Welland Valley Wind & Water Mills

Figure 1: The wind and water mills adjacent the Welland at Gretton in 1587 [1]
[Please click on this image and all the following ones for a larger version.]

The following blog was sparked by a recent post on Twitter by Dr Susan Oosthuizen.

She was drawing attention to extracts of a map made in 1587 on behalf of Sir Christopher Hatton, by Ralph Treswell, that has recently been posted on the Rockingham Forest Trust Website. Oostuizen is a distinguished landscape historian whose work predominantly covers the Medieval Period in Cambridgeshire and the Fens. She specialises in water features and the use of water in the landscape.

Having been brought up in Lyddington in Rutland, I have been intrigued over the past year or so to see her interest in landscapes spreading from Cambridgeshire into East Northamptonshire, and indeed in this latest post up to the very county boundary with Rutland at Lyddington.  Gretton Mill and indeed the stretch of the River Welland from here down to Harringworth, were my childhood playground, and one where I would exercise myself and my dog.

Figure 2: Gretton Mill in 2014. [2] Notice the very low flows.

During the 1970's I worked on the construction of Rutland Water, and was part of the River Authority team that took that landscape apart, almost literally, when we cleared the reservoir bottom of trees, hedges and buildings, and built the new facilities. Archaeologists came to record many of the sites we had exposed, and as a result of this experience I became hooked on landscape archaeology.

The late Hugh Clarke from Lyddington owned a copy of the Lyddington Enclosure Award Map, and working from that, and field walking, I explored much of this area, so it was with agreeable surprise that I looked at the new information Susan Oosthuizen was presenting.

Since the 1970's I have moved away from the area, however sources of information have become much more readily available in recent years than they formerly were, so that I have been having fun revisiting my original research, and with some rather intriguing results.

Figure 3: Gretton Mill in 1899. [3]

When I first visited the mill during the late 1960's, the mill building itself had already disappeared. 

The River Welland and Nene River Authority, the predecessor body to the Environment Agency, had installed a large green guillotine lifting gate as a form of weir in an attempt to maintain the water level upstream of the site. This was successful, and the presence of  the large pike in the pool was a strong attraction for us local boys.

Figure 4: A chart showing the water levels at Duddington. [4]

While Susan Oosthuizen was undoubtedly right to draw our attention to the apparent incongruity of  building a windmill adjacent to a watermill, it begins to make much more sense when you know something of the flow patterns in the River Welland.  For many months of every year the flows in the river here are so low, that it could well have been difficult to have provided an adequate milling service using water power for ones clients. This can be demonstrated by the flows recorded by the Environment Agencies gauging weir at Duddington, which is the nearest gauging weir on the river.  It shows how the river rises and falls very rapidly, and only runs at comparatively low levels for most of the time.

The river flows shown are probably not entirely representative of those in 1587, as the river has been substantially straighted and shortened. Between Rockingham and Duddington, David Harper was able to show in a study that some 6% of its length had been lost since the 1960's. [5] This alone would have a really significant effect on the rivers regime.

In earlier centuries it is very probable that similar straightening had already occurred upstream and when this is combined with the greatly increased arable acreage present in the Welland Valley since 1939, as well as the increased urban growth, which has hardened up the surfaces of many former fields around the villages and Market Harborough, which thereby increased the rate of runoff, it can clearly be understood how in former years, the peaks of the floods were very probably less pronounced than they are today.  The flows probably came down the river in a more steady and consistent rate than they do today.

I believe that the old mill house, which is still clearly visible on the 1899 Ordnance Survey map was pulled down during the first half of the 20th Century, and very possibly as part of the works when the lifting gate was installed. I cannot date the installation of the gate, however I know that the River Authority installed many similar gates elsewhere in the catchment during the 1940's and 1950's.

A considerable amount of dressed stone almost certainly coming from the old mill, is present in the bottom of the downstream mill pool, where it had probably been spread in order to reduce the scour in the plunge pool.

During the early 1980's a Siphonic Weir was installed, as can be seen in the following photograph. This involved realigning the channel, and considerable landscaping using the arisings from the works took place in the adjacent field. I believe that it was this work that has effectively removed any sign of the windmill's base.

In 1899, the Ordnance Survey recorded the site as a mill. Interestingly the site of the next water mill down the river at Thorpe is recorded as being a "Disused Water Mill". This suggests that the Gretton Mill was still working in 1899, unlike that at Thorpe.

Figure 5: Recent Drone footage showing the Gretton Mill Site [6]

Not having researched the history of Gretton Mill before, but having previously researched several mills of similar age mills in Rutland and Suffolk, I turned to the British Newspaper Archive, to see if there were any references to this mill.  Rather surprisingly given what I had found elsewhere, very little seems to be recorded about Gretton Mill.

