Farming In Bampton And Weald From 1935 to 2012
Compiled By Janet Rouse Don Rouse
A Bampton Archive Publication
£12
Farming In Bampton And Weald From 1935 to 2012
Compiled By Janet Rouse Don Rouse
A Bampton Archive Publication
A Bampton Archive Publication www.bamptonarchive.org
First published April 2012 Revised October 2015
The authors of this work acknowledge the respective copyright owners for the images and photographs used.
BCA-32/A October 2015
Farming In Bampton And Weald
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Introduction
T
he changes in farming in Bampton in the last 90 years are many and they have brought about a huge change in the whole life, feel and ethos of the people of Bampton and Weald.
Many people from our community worked on about 23 farms, some full time, some doing seasonal work, some worked on more than one farm even during the same day and some worked their own small farm and did farm work for others. We now have about six farms where the owner lives in the farmhouse on the farm and farms the land and a great deal of land is now rented.
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13 people, both men & women, threshing the corn. One man in a combine would both cut the corn and thrash it today.
Hay harvesting at Castle View Farm. Today it would be done with one man, a tractor and a baler. 8
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longside the commercial farming of the land, families grew their own fruit and vegetables and understood the needs of the soil. They had excellent land husbandry skills and produced good crops of fruit and vegetables for their families. It was common to have chickens in the back garden along with a pig or two and a few had goats. There was never any question of the council collecting food waste because it would have been fed to the chickens and pigs.
Albert & Mary Townsend’s daughters Gladys & Ethel at The Elephant & Castle. The Townsends later bought Castle View Farm across the road.
Dora Townsend sitting on one of her father Albert’s pigs which he reared at the back of The Elephant & Castle.
Dora and ducklings at The Elephant & Castle. 9
The boys were taught gardening in Bampton School on land now built on and called Shrewsbury Place.
Daniel Gibbons the Blacksmith lived in a house later pulled down to make way for the red-brick fronted Folly View in the Market Square. 10
Granny Wiggins lived in Weald and made baskets from rushes she harvested.
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Sadly, few people now have the knowledge, time or garden in which to grow some of their own food, because they work all hours to keep the roof over their head, need a car to get to work and have either concreted or gravelled over their garden to put the car or cars on it. They wouldn’t recognise a carrot plant, they don’t know how to prune apple trees and store the fruit over winter. They wouldn’t know how to catch a rabbit, kill it, skin it, cook it, enjoy eating it and the very thought of wringing a chicken’s neck, plucking it and cooking it is horrific to them. The ragand-bone man from Faringdon, Mr Stallard, used to buy rabbit skins for 3d each which was valued extra income in its day.
Peas, parsnips, spinach beet, beetroot, carrots, lettuce, remains of the leek seedlings & onions. Just a small selection of vegetables in the garden of a retired farmer in his 70s, People from towns and cities have come to live in the countryside thinking it a better place to live, but then take locals to court and successfully get court orders banning people from having chickens in their garden because they make a noise. People want their food without what they perceive as the inconvenience of noise, country smells or being held up on the road by tractors and other farm machinery. The changes in farming are not that different. A farm of 260 acres with beef and dairy cows, chickens, sheep, pigs, cereal crops, sugar beet, mangolds, kale, turnips, field beans, oats, linseed and potatoes would have employed between ten and 14 farm workers and even more at hay and harvest time. We now have one farm of 600 acres with one person only employed and the occasional extra hands at harvest. Fields are ploughed, harrowed, drilled (planting the seed), sprayed and harvested by machine sometimes according to the date rather than according to the season and the weather.
