The owners of a farm hit by a major fire said they were “optimistic” the business would bounce back.

Richard Bascome, the general manager at Westover Farm in Sandys, said the building that housed the butcher’s shop and staff housing had suffered the worst damage.

Mr Bascome said: “It’s a very old building, a 200 year-old structure, so we have a lot of engineering concerns about it.

“But it’s a situation where we prefer to say the glass is half full.

“The slaughterhouse has got power, and so does the milk diary, so we’re milking cows. That never got affected.”

The cause of the fire at Westover, which happened on November 25, is still to be established.

Mr Bascome said this week he could not give a date for the reopening of the meat shop, a major source of income.

He added: “We’re still struggling on opening it up again. We may have a makeshift situation in the coming weeks.

“Is it going to be the same as it was before? There are a lot of ifs with that situation.

“It’s something we still have to get our heads around – it’s hard to make a finish line at this time – but it could have been worse.”

Westover’s slaughterhouse is one of only two able to handle large animals, with the other at Wadson’s Farm in Southampton.