A SHEPHERDESS swapped her remote Dales farm for the bright lights of a London studio to take tea with TV favourites Holly and Phil.

Alison O'Neill baked her mum and grandma's traditional tea loaf for This Morning's hosts, Holly Willoughby and Phillip Schofield, and encouraged them to try it her favourite way with butter, Wensleydale cheese and jam.

"It's a real Northern, Dales thing," said Alison.

"So, butter, cheese and jam? You're crazy!" said Holly, then added after tasting it: "Do you know what, that shouldn't work but it's amazing."

Alison has been rearing Rough Fell sheep for their wool on her 37-acre Yorkshire Dales hill farm, Shacklabank, near Sedbergh, for more than 20 years.

Mum to Scarlett, Alison has become famous for the hand-crafted Shepherdess tweed garments she designs, and now, thanks to ITV daytime show This Morning, her recipes are gaining a following.

Her debut on the popular show came last year after she was invited to make shepherd's pie in a cook-off with celebrity chef Phil Vickery. The slot proved so popular, she has been invited back half a dozen times.

"It's been brilliant," she told the Gazette. "I love food and I love cooking.

"It's just so much fun to work with them. They've welcomed me as part of their family.

"I don't really like leaving Cumbria, my farm and the sheep, but it's great to share our Cumbrian love of food and how we do things."

Monday's cookery slot saw Alison extolling the virtues of the great British cup of tea, amid reports of falling sales. "I'm a tea girl, always got a pot of tea on the go at the farm," she told Holly and Phil.

The tea loaf recipe she baked was handed down by her late mum Freda Winn and late grandma Maggie Winn. Alison said her mum had "absolutely adored Holly and Phil" and would have been so happy to have seen her daughter on ITV's This Morning.

Monday's show also saw her cook steak marinated in cold tea, and vanilla cheesecake infused with tea, which Phil described as "absolutely stunning".

In the TV studio kitchen Alison cooked with a blend of PG Tips, Lipton and Yorkshire tea. Back on the farm she loves two Kendal varieties - Penningtons and Farrer's Lakeland Special.

The shepherdess said it was "an absolute treat" to have her hair and make-up done at the studio after being on the farm, and she has been "inundated" with messages about the hand-knitted green wool cardigan she wore, bedecked with sheep. Anyone who would like to know more can contact her via www.shepherdess.co.uk