Unlike the other mills, there are no advertisements for its sale or lease.  It appears, that unlike the windmill at Lyddington, and water mill in Thorpe by Water for instance, which were owned by the Earl of Exeter's Burleigh Estates and which came up from time to time for the renewal of their leases, that Gretton Mill was most probably owned, occupied and operated by the miller, and that it cannot have changed hands very often.

The following death notice from 1791 in the Northampton Mercury enabled me to identify one of the millers.

Deaths

"Tuesday se’night ….   Same day, Mr. John Gray, of Gretton-mill in this county.

Saturday 21 May 1791,  Northampton Mercury."[7]

While following up the Gray family I struck lucky on Ancestry.Com website as the two following photos appear on that site.

Figure 6: Gretton Mill from the upstream side.

Although the photos are very low resolution the profile of the building clearly matches that of the building on the 1899 Ordnance Survey map in Figure 3 above.  The main building has two very interesting features. Firstly, the steepness of the gable wall is such that it is almost certainly an early building from the period between 1540 and 1600.  From studies in Lyddington and the surrounding villages, it is possible to work from the known dates of similar buildings, such as the Homestead at 81 Main Street in Lyddington that has a similar gable and which dates to before 1650.  As the centuries rolled on the steepness of the gables reduces steadily.

The roof also appears to have the raised stonework borders on either gable that was originally intended to retain the thatch in place.

Interestingly enough in Figure 1, Treswell shows a red roof, and therefore presumably it was a tiled roof.

Thatch lasts at least 30 or more years. If the roof had originally had a thatched roof, that would suggest that if it were re-tiled by 1587, that it might have been originally built at least 30 or more years earlier.

Figure 7: Gretton Mill from further upstream.

It is very difficult because of the very low resolution of the images to make an assessment of the date when the photos were taken, however they have the feel of photos taken after the widespread adoption of the Box Brownie camera, which came into popular usage by 1914.  Earlier photos tend to have much better resolution, as they were made on larger cameras, often with glass plates for the images and tend to have far better resolution.

This leads me to believe that the photos probably date from the 1920's or 30's.

Figure 8: Seaton Wind and Water Mills.  In the background Harringworth Viaduct can be seen.

As I have already alluded to, due to the low water flows that occur for many months of the year, it was probably not possible to mill with water power, except for limited periods.  Having an auxiliary windmill appears to have been a common feature in the Welland valley.

This is clearly demonstrated in Figure 8, which shows a very fine post mill in the field next to Seaton Water Mill.  The viaduct was built in 1878, so that this photo must date from about 1880 or slightly later.  This mill was the home to the Royce family, and this was where Mr Royce, of later Rolls Royce fame spent much of his childhood.

A similar situation existed in Lyddington.  Throughout the later 18th Century and first half of the 19th Century Lyddington had two mills. One was the windmill that sat on top of Windmill Hill, one of the three hills to the east of the village that look out over the Welland Valley, and a second water mill, that was located in Thorpe By Water.  Both mills were owned by the Earl of Exeter, and were let together. In 1757 Edward Sharman entered into a 21 year lease. Both of the mills and his house in Lyddington must have been in very poor condition when he entered into the lease, because he reached an agreement with his landlord for a very major programme of rebuilding of all of his buildings.

Sharman had previously leased these properties from 1743 to 1758, and was presumably able to apply pressure to the Earl's land agent to force the Earl to fund the improvements, to what were probably old time expired mills, before he would take out a new lease.

Details of the leases are given in much more detail in Rosemary Canadine's book, "Buildings and People of a Rutland Manor, Lyddington, Caldecott, Stoke Dry and Thorpe by Water published in 2015. Rosemary Canadine worked for a number of years as an archivist in the Burleigh House Archive.

Interestingly these were not the only wind mills closeby in the area bounded by Caldecott, Lyddington and Gretton.

On Bowen's strip map of 1753, two windmills can clearly be seen to be astride of the highway between Caldecott and Lyddington.  Bowen was almost certainly not the surveyor for this map, which is copied from an earlier survey carried out by John Ogilby in 1674, then reproduced by Bowen and a long line of other publishers.

So what we can see next probably shows the situation as it existed in about 1674.

Figure 9: Bowen's Map of 1753.

It is not immediately apparent where these two post mills were located.  It is known that the road layout locally was considerably altered in 1804 when Lyddington and Caldecott were Enclosed.  The modern A6003 road from Caldecott to Uppingham only came into being shortly after the 1755 Act of Parliament for a Turn Pike from Bowling Green in Kettering to West Bridgeford Lane in Nottingham was passed.

The following plan is drawn from the 1899 Ordnance Survey plan and shows the layout of the earlier pre-1804 roads that were converted into footpaths after they were replaced by the new post enclose roads.