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Farmers used to mix their own animal feed-stuff to supplement what they bought, but it is now against the law for a farmer to mix his own feed-stuff in the name of traceability of all the ingredients. It now costs more to produce a litre of milk than a farmer receives for it unless the herd is simply huge – well over 1,000 head of cattle - where economies of scale can be achieved. It can cost more to buy a litre of water than a litre of milk from the shop. The last dairy herd in Bampton and Weald, the Burrington Herd at Glebe Farm Weald was sold on April 14th 2011 and with nobody having so much as a single house cow, it is probably the first time in 2,000 years that not one cow is being milked here in our community. Along with the loss of local milk will go the knowledge of the animal husbandry of a dairy herd and how to grow the fodder to keep them throughout the year, recognise their ailments and treat them. Other trades have long gone from Bampton and Weald such as those of the wheelwright and the cart mender, the miller, basket maker, saddler and harness maker, corn merchant, mealman, blacksmith, brazier and tin plate worker, cooper, the rat catcher, the bodger, the hay-rick thatcher and hay trusser, the local farrier, straw hat maker, fellmonger, the making and use of many hand tools like the adze and the scythe, and many country skills hang on by a thread, such as threshing with a machine that leaves the stems undamaged for use by the thatcher. Because of organisations like the Fairford, Faringdon, Filkins and Burford Ploughing Society (FFFBPS) which hold an annual event of ploughing and country crafts, both indoor and outdoor ones, usually on the last Saturday in September, the knowledge and practice of a few country skills is hanging on. At this wonderful event, twice held at Weald Farm in recent years, centuries-old country crafts can be seen and are kept alive and kicking by a dedicated few who pass on their skills to a new generation. Along with tractor ploughing using both vintage and huge, modern tractors which cost more than a house, you can see ploughing with horses, single furrow ploughs for use in an allotment, occasionally ploughing with a team of oxen, dry stone walling, hurdle making, hedge laying, steam ploughing, tractor-powered sawing, stone crushing and threshing and in the show ring you may see a demonstration of how horses are used in forestry, dogs work both sheep and Indian runner ducks, and with the hunt, and many more country crafts.
Single furrow horse ploughing (2003).
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Steam ploughing. The plough.
Steam ploughing. The steam engine.
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In steam ploughing, the plough is pulled back and forth across a field by two steam engines. A steel cable attached to a huge rotating drum underneath each engine winds in the cable and pulls the plough across the field. An audible system of peeps from each engine tells the person at the other side of the field when it is OK for them to set the drum turning to pull the plough towards them. This is a sound of autumn that has long gone from the countryside but you can hear it at the ploughing match each year.
Andrew Bowman, Master Thatcher of Bampton.
Steam-powered log saw. 15
Demonstration of dry stone walling.
Around the outside of the show ring amongst the machinery on display you will find stalls with ferrets, once a vital tool in the rat-catcher’s armoury, marquees with all types of chickens and ducks, a wood turner, basket maker and all manner of home produced foods and garments plus sacks of grain there for judging.
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ost WWII farmers went to Mr Hicks in Clanfield to have their horses shod; he would make the shoes to fit the horse. The travelling farrier is a modern conception. Likewise anything for repair was taken to him. He carried out the Farrier work on all the local horses and he also did all the farm machine repairs. He built trailers and made such machinery as harrows for use on the farms. Then there was Mr Long the Hurdle maker from Cote, very valuable to the Sheep farmers in the area. Mr Soden from Witney was the Knacker man, otherwise known as a Horse Slaughterer, who would be called upon to save a sick animal from unnecessary suffering. He would then sell the meat for dog food. Today, a farmer has to pay handsomely to have an animal slaughtered and taken away and most likely it will be incinerated. If it’s over 30 months old, it cannot be eaten. Before the advent of balers, skilled workers such as Reg Rouse, Dai & Ted Horn were Hay Trussers. They would make useful sized trusses of hay taking hay from a hayrick. Thomas Hardy mentions this occupation in his book The Mayor of Casterbridge. A Truss of hay is a specific measure; 56 lbs of old hay, 60 lbs of new hay, 36 lbs of straw. (Hay is made from cut green grass, straw is the dry stems of wheat, barley and oats.) If a farmer could not make his own trusses he would buy the services of someone locally who could; some men were itinerants who travelled around the country peddling this and many other countryside skills. So, from the mid 1930s when at least one person from almost every household knew how to grow and store their own fruit and vegetables, raise a pig and chickens and a large proportion of the population was involved in and understood what was required to exercise good land and animal husbandry, we have ended up with the vast majority of people who haven’t got a clue how to feed and clothe themselves without the money to buy it all from the shops and they don’t wish to be inconvenienced in any way at all by the production of all they buy. Having said that, here in Bampton and Weald we have an excellent gardening club and it is perhaps comforting to note that the waiting list for an allotment, both here and nationally, is longer than it has ever been and the old are teaching the young good land husbandry on their allotments and the young are discovering a new sense of community with others working the soil. In the 1930s many farm jobs were done by two or more people working together at the task, which could be harvesting, hay making, milking, feeding the animals, shearing the sheep, feeding the pigs and chickens, cutting kale, mixing animal feed, threshing the corn, preparing the horses for work and bedding them down at the end of the day, repairing walls, laying hedges and keeping the ditches in good order. The idea of a farm worker spending the whole day, every day, without seeing or being able to talk with another farm worker was unheard of. It was very hard, manual and frequently dangerous work done alongside fellow farm workers at a time when there was no national health service to look after those injured on the farm, or give them benefits when they couldn’t work and provide a new roof over their heads if they lost the use of a tied cottage through physical inability to work for the farmer. Wages were very low as they still are for 17
a basic farm worker. Now, a farm worker can spend the whole day in a tractor, which can cost as much as a house, never having the chance to talk with another human being. Fortunately, modern tractors are not quite as noisy as they were when cabs first became compulsory and they are warm, unlike the old tractors with no cabs, and most tractors do at least have a radio installed which gives some feeling of connection with the outside world. But the feeling of isolation, day after day, during a day’s work can be all-consuming and is not mentally a healthy way to live and work.
