Family Room 2 Room Accommodation of Woodside Farm and Waterparks
The Barn Hall Community Buildings, Woodside Subcontract, Amersham Common past Alison Bailey
We are incredibly lucky that these ancient barns, today at the center of Amersham-on-the-Hill, are office of the Amersham and District Customs Eye. They are the simply survivors of Amersham Common'southward rural past that are freely accessible to the public. The barns, dating back to the early 17th century, were once part of an ancient farmstead, most recently known as Woodside Farm. Today surrounded past urban sprawl, twentyth century housing developments and our extensive leisure facilities, these barns serve as a reminder of the surface area's long history as a rural community.
Woodside Farm was ane of a number of scattered farmsteads and cottages on the ridge of common land, known every bit the hamlet of Woodside, and more recently Amersham Common, between the Chess and Misbourne valleys. This common land was a large area of grazing of some 250 acres stretching from what is today, Hyde Heath to the w and Little Chalfont to the e, and adjoining Chesham Bois Common to the Due north.
Farms were created by building on the edge of the Common and taking in some of the common land for agronomical use. The farmsteads of Woodside included manorial farms such every bit Raans, prosperous estates such as Beel House, and small tenanted farms named after the yeoman and tenant farmers who lived there, such every bit Reeves Farm off the White Lion Road (demolished in the 1960s and adult as Little Reeves Artery). Woodside Farm is before recorded as Pratts Farm after the prosperous, yeoman farmer, Timothy Pratt, who lived here with his family at the end of the 17th century. His volition, dated 29th May 1704 leaves his wife Ann "All my estate where it hath pleased God to lend me" including "the house wherein I at present dwell at Amersham Woodside and the close (farmland) there unto belonging and too all those three houses in Great Missenden".
Subsequently the Pratt family, three generations of the Batchelor family unit, a farming family from Chesham Bois Common, are recorded as living at the subcontract, so known as Austins and Pratts. In 1739 Henry Batchelor is documented every bit paying an annual rent of £21 to William Drake Esquire of Shardeloes.
In addition to the larger farms of Amersham Common, there was a proliferation of cottages, initially congenital by squatters on the mutual state, housing agricultural labourers, brickmakers, charcoal makers, blacksmiths, woodmen, turners, beerhouse keepers, and later chairmakers, lacemakers and strawplaiters. 1763 Court books tape that tenants at cottages at Austins and Pratts Farm included Joseph Saunders, husbandman (farmer), John Nash, cordwainer (shoemaker) and John Loveday, draper (cloth merchant). Villagers supplemented their livelihood by grazing cattle on the common pasture, which consisted of meadows, woodland and wasteland. Pigs were fattened in the woods on acorns and beechnuts for winter killing. Consequently the Mutual was an integral part of the rural economy and of utmost importance to the local people.
Tracks crossed the Common with the main track condign the Amersham to Rickmansworth Route. The Amersham section of this road is today called Woodside Road echoing this ancient history. The route was later turnpiked equally the Reading to Hatfield Road with a turnpike collector'south firm congenital near Beel House. There were 6 pubs on the Common with the White Lion and the Black Horse (at present gone) serving travelers on the road. The Boot and Slipper, the Ruddy Lion (illegally demolished by a developer), the Pheasant (under threat) and the Pineapple (now the Pomeroy) all served the local cottagers which shows how large the population was in these scattered dwellings.
In 1815 Amersham Common was finally enclosed by an Human action of Parliament. This meant that the large fields or commons were divided into smaller fields each with an individual owner. A large function of Amersham Common was allocated to William Henry Pomeroy and his blood brother, Kendar Stonemason, who owned Beel Business firm and several farms on the south side of the Common. Co-ordinate to Julian Hunt'due south A History of Amersham "Thomas Tyrwhitt-Drake of Shardeloes accustomed a relatively pocket-size part of Amersham Mutual, probably because the commissioners were also dividing Wycombe Heath, where he successfully claimed a large allocation near his dwelling house". In addition to Woodside Farm, Tyrwhitt-Drake besides owned neighbouring Hyrons Farm and Weedon Hill. His allocation of Amersham Mutual would have been around these farms.