Figure 10: Map showing the route that I believe John Ogilby surveyed in 1675.  The blue circle rings the area in which I conjecture that the two post mills were situated in.

The ringed area is situated on a slightly elevated piece of ground in an otherwise flat plain.

It is clear that the villagers and the surveyors have probably slightly realigned the footpath, as it appears to leave the line of the original ploughing baulks, and the modern footpath cuts across the ridge and furrow of the former ploughing. This would have almost certainly have not been acceptable to farmers before the Enclosures took place.

The upper third of the route nearest Lyddington follows the original hedge boundary between Holbrook Field to the north, and Nether Field to the south. It is interesting that Ogilby's survey appears to show a hedge, in a solid line, whereas the opposite highway boundary is dotted. [9]

Figure 11: The probable site of the two windmills in Ogilby's Survey on the parish boundary of Caldecott and Lyddington. Notice the crop mark of a possible hollow way in the top of the central field.

Notice how the footpath as drawn on the map, and as can be seen aerial image as a faint line.  This puzzles me as the path is clearly crossing plough ridges, which would have annoyed those growing crops. I think that it does allow us to plot the road however, because the curved hedge leaving the top centre of the aerial view is clearly on the path, and from here on into Lyddington, it follows headlands.

To the immediate left of both images is the deserted Medieval village of Snelston.  The parish boundary between Lyddington and Caldecott is the dotted line on the map.  With a height of just over 200 feet I believe that this ridge must have been the site of the windmills.  I believe that the road in 1675 followed the hedge along and did not cross the post 1804 field. It ran into the "triangular" shaped field on the left centre of the image, which was formerly part of Snelston and out down the current A6003 into Caldecott.

There is what appears to be a crop mark for a hollow way or pond running into the field. Could this be leading to the mill sites?

Why does this all matter?

Well amongst the fascinating things I found over the past week of research is the following passage from an early 18th Century book, "The Natural History of Northampton-shire: With Some Account of the Antiquities." By John Morton published in 1712.

Figure 12: The Natural History of Northampton-shire

Morton was the Rector of Oxendon near Market Harborough, and his book is absolutely full of fascinating details about the natural history of Northamptonshire, with many valuable descriptions of the places and events in the area.  In the following passage presumably written after 1705 and before 1712 he describes a weather event that took place shortly before a thunder storm.  Both the Lyddington and Gretton windmills are mentioned.  Bear in mind that these are post mills, so that they swivelled around the supporting centre post to face into the wind.

Figure 13: A description of the two mills, presumably working on that day.

Windmills had to be secured when they were not working, and the cloth sails rolled up, or stripped down to prevent the wind breaking the mill. This could lead to a fire breaking out inside the mill, which would very quickly cause the flour to burn in with an effect that would be very like that of an explosive.

It was just such a fire in about 1840, that destroyed the only other windmill that could possibly be being described by Morton. That was the one located on top of Windmill Hill at Lyddington.

Until the 1980's this mill site was readily accessible and half of one of the mill stones lay partially buried in the topsoil on top of the hill. This was a popular destination for a Sunday afternoon walk. The hill is heavily earth worked with both ridge and furrow as well as a sunken roadway leading to the mill site.  Sadly the pastureland was planted in trees, and the site is no longer easily accessible, although the crown of the hill was left unplanted.

Figure 14: A plan showing the locations of the mills near Lyddington

As can be seen, there is a surprisingly large number of mills in this area. The are also watermills at Caldecott and at Seaton.

Thorpe Water mill went out of business by 1899. The building survived without its roof until about 1968. I can remember playing in and around it.  The masonry was again bulldozed into the river and along the toe of the adjacent railway embankment by the River Authority.  The retaining wall of the sluice is still visible below the footbridge as can be seen in the following photo.  The mill lade survives, however it was heavily modified by the construction of the railway line during the late 1850's, and it was probably this work that caused the mill to cease production. Nobody knows when it started in production, but it was probably operating in competition with Gretton Mill. A footpath leading directly to Gretton crosses the bridge in the photo. A nearby footpath goes by a less direct route over the back stream to Gretton over an old masonry & brick bridge now on the point of falling down.

Figure 15: Thorpe By Water former water mill site. [10]

When did all this milling start?  One intriguing clue survives.  The following Lidar image of Gretton Mill survives.  Two streams can be seen.  The main river, with the Gretton Road Bridge just to the east of the mill sites.  To the north is the back stream. It has a very sinuous course, and as can be seen on Figure 10, is the County and Parish Boundary, which suggests to me that the current main river is probably an early artificial cut  made in order to achieve a suitable fall.  There is evidence of another cut close still to the mill, and it looks as if quite a bit of digging was undertaken here by the original builders.

Figure 16: A Lidar image of Gretton Mill courtesy of the Environment Agency.

Why did these mills close. Of course it could have been for many reasons, obsolescence, being worn out, or competition.

