named Temporary Measure in Keswick, before having a life-changing encounter of the fluffy kind nearly 10 years ago.

“We were doing a craft fair and there were some alpacas at the show and Terry was like, ‘I can’t stop thinking about these animals'," remembered Emma.

“He said, ‘We’ll just put an advert in the paper and see if anybody’s got any alpacas they can’t look after anymore.’

"Somebody got in touch and said they had five.”

They took on more and more llamas and alpacas, starting their business Alpacaly Ever After CIC in 2017, rehoming animals from all over the country which their owners were unable to look after and taking people on alpaca walks and ‘meet and greets’.

They began running it as a social enterprise on a relatively small scale but it gradually grew to the point where they now have 200 rehomed animals.

Up until 2022, they used four locations around the county - the Lingholm Estate, Whinlatter Forest, Littletown Farm and Lakes Distillery - to keep the animals and run activities.

However, 18 months ago they teamed up with David Seymour, owner of the Lingholm Estate, to buy the 155-acre Basecamp North Lakes site just off the A66 between Keswick and Penrith.

The site came with a farm shop and cafe, fishing lake, industrial space, 15 staff and dining area, although the land and buildings were badly in need of renovation and repair.

Emma and Terry have been busy investing around £600,000 into upgrading and improving the site, including putting in place infrastructure to make it more accessible, as well as basic but vital developments such as a new sewage treatment plant.

They are also in the process of revamping the kitchen and welfare facilities for staff and have been granted planning permission for a small extension to the farm shop.