Tea-break in the hay harvest field. Work was done by men, women and children.
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he ability of machinery to do what was once done by a whole group of men and women coincided with the appearance of Smiths Industries in Witney and car production in Oxford and many one-time agricultural labourers – usually recorded as Ag Lab on old census forms – became factory workers and their income quadrupled over-night. While the improved income was welcome there is no doubt that many hated being indoors all day, but the need to provide for a home and family gave them no choice and whereas they once walked to work, they now had to pay for transport to get to work, whether it was by bus or increasingly, by car and they had to pay higher rents. By and large, unless a farm is 1,000 acres or more, the income from farming the land alone will not now bring in enough income for a farm owner to survive, and diversification has become the norm. Such words and phrases like ‘diversification’ and ‘giving added value to’ would never have been uttered 70 and 80 years ago. Now in order to survive on the farm, owners have turned to many things such as modernising farm cottages no longer needed for farm workers and renting or selling. They have turned barns into homes and sold them but that gave a once-only boost to income. On one farm, land was put aside to create a mobile home park in the 1960s when joining the Common Market looked a possibility without any knowledge of what that would mean for farmers.
Major Robert Colvile was a great supporter of the creation of the mobile home park saying that people of all income levels must have a place to live.
A postcard of St Mary’s Trailer Court c.1968.
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Parcels of land are rented for people to store such items as scaffolding equipment and touring caravans, fields are put by for people to pay to put their horse in, and livery space for rent has been created in converted barns and when possible they sell manure. In villages immediately next to Bampton you can buy organic lamb, beef, pork and vegetables from farm shops where their sale at the farm to the consumer gives ‘added value’ to the carcass and the vegetables produced, compared with their straight sale to the middle men who supply the shops.
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hen many people worked on the farms, certain times of year such as hay and harvest time were known and experienced in many ways by the whole community. Farm workers were paid more for overtime which provided more money to be spent within the local community, and in many cases weak beer was supplied to quench their thirst while in the fields. A gang of ladies worked in the fields at potato harvest time and it was not unknown for children to be kept from school to work in the fields too. When all was safely gathered in, a harvest supper was held on some farms, but rationing during WWII put paid to that and the custom was never revived in Bampton. Harvest Festival in church was a wonderful occasion when the church would be packed and everyone would take something which was given as part of the service, not placed at the front beforehand. The aisle would be filled from one end to the other. Afterwards it was distributed to local hospitals and the poor and needy. Now it’s a very tame affair and only non-perishable goods are acceptable and they’ve been known to linger in church waiting for a home for a few weeks. The loss of many people working the land in Bampton and Weald and the loss of shops and businesses linked to farming could have left us all without a feeling of community. However with the advent of the SPAJERS in the early 1950s which runs the shirt race, village-wide table top sale, quiz night, donkey derby and Josie’s grand draw, all to give every pensioner a Christmas card with £20 inside, and a day out the first Wednesday after August Bank Holiday Monday, we still have many occasions that allow us all to come together and make the time to play and laugh together. In the early years of the SPAJERS wonderful balls were held in Weald Manor to raise funds, courtesy of Lt. Col and Mrs A M Colvile and later by Major & Mrs R Colvile. Alongside the SPAJERS, there used to be The Pumpkin Club which again distributed the income from its fund-raising to the needy from its grand auction after the weigh-in of pumpkins and marrows, and they frequently organised a street fair where the May Queen was crowned which again gave us all a chance to come together and take time to stand, talk and laugh.
Josie Buckingham with a few of the prizes for her Grand Draw 2008.
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Table-top sale at Carole & Matthew Perry’s house 2005.
Preparing to race at the Donkey Derby 2009.