I personally believe that it was due to the price of wheat and barley, which has fluctuated greatly over time.

Figure 17: William Playfair's Chart showing the price of wheat. [11]

To most historians over the past century who tend to have urban and socialist leanings, the rise in the price of wheat has negative connotations. However it should be borne in mind that the struggle for the balance of power between the consumer and the producer was here long before the supermarket was invented. For much of that time the farmer was on the losing side of that balance. When the red line fell below 40 towards 30, in Figure 17, farming communities began to feel the pain.

Conversely when the price rose, farmers prospered as they did from 1940 until about 1975.

It is interesting to consider that Gretton Mill was already operating in 1585 and had probably just had a new tiled roof installed. I believe that it was built on the back of rising demand for grain, and increased incomes resulting from the grain prices shown above. I think that the windmills date from the second prosperous period starting in about 1650, but that they went largely out of use following the crash in farm gate prices during the 1720's.

 Arable rents fell away to very low levels, way lower than the rents that grazing could command.  The pair of mills were almost certainly derelict and gone by the time the surveyors measured up between 1799 and 1804 for the enclosures.  The remaining mills then had a final burst of prosperity and activity during the Napoleonic Wars, before finally fading out of use as the land was turned over to pasture and cattle fattening once more.

There was clearly a great deal of arable farming going on in the high Medieval Period in the area, as is borne witness to, by the sheer amount of remaining ridge and furrow.  Out of about 2200 acres in Lyddington over 1800 acres were ridge and furrow. Assuming a three course rotation, about 600 acres was cropped for cereals in any one year. This might have yielded somewhere between 600 and 900 tonnes of grain.

Confirmation of just how much grain there was comes from a great discovery arising from Rosemary Canadine's work in Lyddington. She secured a Lottery Grant that enabled a dendrochronology survey in many of the village houses, and in a barn at Prebendal Farm.  This barn outwardly dated to 1726-51, turned out to have two reused beams inside it that were dated by dendrochronology to c. 1347-72.

Experts believe that these beams had formerly been uprights, and from the jointing details present in the beams, that they had served a barn 12 metres wide, and that the barn would have contained from 6 to 8 of these bays.

Lyddington, Caldecott and Thorpe by Water all belonged to the Bishop of Lincoln who had a substantial Palace in Lyddington.  The Bishop had both the access to capital and the power to commission such a barn, which is thought to be the only such tithe barn of this size in Rutland or Leicestershire.

It was clearly bigger than the 18th Century barn, and would not be equalled in the village until the 1970's when arable farming was once again highly profitable.

If you had this much grain to process, water and wind mills were a must.[12]  It is very likely that the Bishop had a hand in the development of the first mills in this area, which date to 1280, if not before.

It is not known where the huge barn was located, however it is very likely that it was under the site of the later 18th Century barn and the surrounding crew yards.

The date of construction of the Medieval barn is a puzzle because the Black Death is widely believed to have so reduced the population, that arable farming greatly diminished afterwards. Perhaps the Bishop was better at praying than he was at agricultural economics and planning.

After the 1540's the barn presumably became far to large for the farming outputs of the day, and it would have fallen into disuse just as many Model Farms from the 1800's and first half of the 20th Century have done over the past 40 years.

As Figure 17 shows there was a resurgence in crop prices from about 1650.  Interestingly enough this coincides with the arrival of the Great Re-building in both Gretton and Lyddington. W.G. Hoskins who coined the phrase assigns the period to 1570 to 1640.  However in Lyddington, while there are buildings from this date that survive, it is clear that the main period of serious re-building dates from about 1650, with a peak in about 1680.

Rosemary Canadine has produced graphs that show the age distribution for the houses, and they show about 48 of the ones that survive come from this period out of about 103 houses that existed in the 1804 survey.[13]

Some really serious money was flowing into these villages at this period, so that I believe that it was coming in large part from grain, and milling was of course all part of getting that added value from ones crop.

[1] http://resource.rockingham-forest-trust.org.uk/SiteResources/Data/Templates/1Parishother.asp?DocID=544&v1ID=&docidfile=

[2] Photo courtesy of Patterdale Paddler. This intepid gentleman canoes down many of the local rivers, and his excellent photos provide a really good record of many of the features of this little known stretch of the River Welland. http://www.songofthepaddle.co.uk/forum/showthread.php/51210-All-Welland-Good-Ashley-to-Gretton-in-Sunshine

and
http://www.songofthepaddle.co.uk/forum/showthread.php/43466-A-Ditch-Too-Far-but-otherwise-a-great-day-at-Gretton-on-the-Welland

[3] Courtesy of the National Library of Scotland, Ordnance Survey Maps Collection.