This Act was incredibly unpopular locally equally it meant that landowners could charge higher rent to the people working the land. A neat upheaval, which changed the face of the countryside, the Enclosure Acts pb to rural pass up and hardship with many people leaving the land to piece of work in cities in industrial factories. This decline led to overcrowding in the district's workhouses, the last resort of the desperate poor, and in 1837, the decision was taken to build a large workhouse in Amersham which could hold up to 330 inmates.
Woodside Farm has long been associated with the important Quaker family, the Peningtons. According to oral tradition and many written accounts, information technology was believed that Woodside Subcontract was the semi-derelict farm that Mary Penington bought in the 1670s when her husband, the persecuted Quaker theologian Isaac Penington, was imprisoned in Aylesbury Jail. Mary's son-in-police force William Penn was the founder of the colony of Pennsylvania and many of her descendants settled in that location. However according to Julian Hunt, Beel House in Lilliputian Chalfont was known as Penningtons in the 18th Century and is more than likely to have been the abode of the Penington Quaker family. Indeed Woodside Farm, always office of the village of Woodside, was notwithstanding known as Pratts Farm until the 1830s.
The persistence of the Quaker clan is perhaps due to the local belief that a hidden room in the farm was a clandestine Quaker coming together identify. However this room may take an even earlier origin, dating from previous religious persecutions. According to Granville Squiers' volume Hush-hush Hiding Places – the origins, histories and descriptions of English language secret hiding places used past Priests, Cavaliers, Jacobites and Smugglers at that place exists an " upper room measuring eighteen pes by twenty, which has no entrance except by a trapdoor in an exterior wall. It is situated over the dairy, and in that location are indications that its two original doors were blocked upward.
Against the eye of one wall an oblong space has been railed off past a lath and plaster segmentation, which from its size and shape looks remarkably like the railing for an altar. The altar rail, if such it was, is non a feature of their (Quaker) places of coming together. At the same time at that place are the local traditions of its secrecy and its appearance to be taken into consideration, and information technology appears quite probable to have been a Catholic place of worship."
When the brothers, Edward and William Weller bought the subcontract in 1838, John Thomas Stratton and his married woman Jane were farming the 100 acres of land then known as Woodside Farm. At that time the Weller Brewery was the largest employer and most important business organisation in Amersham, dating back to the 1770s. Co-ordinate to the 1851 demography the brewery directly employed 45 men to mash beer and an additional 12 draymen to distribute it to the various tied properties.
The Weller interest in the farm, their first diversification away from the brewing industry, may have been motivated by the local fence on the possible benefits of bringing the railway to Amersham. In the 1851 census William Statham, farm bailiff to William Weller is living at Woodside Farm which now has 138 acres and fourteen labourers. By the 1880s the Tyrwhitt-Drake family had somewhen agreed to sell some of their land to the Metropolitan Railway. This land was mainly from Weedon Hill and Hyrons Subcontract on the top of the ridge to the north of their manor which meant that the railway would not be seen from Shardeloes. In 1887 George Weller sold 44 acres of the neighbouring Woodside Subcontract land to the railway company, capitalising on his earlier investment and the Metropolitan Railway opened the extension from Chalfont Route to Aylesbury in 1892.
George Weller was one of the first of the local businessmen to appreciate the new development opportunities heralded by the arrival of the railway. In 1893, opposite the newly congenital railway station, he built the Station Hotel (later known as the Iron Horse which was demolished in 2004 to be replaced by a block of flats and the Coriander Eating place), transferring the licence from the Black Horse which he then airtight down. He also laid out building plots along the new Station Road where it passed through Woodside Farm land. At this time George Weller was living in grand style at the Plantation, Amersham Common which he had improved and extended later on buying it from Lord Chesham in 1885.
Wellers Brewery continued as Amersham'due south principal employer until 1929, when George's son Gerrard, who managed it, decided not to proceed and the entire business, including the brewery, the maltings, Befouled Meadow and 132 freehold licensed bounds and 10 leasehold licensed backdrop was put up for auction. Although the Wellers fabricated generous payments to all their past employees the sudden sale of the brewery caused considerable bitterness in the area. When Benskins bought it for £360,000 (South Bucks Gratuitous Printing, 27 September 1929) they were only interested in the pubs and immediately sold off the rest of the business.