Martin Barber & sister-in-law Lynne Barber in the Shirt Race 2011. 22
As a left-over from the Enclosure Act – 1821 in our part of the country – fields on the whole were small. The 1950s saw the terrible introduction of myxomatosis in rabbits, and to try to remedy the problem there was an organisation known as ‘Rabbit Clearance’ and farmers were given a grant to remove the hedgerows, home of the rabbits, in a bid to eradicate the disease. Larger fields made it possible for larger machines too, which in turn reduced the need for labour on the land. The Common Market and its incarnation, the EEC followed by the European Union with its Common Agricultural Policy, is a subject so vast that it would take ten exhibitions to document its course and that would still just scratch the surface. But I will give you a brief outline of a few areas of how it has changed farming in Bampton. The Dairy industry. In 1971 milk had to go from cows in the milking parlour straight into a bulk tank for collection and churns became a thing of the past along with the sight of them on milk stands waiting for collection.
Two little girls on a milk churn stand. Courtesy of Frank Hudson. Cadels of Faringdon used to collect some churns here, but it was Burys who got the bulk tank contract. All milk at this time was sold to the government (Milk Marketing Board). Later Margaret Thatcher disbanded this and made it a completely open market. It is possible that this one act contributed more to the demise of the Milk industry than anything else. Up until this time the government controlled the price of milk. A very stable market was enjoyed by both the producer and the consumer. The countries of the EEC were too efficient as a whole in the production of milk and in order to reduce the EEC’s dairy production, EC regulation, made part of the law of the UK, provided that each member state must pay a levy on milk 23
production above the specified level. MAFF (Ministry of Agriculture Food & Fisheries which has morphed into DEFRA, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs) subdivided the UK’s specified level of production among milk producers by reference to their 1981 level of output. The weather in 1981 was dreadful and milk production nationally was very low. The figure for each producer is referred to as their ‘milk quota’. If milk is produced in excess of this figure, an EC levy had, and still has, to be paid at the point of sale, amounting to either 75 per cent or 100 per cent of the target price for milk. Most dairy farmers were forced to sell some of their herd into a market that didn’t want them and wonderful animals went for a song, mostly into the European mainland, where they are happy to hang beef until it is blue, tender and absolutely mouth-watering. Didn’t they fall on their feet! (Or was it their stomachs?) The small farmers sold up and the big farmers who had the money purchased their milk quotas. The price of these quotas was so high that it was the saviour of the small farmers’ heritage. If a farmer knew that he was going to be over quota by the 31st March he had 2 options. Either quickly lease in quota at a very high price or pour the milk down the drain. One thing that was against the law was to give the milk away to the poor and needy. This could lead to very heavy fines. Not for the first time, or the last, the office wallahs in Brussels got their figures wrong and our dairy farmers were invited to buy back 25% of the number of animals they’d sold. Few dairy cows were available for purchase from UK stock, but there were animals available at sky-high prices in mainland Europe. When cows come in for milking, of their own choosing they always come into the milking parlour in the same order and when that order is broken, life for the cowman is little short of horrid for a few weeks until the animals find their own, comfortable new order of coming into the parlour for milking. During that settling down period, they are jumpy and nervous which makes them empty their bowels in the parlour. This has to be cleared up straight away, but as soon as the next group come in to be milked, they smell what has happened, which heightens their state of anxiety and they lift their tails etc. To add to all that, individual milk production drops slightly.
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otatoes. With all the extra land now available for food production through Common Market drainage grants, it was decreed that we were producing too much food and so quotas for potato production as well as milk production came in. “Potato quota allowed a grower to produce a set amount of crop without a financial penalty. If the set amount was exceeded, the producer had to pay an ‘excess area contribution’ to the Potato Marketing Board. Potato quota operated by reference to ‘basic area’. This does not denote physical land but an acreage. Entitlement to a basic area in turn conferred the right to be allocated a ‘quota area’ which is the right to plant a specified percentage of the basic area with potatoes.” (Have you glazed over by now trying to make sense of that? Think how the poor farmers felt.) “This may be 100 cent, or some greater or lesser amount, which may vary from year to year. In 1986 Potato Quota became tradable and nine years later sheep quotas and then suckler cow quotas were introduced and single farm payment entitlements were introduced in 2005.” To sum up, the agricultural community has dwindled to a very few and the knowledge of good land and animal husbandry is known to but a few. Few adults let alone children can name the common hedgerow flowers, trees and birds or the preferred nesting sites of birds. The knowledge of which tree produced the best timber for such things as wheels and even the different parts of a wheel, scythe handles, cart springs or any other item made from wood has been lost to all but our most senior citizens. However, the feeling of community in Bampton and Weald has been maintained thanks to the hard work of a not so small, dedicated group of people, by our churches, clubs, societies and school and I don’t think you will find a better small town in which to live in the whole of the United Kingdom.