[4] http://www.gaugemap.co.uk/

[5]http://ea-lit.freshwaterlife.org/archive/ealit:1546/OBJ/19000408.pdf

[6] A still from a video by Nigel Ward of drone footage found on the web at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VCOFFIP8vzA The video shows the area surrounding the site well.

[7] Courtesy of the British Newspaper Archive website.

[9] See Rosemary Canadine,  "Buildings and People of a Rutland Manor, Lyddington, Caldecott, Stoke Dry and Thorpe by Water published in 2015. page 43.

[10] Photo courtesy of Patterdale Paddler.

[11] See http://www.johnhearfield.com/History/Breadt.htm for a very good blog on this subject.

[12] Rosemary Canadine, pages 119 and 120.

[13] Rosemary Canadine. pages 121 to 175.

The Heath, Great Livermere

Spinney Lane leading up to Heath Farm Great Livermere.

It is all too easy to overlook the huge amount of effort that has gone into creating our English landscapes.

Many of us today drive down the lanes of East Anglia without giving a second thought for the millions of man hours of back breaking toil that was required to turn the surrounding land into productive farmland.

We are also inclined to believe that our countryside is a never changing place.

Whilst every day we read in our papers and see in our media tales of climate change and food shortages. These fortunately always seem to occur somewhere else.

What however we often overlook is that having a surplus of population, climate change, and famine are not a new phenomenon, but one that has stalked our countryside in times gone by.

We least once before we plundered the fertility of our land to the point where it became desert.

This is the story of one man's efforts to restore the land to fertility, and to grow food in a time of shortage and acute peril. It is a story of enormous effort and an incredible amount of manual work.

And where did this all take place?

In rural Suffolk, at the village of Great Livermere, some five miles north of Bury St. Edmunds.

The following story, is that of my great great great grandfather Joshua Rodwell, a Suffolk farmer.

Loading Hay.

I suppose that like very many other Englishmen starting out on a search into my family history, I expected before I got back very far to find a farm labourer and to become stalled in my research at that point. Imagine my surprise when I found the following report from 1800.

On Clay and Marle. By Mr. JOSIAH RODWELL, of Livermere, near Bury , Suffolk.
 

From the COMMUNICATIONS to the BOARD of AGRICULTURE.
 

The Gold Medal of the Board was voted, to Mr. Rodwell for this Communication.

BEING informed that you have voted to an excellent farmer in Surrey, justly celebrated for his exertions, a mark of your approbation, it has been suggested to me by some neighbours, who have for twenty-eight years viewed what I have done to improve a poor and almost waits tract of land, to send you, an account of my operations, which I have complied with, trusting that this is the most likely method of inducing others to examine well their soils, and whatever may be found beneath : my practice is confined and limited, but your attention can spread any knowledge throughout the kingdom, and render the exertions of an individual beneficial to a whole nation.

I wish at present, to call your notice to the effect of, digging and spreading marle and clay upon poor dry heaths, producing fern and gorse, but chiefly ling; originally of small value, at best yielding but a scanty support to ill-fed- sheep.

The Rev. Mr. Lathbury's father, about fifty years ago, was offered any quantity of this heath. at 4d. Per acre: the farm on which I have been working consists of 1400 acres, 700 of which were of this sort of heath ; it had been occupied by my predecessor, Mr. Garnham, for thirty-fix  years, at the rent of 140l. and never more than 150l. the landlord (Bapt. Lee, Esq.) paying tithe ; nor did Mr. Garnham at that rent do much more than make a living in it.  In 1771 it was valued for raising the rent, and 350l. a year demanded, not tithe-free, at which rent  Mr. Garnham refused it, as did several other farmers,  who examined the land ; and when I engaged  at that rent I was pronounced a ruined man by most of my acquaintance who knew the farm. I had a lease of thirteen years.

My operations at first were to inclose with thorn hedges, marle or clay, and break up 300 acres of the heath; and in the first seven years of the lease I finished what I meant to improve in that term; I marled or clayed 600 acres, at 70 loads an acre, being 42,000 large tumbril loads.  In this work I employed three teams, two of my own, and one I hired for several years.  It is severe work; and the -second year I lost nine horses, attributed to feeding on pea-straw from the new broken heath, a circumstance that deserves the attention of improvers.

In the eleventh year of my lease I applied to my landlord for a renewal; on which the farm was valued again by Mr. Hare, the surveyor at Peterborough, and I took a fresh lease of fifteen years, to commence at the termination of my old one, at the rent of 400l.
 

I immediately clayed and broke up 200 acres more, at 100 loads an acre, 40 bushels per load, inclosing all with quick hedges, and ditches 5 feet wide, and 4 deep ; after this, I improved 100 acres more in the same manner.
 

In the two leases of twenty-eight years, I clayed or marled 820 acres ; and I have clayed or marled so much over the second time, at 70 loads an acre, that the quantity I have carried in all is very little short of 140,000 loads.

