Farms

Julians

Risden House (now Julians) from Chauncy 1699 with the arms of Thomas Stone.

1615

Jacobean house built by the Stone family.

1699

Penelope Stone married Adolphus Meetkerke.

1700s

Georgian façade added.

1800s

Wellington visited and fell ill. Anthony Trollope's great grandfather, a parson, married the Squire's daughter and became heir presumptive. Unfortunately for him, the Squire remarried at the age of 65 and had five children. His future wife lived in Baldock and in order to go and meet her unobserved, he built a new drive from Julians because the old exit was opposite the Moon and Stars and so not very private. The Lodge house still stands at the end of the original drive.

1903

Mrs Meetkerke died.

1918

Adolphus VI's daughter Mrs Metcalfe died and Julians was sold to the Cavendish Land Company.

1937

Colonel Cooper restored the house

1940

Mrs Pleydell-Bouverie. Died 1968

1968

Captain J. James inherited.

1940s Threshing at Julians.

1947 Threshing machine at Julians. Mr Wyatt bought farm equipment and worked with it on local farms.

Threshing machine with Land Girls helping on the estate farm.

The Land Girls came from London and as far afield as Yorkshire to work on the farms. The Land Army Hostel was at Redhill (The Close) where the girls slept in bunk beds on palliasses. Others were billeted in the village. The Hostel was later used for Italian and German prisoners of war.

The pond in Julians Park behind the church with Ron Ridley, Brenda and Sid Wyatt in 1947. The villagers used to skate on the pond in winter and swim and fish in the summer. It was eventually filled in by Mrs Pleydell-Bouverie. One year candles in jam jars were placed all around the edge of the pond so that the skating could continue after dark.

Julians in 1968. The remains of the Ice House still exist off Napp Lane which runs from Bachelors Wood to Julians where you could find a Hawthorn tree with mistletoe on it and wild raspberries.

Some of Julians' Staff c1914 - L to R - Frank Graves, Cook, Harry Keep, Nurse, Horace Draper.

Obituary 1968.

Fete 1975 in Julians Park. Don Southgate and Richard Whitmore (newscaster) opened the fete.

Cumberlow Green

1547

The Tudor Fortescue sold the Tudor mansion, the Manor of Rushden and 420 acres to John Goodman.

1600

Goodman built a manor house in the meadow.

1615

Sir William Smith from London bought the house.

1622

Sir Thomas Stanley, the poet and classicist, owned the house. Latin verses in Clothall Church.

1670s

Financial crash. The house was mortgaged for a few hundred pounds which rose to £3,000.

1705

The house was sold for £5,000.

1722

The house in the meadow was abandoned.

1726

John Goodwin married a lady called Grantiana who brought the Cumberlow Manor with her as part of her dowry. Goodwin built today's house then known as the New House. The present kitchen of the New House was the brewery for the house in the meadow and during the 1940s you could still see the words Brewhouse on the door.

mid 1770s

John Spence owned the estate of 1200 acres and his son owned Shaw Green Farm. Spence was a beneficiary of Luke Hodges. When Spence died, another beneficiary, Mole aka Hodges inherited the house. He said he was unmarried although a lady from Devon claimed to be his wife and posed dowry problems. He was also heavily in debt. He was owed £3,183 in 1776 by George Search who ended up in the debtors prison at Fleet as a bankrupt. Mole fared no better and his debts amounted to a staggering £7039 which forced the sale of Cumberlow Green.

1779

It was bought by the Meetkerke family.

19th C

A family called Fossey lived there with sad consequences. Mrs Fossey went fishing in the ponds in Pond field, which still exist, and she was found floating face down, with her bonnet floating by her, mysteriously drowned. A year later, Fossey Junior was out shooting with bereaved Fossey Senior looking for rabbits. Mr Fossey Senior was accidentally shot and Fossey Junior left the area and was never seen again.

The Dudleys lived at Cumberlow Green at the turn of the century. Their son moved to Broadfield Hall. The Hall was burnt down and rebuilt at the beginning of the second world war and the garden designed by Gavin Jones (Jean and Geoffrey Chalk's landscape garden business).

The house and cedar tree in the Dudley's time.

The Dudleys.

The Dudleys' maid.

Cumberlow Green.

The two thatched barns at Cumberlow Green.

Pony and trap in front of the thatched barn.

The hunt pre-1923 on Cumberlow Green.

Hay loading by horse in David's Cross field (Knights Templar connection) on the Cottered road.

Pony and trap.

Ploughing by steam at Cumberlow 1930s-40s. The plough was pulled on wires between two steam engines with large steel wire drums. Horse-pulled carts would bring coal and water to keep the steam boilers working. These 20-ton monsters, hissing gently, with fly-wheels spinning, were parked about 200 yards apart, using drum winches and a steel hawser to haul a set of chisel ploughs back and forth between them. Employing this method, which cultivates the ground without compacting it, they can plough as accurately as any tractor; they can also be used for threshing, dredging ponds and pulling out tree stumps - and in fact these machines cleared much of the land for Heathrow Airport.

Post war.

1950s The bailing machine with Andy Hodge and sons David and William. In 1926 the Hodge family came from Scotland to Buntingford by train with their cows and stopped the train halfway to milk them. They then walked to Wyddial. In 1940 Andy Hodge came to Cumberlow Green.

1950s The creosote machine.

Church Farm

1969 - Church Farm. An early crook beam 17th C house, originally with open hall. It was sold in 1831 to the Meetkerke family. There used to be a cowshed/milking parlour opposite the house when Mr Bygraves lived there in the 1920s and farmed 60 acres. He moved to Drapers Farm, Shaw Green. Church Farm was then bought by Sherards whose wife was the daughter of Lord Olivier (Gov. of Jamaica), cousin of the actor Sir Lawrence Olivier (from Letchworth). It is said they were so poor that they couldn't afford a cot and the baby slept in a chest drawer. They left in 1935. The actors Jack Hulbert and his brother then bought the farm, followed by Mr and Mrs Davis who used to make jewellery in the barn during the war. In 1941 the Fletchers (Radio Rentals) took over the farm. Mr Fletcher was very generous to the church and village. He built Orchard House and Church Farm Cottage which had been a cart shed was converted to the chauffeur's house and garage.

Shaw Green Farm

1950s

Wood Farm

1890s - Mr and Mrs Wright. Late 16th C moated homestead, extended 18th C.