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Farmers in Bampton, Weald and Lower Haddon
F
armers in Bampton, Weald and Lower Haddon listed in Kelly’s 1935 Trade Directory, where o below denotes a farm of 250 acres or more.
This did not include farms of a tiny acreage, such as the 7 acres belonging to Alexander Townsend of Ashtree Farm, Weald who had two shire horses; Len Hughes the garage proprietor (now Exeter House) who had land at Glebelands and down the Buckland Road; Arthur Timms of AK Timms & Sons who had land down Gog Lane and would come from Brize Norton on his little ‘Baby Fordson’ tractor to farm it. At least one larger farm is missing from the list.
o Sydney Busby – farmer - Church Farm o Wesley John Butt – farmer – Weald Farm (276 acres) Herbert Harry Gerring – farmer – Dairy Farm, Buckland Road
o Robert Craig Nisbet – farmer & land owner – Lower Haddon Farm John Oliver – farmer – Backhouse Farm, Weald Francis Ralph Pinnock – farm bailiff to Lt. Col. A.M. Colvile D.S.O., J.P. – Weald Manor Farm Bernard Harry Ramsden-Sant – farmer – Home Farm, High Street (264 acres) William Richens – farmer & land owner – Home Farm, Weald (285 acres)
o John Oscar Russell – farmer – Knapps Farm, Bridge Street o Reginald Southby – farmer & land owner – Meadow Farm, Buckland Road o Alfred Edward Stevens – farmer – Colepit Farm – Mt Owen Road Alexander Townsend – farmer – Ashtree Farm, Weald
o Hector Vaughan-Robinson – farmer – Ham Court Frederick Hubert White – farmer – Weald
o George Wilkins & Sons – farmers – Calais Farm, Aston Road The following pages provide information on the farms that were in place in Bampton and Weald in 1935. 26
Corner Farm Owned by Ernest Parker in 1935 and some years later by the Wheelwright, Frederick White. Ernie had one house cow which he milked morning and night and during the day he worked with others on the creation of a new airfield which we now know as RAF Brize Norton. He also had a huge number of chickens and it was Tommy Gerring’s first job, aged 14 to care for them, collect the eggs and pack them. Frederick White’s skill as a wheelwright, making and repairing the wheels of carriages and wagons, is lost to all in Bampton now, because the trade is no longer required. In later years the land became part of Weald Farm owned by George Collins and George sold it to Count and Countess Munster of Bampton Manor. After their death it was bought by the Woods family known for their mushroom farm in Black Bourton. They have since sold some of the land on the west side of Welcome Way to the Morgan brothers.
The home and farm of Ernest Parker.
Corner Farm farmhouse and barn, now called Barn End. 27
Glebe Farm Owned by Mr Hiett & Son. They had dairy shorthorn cows managed by Mr Humphries and his two sons Jess and Ernie. Jess married Iris Rogers who was a Parish Councillor for many years. Mr Humphries’ third son, Fred, worked for Harry Pocock on the threshing machine. The farm was later bought by George Collins who also rented all the fields that had pylons in them. The pylons have now gone and RAF Bampton Castle with it; the farm and land is now run by George’s son Simon. Simon’s farm manager, Robert Smith, is the only employee and he manages over 600 acres on his own having help only at times like harvest, when someone has to drive the tractor and trailer for the combine to unload into and take the grain to the farm.
Glebe Farm farmyard. 28
Glebe Farmhouse.
Jess Humphries and Iris Rogers on their wedding day. 29
Harry Pocock with his tractor and thrashing machine along with Edwin, Ruth and Joe Buckingham by Eton Villas.
Harry Pocock’s threshing machine in action. 30
Weald Farm Owned by Wesley John Butt who had dairy shorthorn cattle and a few sheep. The farm was bought by George Collins in 1943 who also bought the herd. Art Hayes and Fred Beechy stayed on after the sale; Fred was the carter (looked after the horses) and Ernie was the cowman.
Weald Farm farmhouse. 31
Farm cottages belonging to Weald Farm.