Upon taking a third lease, I was, in 1798—9, particularly steady to this work, and, in forty- nine weeks and three days, carried 11,275 cubical yards, paying by measure of pits, and not by loads, which were filled and spread by 'four men and a boy, and carted by fix horses and two tumbrils.

In this business of carrying clay or marle I have practised handbarrowing; the men can make good earnings at 10d. a yard, wheeling it thirty rod; and down to 7d. a yard at shorter distances; and I am much inclined to think, .that if we had workmen used to the operation,, and handy at it, like those employed in navigations, that this method would be of all others the cheapest, especially on heavier soils. But by far the greatest part I have done by tumbrils, the expence of which put out is 5d. a yard for team, and a 2¼d. a yard for labour, and paying for laying picks, wedges, &c. also for stones that rise, increase the whole expence to 8 d. per yard, which is at least  ½d. per yard cheaper than I can do it with my own teams: the reason of which is, that the man who contracts with me drives his own horses, and looks after them; at 8 ½d. per yard, 140,000 yards have cost me £4958 excepting the small proportion hired at ½ d. a yard lower.

I come now to mention a few circumstances which I hope may tend to render this paper useful to others,, not having the experience which I have acquired, : I shall use but few words, but  they shall be founded on positive experiment, or  attentive observation.

Clay is much to be preferred to marle on these sandy soils, some of which are loose, poor, and even a black sand. By clay is to be understood a grey clayey loam, some of it brick earth, and all has with vinegar a small effervescence. Marle is & a white, greasy, chalky, substance, that effervesces strongly with acids: I make a universal rule, on a second improvement, to lay clay on the fields marled before, sometimes marle where clay was spread before ; but this not general, as clay answers best on the whole.

In the tillage of improved lands, I am attentive never to over-crop. My usual rotation has been,

1. Turnips.

2. Barley.

3. Clover, rye-grass, and trefoil, one or two years.

4. Peas.

 5. Wheat.

On some I have sown oats on the layer, and omitted peas and wheat, which is more favourable to the land; and I should with longer leases have done more so. Peas, it is true, are an improving crop, but the two coming together are perhaps working the marle too quickly. I have broken some heaths up; and sown oats, and even wheat, designing to improve on the stubble ; but sowing four bushels of oats I have gained but ten, and of wheat not more than three coombs at first breaking.

The coomb is 1/2 a quarter.  My crops, by managing attentively, have been good; I have had 11½ coombs of barley an acre, and even 14, and these over large fields ; I have had seven coombs an acre of peas over six score acres, and fine wheat after them.

On 90 acres, clayed 100 loads an acre, I have had after two crops, the one turnips, the other barley, cole-feed, and sold it on the ground for 1000 guineas; then turnips, a famous crop, followed by barley, on 75 acres, 16 coombs an acre; and by bats on 15 acres (poorer land)  10 coombs an acre. These crops are for the soil great; but in general my products have been highly to my satisfaction.

In regard to other manures, my farm has had the fold of from 40 to 48 score sheep; they manure, one year with another, 150 acres; and I am never without bullocks for increasing. the farm-yard dung. I top fold wheat from the beginning of November till Christmas, and even till February, and venture it on clayed land at the hazards of frosts at sun-rife, which sometimes injures it much, but the effect in general is great.

Of all mucking, that for turnips pays me best, particularly on clayed land : I know many farmers in Norfolk prefer laying it on for wheat, the turnips to have it at second ; but I prefer the other method.. And let me note, that I use long muck to choose, which I think far better than turning, mixing, and rotting muck; here also are different opinions; I speak only from my own experience. Wheat stubble, I think, should always be whelmed in for turnips.

I once ploughed in a fine crop of buck-wheat for turnips, and the crop was so much worse than the rest of the field, that they .were not penned regularly for the sheep ; yet, with this disadvantage, the barley, following was better than where the turnips were much superior.

I have dibbled largely, and with good success, and think it the best method; and I approve much of the drill roller as the next best.

In tilling these improved lands, it is a common observation in Norfolk, that shallow ploughing is necessary to preserve the pan: I have not found this the case here ; but, on the contrary, that the clay and marle works the better the more soil it has to incorporate with.

Having thus stated, shortly, the general managements of my improvements, I now come, with your permission, to the general result. Rent will speak this:

It is stated, that, twenty-eight years ago, the rent of farm was £150 a year, tithe free, and that it was then raised to £350 a year, tithe payable.  I may venture to assert, that, at that rent, without  improvement, it might have so stood on my landlord's rent-roll till doomsday, for a mere living could only be made on it even in good times. But upon my taking the third lease, commencing 1799, it was raised to £600 a year, at the same time that to the full value of £100 a year was taken from it; in other words, the present rent is £700 a year. Thus, while, with the blessing of God, I have done well in the farm, and have put five children into the world out of twelve living, I have added £350 a year to the value of the estate, which, at thirty years purchase, is 10,500; and, relative to the public at large, I may venture to assert, that these 1400 Acres have, in the last twenty-eight years, yielded £30,000 worth more of corn, meat, and wool, than they did in the twenty-eight preceding.  A fact which tends strongly to shew the national importance of improvements in agriculture, and also the wisdom of establishing a public board for promoting and encouraging such exertions as may be deemed laudable.