According to Nicholas Salmon's Amersham, an English Market Boondocks
"It is possible that it was the ill-feeling engendered by the sale of the brewery that hastened the expiry of Mr. George Weller for he died at his home at The Plantation before long afterward on xx October 1929 at the age of 84 (Bucks Examiner, 25 October 1929, p.xi). When the 87 acre Plantation estate was sold to the Metropolitan Railway Country Estates for £xviii,000 the following yr it finally severed a link the Weller family unit had had with the town that had lasted for over 150 years." The Plantation was sold and eventually demolished for redevelopment in 1976.
21st November 1929 a livestock auction was held at Woodside Farm which had been farmed past Frederick Denning since the starting time of the 20th century. According to an advertisement in the Bucks Examiner of 15th November 1929, this sale comprised of: l short horn cattle, viz: 28 dairy cows, 12 ii to iii years old heifers, ix head of young stock and 1 bull; half-dozen carthorses; ii sows with litters; 150 head of poultry; 200 tons of mangolds and swedes; the straw, crust and manure.
The 1930 sale of the Plantation Estate included the remaining land and buildings of Woodside Farm. According to the Bucks Examiner the site was "presently to be covered with 535 semi-discrete houses (priced at £875 upwardly) and 51 shops." The Metropolitan Railway Country Estates Ltd went on to build the last of their Metro-country developments on the land but did non complete everything on the original program due to poor sales and the interruption of the Second World War. The land remained undeveloped until the Rex George 5 Playing Fields, Amersham Community and Leisure Center and council offices were built later on in the 20th century.
What remained of Woodside Farm was then let to William Darvill, 'a provender, manure, sand and gravel merchant' according to the 1935 directory. Yet living in the farmhouse in the 1941 directory the business is listed every bit Darvill, Wm & Son, Haulage Contractors.
The photos below came from the sale brochure advertising the farm for sale for £five,500 just after WW2.
In 1948 Amersham Rural and District Council acquired the buildings in a very dilapidated state (the modest befouled had been used for mushroom growing!) together with 18 acres of country, for development every bit a Borough Centre site. In 1951 the Amersham and District Customs Association was founded with the aim of establishing a Community Centre and a survey of the farm was undertaken to assess the suitability of the subcontract buildings. Luckily it was decided that as the main timbers were sound, the buildings were worthy of restoration and Messrs. F Taylor and Sons of Woodside Road were engaged as the principal building contractors. At this fourth dimension in that location was an upholstery business based at the farm and J Darvill was listed as living in the farmhouse.
The details of the restoration was recorded in a booklet published June 1956 to commemorate the handing over of the buildings to the Amersham and District Community Association. Co-ordinate to Julian Chase, the warden, Bernard Colclough, at present lived in Woodside Farmhouse. The site later accommodated the library (1961), a pond puddle (1966) and a youth centre (1970). The old farmhouse was demolished in the late 1960s.
Since the 1600s these barns have played an important role in Amersham'southward story; from its rural beginnings, it's tradition of not-conformism and religious persecution, the devastating effect of the Act of Enclosure, the association with of import Weller family, the transformation of the area brought virtually by the arrival of the Metropolitan railway and the 20thursday century development of Amersham-on-the-Hill and Metro-land.
Not only are they of historical importance and value, the quondam farmyard buildings have provided excellent customs facilities for more than threescore years and are in abiding utilise throughout the week. They are used as a meeting identify by numerous clubs including bridge clubs, photographic and philatelic societies, and the University of the Tertiary Age. They are regularly booked for talks, social events and arts groups and information technology would be a tragedy if these beautiful buildings were not fairly funded in the future or fifty-fifty worse demolished equally office of the re-development of the entire site. The proposed cosmos of a new state-of-the-art leisure and community hub offers Amersham'southward community an exciting time to come only we should not lose an important part of our heritage to create it, especially when and then much has already been lost.
Sources:
Woodside Subcontract Past Present and Future booklet June 1956
A History of Amersham Julian Hunt 2001
Julian Hunt's inquiry notes for A History of Amersham donated to Amersham Museum
Amersham; an English Market Boondocks Nicholas Salmon 1991
www.weller.org.britain
www.quakers-chilterns-area.org.uk
Secret Hiding Places – the origins, histories and descriptions of English secret hiding places used past Priests, Cavaliers, Jacobites and Smugglers Granville Squiers 1934
Source: https://amershammuseum.org/history/on-the-hill/woodside-farm/
0 Response to "Family Room 2 Room Accommodation of Woodside Farm and Waterparks"
Post a Comment