Buildings converted to a dairy by Roy Shergold. 32
Home Farm Owned by William (Bill) Richens in 1935 and later by Mr Ash with Miss Walker, then Mr Graham. They had Lincoln Red cattle and a huge number of chickens with a particularly large barn where The Paddocks mobile home is sited, as well as more chickens on the opposite side of the road. No longer a farm, the house is called The Old Farmhouse and has just one small field across the road and the stand of trees next to it. One of Bill Richen’s sons, also Bill, lived on Aston Road and had a milk round with a horse and cart selling his milk from a churn.
Home Farm, now called The Old Farmhouse. 33
Long Paddock Not a farm but one of the two cottages that used to be on this site was lived in by two brothers, Ben and Fred Tanner, who were skilled thatchers of both houses and hayricks. They worked on any farm that needed a rick thatching as well as thatching houses. The other cottage was Tommy Gerring’s boyhood home – it is thanks to Tommy’s amazing memory that I’ve been able to find out who lived in which farm and what they farmed in 1935.
Thatched hay store next to Lime Tree House.
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Weald Manor Farm Weald Manor Farm – Mr Pinnock lived in the farmhouse and ran the farm for Lt. Col. AM Colvile. They had a herd of Jersey cows and ran a pig unit. The farm passed down to the Colonel’s son, Major Robert Colvile and his wife Rosemary. Their land is rented out today.
Lt. Col. Arthur Montague Colvile & Mrs Phyllis Margaret Colvile going to Buckingham Palace to receive his DSO.
Weald Manor farmhouse. 35
Backhouse Farm Owned by John Oliver and then Reginald Rouse. Mr Oliver had a mixed herd of cattle but mostly dairy shorthorns. Reginald Smith, Cyril Smith’s father was the cowman. Reg Rouse ran a herd of Guernsey cows and had a mobile milking parlour that was taken down the fields to the cattle as required. Right up until 1959 Reg would take his mobile milking bale accompanied by his herd of cows right through the streets of Bampton to new pastures. It would be unimaginable to see 30 cows being herded past the Town Hall today. All the land with Backhouse farm was used for pasture. There were hens in the field where Morar now stands..
Backhouse Farm farmhouse. 36
Ashtree Farm Alexander (Alec) Townsend had two handsome shire horses which could be hired out with Alec to pull hay carts etc. Alec had a 7-acre field along Welcome Way which supplied the fodder to feed the horses. The field is now owned by the Morgan brothers.
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College Farm In 1935 it was farmed by Mr Harry Pocock, after whom Pococks Close is named and then Major George Webb who ran Bampton’s Home Guard during WWII. The land with the farm was and still is owned by Jesus College Oxford but soon after Major Webb moved into the farmhouse, all the land was given over to the tenant of Ham Court to farm along with the land he already rented from the college. Major Webb’s daughter bred Shillwater Spaniels. College Farm, no longer has farmland with it.
College Farmhouse. 38
Ham Court In 1935 the house and land was owned by Jesus College Oxford and tenanted by Mr Diamond & Sons. Around 1934/5 the tenancy was taken by Mr Hector Vaughan-Robinson who some years later changed his name to Barlow-Vaughan. Mr Diamond ran a herd of dairy shorthorns. Mr Vaughan-Robinson had what may have been the first combine harvester in Bampton and ran a herd of Friesian cows until 2000.
In September 2010 the house and 22 acres was sold to Emma Bridgewater, but the college kept the land which is now rented by John Hook of Cote.
Two very old 8-16 International tractors, probably built between 1916 & 1918 standing outside the great barn at Ham Court. Photo courtesy of Frank Hudson.
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Ham Court before the house, barns and 22 acres were sold in 2010.
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Castle View Farm Owned and run by Albert and Mary Elizabeth Townsend from 1939. Albert was a real entrepreneur of the day who was only too well aware of the need for diversification. He had a wonderful herd of pigs, owned what may have been the first lorry in Bampton and used it to deliver coal. The same lorry was scrubbed spotless each year, seats fastened in it and Albert took the children from the Wesleyan chapel to Savernake Forest for a day out. He owned a beautiful horse-drawn carriage and horses and ran people to and from Bampton station. When his sons Sonner and Jack grew up they also worked on the farm. Mr Charlie Ponder slaughtered the pigs for Albert; Charlie lived down Cheyne Lane in a cottage that has long since gone, sited where the chickens can be seen today. Land with the farm has gone to many people.
Castle View farmhouse decorated to celebrate the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II June 1953. 41
The last two horses at Castle View farm, being held by Bert Whitlock.
Albert Townsend with his carriage and horses.
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Castle View Farm yard seen from the farmhouse.