                                                I have the honour to be,

                                                                My Lords and Gentlemen,

                                                                Your most obedient servant,

Livermere, near Bury, Suffolk,                                                   Josiah Rodwell

                Nove. 18^th, 1799.

(The Gold Medal of the Board was voted to Mr. Rodwell for this communication.)

140,000 cart loads is an awful lot of digging. Carts were much smaller in those days than our current trailers, but must have each carried at least a tonne at a time. Marl weighs about 2.2tonnes per cubic metres, which meant that there has to be a considerable number of holes at Great Livermere to find.

This proved to be the case when I made a visit out to the farm about a decade ago. They show up even more clearly in aerial photos, with the photos made by the RAF at the end of World War II being particularly clear.

1945 Aerial photographs showing the dark oval patches caused

by excavation of marl. [photo courtesy of Google Earth.] 

Spinney Lane is the diagonal lane running from NW to SE across the photo.

Indeed the pits in Spring of 1944 were sufficiently deep to be able to provide crews of Churchill AVRE tanks preparing to land in Normandy with valuable training in how to cross major craters. [1] 

Heath Farm in 1999 still showing clear traces of the Marl Pits.

The pits are still visible in the fields in 2012, although I have noticed that even over the past decade since I first visited the site that they are being lost very fast as tractors and ploughs have become very much more powerful in recent years.

One of the former marl pits, can be seen in the foreground, as the crops dip down.

Josiah was married to Elizabeth Medows.  Elizabeth Medows who had been born on March 13^th 1751, and she was eventually to die on February 18^th 1838 aged 87 at Livermere.

Josiah Rodwell appears to have been a considerable sheep farmer, before he commenced his arable activities at Livermere. He knew and co-operated with Arthur Young the agricultural journalist, who had been born in 1741 Bradfield in Suffolk.  Josiah was five years younger than Young having been born in 1746.

Josiah Rodwell had been born on the 5^th of October 1746, probably at Mendlesham, where his parents John and Catherine Rodwell lived. His parents seem to have also been substantial tenant farmers, so that it is probable that they had moved in much the same circles as Arthur Young.

Josiah had started out as a sheep farmer, however the pressures of falling prices drove him eventually to change over to arable farming.

 

WOOL

BURY, Feb. 14, 1787

At a Meeting of some of the principle Wool Growers near Bury, held this day at the BELL INN, to take into consideration the bill now depending in parliament, relating to wool.

I.       Resolved, That we consider many of the clauses of the said bill, as injurious and oppressive to the growers of wool.  That it needlessly and wantonly multiplies restrictions, fines, forfeitures, and punishments.  Is entirely adapted to lower the price of wool; but not at all calculated for its pretended purpose, that of preventing the practise of smuggling.

II.    Resolved, That we do earnestly request the wool-growers in other parts of the country, to unite with us in our endeavours to oppose a measure that would be so generally detrimental; and we hope for the support of all land owners and others in opposing the bill, to procure a county meeting for rendering such an opposition regular and effective.

III. Resolved, That another meeting be held at the Angel Inn at Bury, on Wednesday the 21^st day of this instant February, at Four o’clock in the afternoon, on the said day.

WILLIAM MACRO,	JOHN CANHAM,
EDWARD PUGH,	JAMES DEEKS,
WILLIAM STUTTER,	JOH NUNN,
J. PYTCHES, Jun.	JOSEPH PAWSEY,
WILLIAM ADAMS, Sen.	JOHN SIMPSON,
JOHN STUTTER,	ROBERT HOWLETT,
JOHN STUTTER, Jun.	JAMES CLIFT,
THOMAS COCKSEDGE,	THOMAS HARVEY,
W.ADAMS, Jun.	LEO BIDWELL,
GEORGE WYARD,	WILLIAM KEMBALL,
ROBERT ROPER,	WILLIAM BROOKS,
JOSIAH RODWELL,	J PYTCHES,
JOHN HARVEY,	G, CORNELL,
ROB. LANCHESTER,	JEREMIAH PAINE,
JONA. COOPER,	JOHN WORLLEDGE,
WILLIAM CORNELL,	MICHEAL HOUGHTON,
JOHN FILBY,	JOHN SPARHAM,
JOHN WHISTLER,	R. KEDINGTON.

