Farm is home to the rarest cows in the country

Farmers Emma and Andrew Warren with their Albion cows and calves

Two farmers say they are the proud owners of some of the rarest cows in the country.

Emma and Andrew Warren, of Beetham Farm near Chard in Somerset, recently bought two Albion cows – a breed that until a few years ago was considered extinct following an outbreak of foot and mouth disease in the 1960s.

Luckily, the cows, Maude and Margo, both have calves – and Maude may be pregnant again.

Ms Warren said she "had no idea they were that rare" when she bought them and that numbers of breeding Albions are "staggeringly low" at around 300 in the whole of the UK.

The breed used to be called the Bakewell Blues due to their blueish grey mottled appearance

The Albion Cattle Society told the BBC the breed originated from Derbyshire in an area near Bakewell in 1916.

It leant them their original "Bakewell Blues" name which also reflected their slightly blueish mottled appearance. However, in 1921 they were renamed the Blue Albion.

Susannah Mannerings, from the society, said: "It was a bad time, there was a serious foot and mouth outbreak and then an agricultural depression, followed by World War II.

"Then in the 1960s, another foot and mouth outbreak [happened], leaving just a few very stubborn farmers stuck in their ways and keeping the Albions going but well under the radar."

An original footplate from HMS Albion, a Royal Navy ship with links to Ms Warren's family

And in what she calls serendipity, Ms Warren said her father was "the last of the serving crew on the deployment of HMS Albion before it was sent to the great shipyard in the sky".

A footplate from the Royal Navy ship, which shares the rare breed's name, sits in the entrance to the couple's porch.