Knapps Farm In 1935 it was owned by Mr Richard Thomas Rose and tenanted by Oscar Russell and then Mr Knibbs. Stanley Read bought it from Mr Rose in 1941 and his son Mr Gerald Read lives in a converted barn behind the farmhouse. Mr Knibbs had some cows and he also had a carter who drowned in the well which was just outside the wall around Castle View farmyard by the gate that now leads to Brook House. This is no longer a farm.
Knapps Farm farmhouse, now split into two houses. 43
Sandford House & Farm Mr Busby and sons lived in Sandford House and their land was way down the Buckland Road at the end of the first long straight on the right. They walked their dairy cows all the way down Buckland Road, slowly so that they could graze the verges before entering Bampton, turning into Bushey Row, left into Manor View, left into Broad St. then right between Bampton Manor and Deanery farm, past the east window of St Mary’s and turning in past No. 3 Church View to the milking shed. They sold milk from the churn. The Busby family later moved to No 3 Church View, also called The Bakehouse and they had a shop on the High Street; the farm and farmhouse was bought by Arthur & Rose Gerring, where the wonderful Mrs Gerring still lives. Arthur had many chickens and he grew wheat, barley and potatoes and made hay for sale. Like many farms, he had parcels of land in several places: Aston Road, Gog Lane and Buckland Road.
Sandford Farmhouse. 44
Shop owned by I E Busby, High St.
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The Wilkins Family The Wilkins family lived at Fernlea in Bridge Street and had land down Gog Lane. Fernlea was not unusual in being the home of a farmer that was not next to his land.
Fernlea in Bridge Street.
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Deanery Farm & Hobbs Buildings Deanery Farmhouse may well have been the home of one of the Deans of Exeter and did originally form part of Deanery Farm. It was sold by the Commissioners in 1920 to Mr J C Douglas. Later in the C20th it was bought by John & Frances Henly and they farmed the Deanery farm, part of which now has several homes built on it including the Vicarage. They raised pigs on this part of the farm next to the house and raised beef and grew corn crops on the land butting up to the cemetery and Glebelands, plus land going up to Plantation and nearly up to Lew. Hobbs buildings were for the workmen.
Deanery Farm fields and their names. 47
Deanery Farmhouse, Broad Street.
Deanery Close containing the Vicarage and other dwellings. The area was originally used to farm pigs.
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Hobbs Buildings, Station Road.
The Old Dairy The Old Dairy in Broad Street was owned by Mr Robey who was a retailer of milk. He did not have his own cows but bought in milk from Express Dairies in Faringdon and later from Reg Rouse at Backhouse Farm.
The Old Dairy is on the right of these semi-detached houses.
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Home Farm Home Farm was owned by Bernard Ramsden-Sant and the land and barns rented first to Bernard Dafter and later to Reginald Rouse. Reg ran a mixed herd of cows which included Red Polls, Dairy Shorthorns, Lincoln Reds and Friesians. With such mixed breeding there was the most colourful array of animals, brindled, speckled, blue and of course, a pure white, of which most farmers had a least one and it was inevitably called Snowdrop. Part of the farm was also let to Bill Cosier the landlord of the Wheatsheaf Pub (The Wheatsheaf became the Post Office in the early 1970s and finally a private house in December 2010 when the Post Office moved into the middle room of the Town Hall). Bill used it as a wood yard for sawing and selling logs. The house became privately owned and the farm behind the house had Lavender Place flats built on it in the 1970s.
Home Farm on the High Street. 50
A farm worker in Home Farm farmyard. Note the yoke for carrying the buckets and the thatched rick in the background.
Area to the north of New Road also farmed by Reg Rouse.
Bernard Dafter and his wife Phyllis on their wedding day.
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Calais Farm Owned in succession by Theophilus Carter, George Wilkins & Sons, Gordon Ogilvy and Bryan Stevens. Fred Batts worked for Mr Ogilvy and also for Mr Ash & Miss Walker at Home Farm Weald. Mr Parslow and Mr Hunt also worked for Gordon Ogilvy who ran a herd of shorthorns (which can be used for both milk and beef) and he had one Ayrshire cow. Farmland with Calais farm was compulsorily purchased from Brian Stevens and now contains Chetwynd Mead, Mercury Close and Mercury Court. In very old documents this farm has been called Callace Farm.
Calais farmhouse. 52
Dairy Farmhouse Mr Herbert Harry Gerring and his wife Amy had Dairy Farmhouse on Buckland Road. In later years Amy ran a taxi service. The land down Buckland road has all gone to other farms leaving the house as a private dwelling.
Dairy Farmhouse.
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Meadow Farm Meadow Farm is well down the Buckland Road on the left just before the Isle of Wight Brook going towards Buckland. The farmhouse is three stories tall and is now completely hidden by trees. It was owned by Mr White who lived in Ampney Lodge and later by John Wilcox who took over from Mr Wilcox senior. The house is now privately owned and the land owned by someone in Faringdon. The Isle of Wight brook runs through what was Meadow farm and when the sluice gates were put in to raise the water it made a wonderful place to swim in warm, deep and safe water. The sluices have gone but the concrete supports are still there. There was a boathouse on the south side of the brook about 40 yards downstream from the sluices.
Frederick Hubert White, known as ‘Old White’ in his senior years. He asked to be buried in his smock.
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Site of the sluices in the Isle of Wight Brook, Meadow Farm.
Percival Sheppard Perce, as he was known, lived in a cottage on the site of the new house called Brockstones on Buckland Road. He owned some land down Buckland Road and Gog Lane. He grew barley and had a milking shed down Buckland Road. Perce had a son, Stan, who helped on the farm and then later bought his own lorry with which he hauled sugar beet to the processing factory in Kidderminster. His granddaughter Fenella Gray is well known to most Bamptonians for the marvellous charitable work she’s done for years in Bampton, particularly with the Community shop and the Bush Club.
Perce Sheppard. 55
Coalpit Farm Coalpit Farm, owned by Bert and Ted Wilkins. Ted lived in the house at the top of Mt Owen and Bert in the main farmhouse lower down. Ted was also a lay preacher. The government helped install a huge grain dryer on the Wilkins’ farm; when a ship full of maize sank in the Bristol estuary the maize was taken to Coalpit Farm grain dryer in what felt like a never-ending fleet of lorries. In recent years the farm has been bought by Mr Barnett of Brize Norton who has re-named it Bampton Heath Farm.
Coalpit Farm, now re-named Bampton Heath Farm. 56
Mount Owen Farm Owned by the Smith family and then Michael and Peter Whitely who had a wonderful herd of Jersey cattle; it was one of the leading herd of Jersey cows in the whole country. Someone ran a maggot farm in outbuildings by the house about the late 1970s. Major Robert Colvile bought the land in the early 1960s which he rented to Douglas Read who built a bungalow at the bottom of the hill on the other side of the road on land owned by the Read family. It is now rented by Chris Lewis who does not live in Bampton.
Mount Owen farmhouse, now much altered and extended. 57
White Owl Farm This farm did not exist until Douglas Read built the bungalow in 1961 and rented the land that used to be Mount Owen Farm. Initially Doug had a dairy herd but eventually went out of milk before selling up and moving right away from the area for a few years.
White Owl Farm, now a private house. 58
Lewis Wilkins Lewis had the last field on the left along New Road going towards Mt Owen Road and some land going west towards Station Road on which he grew wheat.
Anthony Turner Anthony farms sheep. He does not own or rent a farm; he rents some buildings at Buckland Marsh farm down the Buckland Road and many pockets of land; some along the Buckland Road, in Bampton, Clanfield and beyond. He is able to make use of pockets of land left behind by modern farming with its huge machines where the fields are too small or the land too uneven for them. He is able to make a living in this way; however it does mean that he spends far more time on the road than other farmers and he has the not inconsiderable cost of diesel and time. Another problem, which I personally witnessed first-hand through 2011, was dog attacks on his sheep in Weald. The picture shows the ewe’s face eaten to the bone; the sight of her rear end with the udder eaten away and intestines pulled out is too shocking to show here as is the sight of three dead lambs killed and eaten into in the same attack by three dogs. Nationally, the theft of farm machinery, tools, livestock and diesel has become an ever growing problem, but fortunately our farmers have not been hit by these thefts in a huge way.
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Dor Thompson and Kate Wylie The Beam is one of the oldest houses in Bampton and until the early 1980s stood in splendid isolation surrounded by garden and fields. Soon after Dor and Kate came to live in Bampton they started a Market Garden around the house. The photograph is one of two that the ladies took and cellotaped together to give an excellent feel for their whole enterprise.
The Beam, one of the oldest houses in Bampton.
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This exhibition could not have been produced without the invaluable help given by:
Don and Terry Rouse Tommy Gerring Robert Smith Allan Hall Frank Hudson Roy Henly Roy Shergold
and the kind people of Bampton who have let the Archive copy their family photographs.
To the best of my knowledge, all facts are correct and I can only apologise for any inaccuracies.
Janet Rouse April 2012
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