Josiah was active in the Suffolk farming community, and corresponded with Arthur Young. Several of his comments appear as footnotes in Young's General View of the Agriculture of the County of Suffolk.

"The importance of this subject cannot be too much enforced; and it were an object worthy of the Board of Agriculture, to obtain a Bill from Parliament, permitting a general inclosure throughout the whole county, of waste lands.  Where the common consist of good lands, the advantages of converting them to private property, would be prodigious; and the poorest, by being so converted, would, I am persuaded, produce double their present value; whereas, at present, the profit is extremely small indeed.  And whenever a landlord lets a farm with a common right, which is valued with the rest of his premises, I believe every good farmer who makes use of it, would be a loser instead of a gainer." [3]

He went on to write:

"The importance of inclosing waste lands, is evident too from another consideration, supposing an equal profit only would be the result: the men who usually reside near a common, are the depredators of the neighbourhood: smugglers, sheep-stealers, horse-jockies, and jobbers of every denomination, here find their abode."

A Rodwell family tree drawn up in about 1845.  

[Please click on the image for a larger version.] 

 

 

 

The farm house at Heath Farm, which we believe Josiah Rodwell built.

Josiah appears to have been very interested in trees. The garden at Heath Farm contains a number of very large trees including Copper Beech, Wellingtonia and other fir trees, and he planted the magnificent lime avenue that leads up to the farm.

 

 

The trees in Heath Farm gardens.

 

The Lime Avenue at Great Livermere.

 

Josiah was an extremely effective tenant farmer, who was extremely fortunate that his career in farming coincided with the French Revolutionary Wars, resulting in a number of years of excellent prices for his crops.  He believed that he had made £30,000 in 13 years, which was more than most of the local landowners would have expected to have made in rents.

He went on to bring up a large family, of whom several of the boys were able to be sent to Cambridge University, which must have been unusual for this period.

 

Josiah was also widely employed to value and to sell farms over much of Suffolk, as well as serving on Grand Juries at the nearby Bury Assizes.

 “In his 56^th year, Mr. Josiah Rodwell, an opulent farmer at Little Livermere, and highly distinguished for his agricultural knowledge.  He was at Woolpit fair the preceding evening; and, on the morning of his death, was as well as usual.”

Josiah Rodwell had died on the 21^st of September 1802, which was the day after the Fair that was run annually at Woolpit. I hope that he had had a really good time at market.  He was buried at Livermere. [4]

His memorial was described in 1827 as being at the church at Livermere on the south side.

“Also a flat stone to Josiah Rodwell late of Livermere Parva who died Sept 21 1802."

However time seems to have removed the gravestone as despite extensive searches it is nowhere to be seen today, unlike this mans magnificent trees.

If I could leave a legacy in 200 or more years like the trees that Josiah Rodwell planted, I would be a die a very happy man. You cannot believe the thrill that I felt when I found them.  Much as I enjoy written archives, trees and holes in the ground are also an extremely powerful way to leave ones mark.

I would very much like the opportunity to visit and photograph Heath Farm one day. I have been unable to find out who owns the house at present.  If you live there and are prepared to let me visit the house and gardens, I would love to hear from you. I can be contacted at balmer.nicholas@gmail.com

[1] http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/ww2peopleswar/stories/28/a2690228.shtml

[2] Davy’s Suffolk Collections LXXI, page 80 onwards. Davy, David Elisha (ca.1840) Suffolk Collections.  British Library Add. MSS. 19147. Davy lived from 1769 to 1851 and was both a botanist and antiquarian.

[3] Young's General View of the Agriculture of the County of Suffolk. Page 167.

[4] A concise description of Bury St. Edmund's, and its environs, within the Distance of Ten Miles. Published 1827, page 242.

Suffolk law before the police, and the Barking Association

The Fox, Barking Suffolk 

Most of us if we go back far enough into our family history expect to find a farming ancestor sooner or later,  and it is often at this point that we get stuck without being able to find out anything further about their ancestors.

In the case of my Suffolk Moore ancestors this had occurred when I got back to my  paternal 5 x great grandfather James Moore (1765 to 1831), and until recently, I had assumed that this would be as far as I would be able to get.  I thought that he was probably a peasant who had spent his days trudging along in the mud behind a plough, leaving little if any further trace of his life.

 

Recently I have been really surprised to find him turning up in the scanned local newspapers held on the British Library website. 

 

What has been great fun to find is that he and most of his closest friends seem to have all been members of the Barking Association that met at the Fox pub in Barking in Suffolk.  

James Moore rented and ran the water mill at Badley for many years.  He had become the tenant in about 1797, and to have been an active member of the local community, joining the Barking Association.

This association was one of a very large number of similar associations set up across the country formed by farmers and larger householders and small tradesmen in villages, primarily to raise rewards for information on, or for the capture of thieves, or rick burners.

In those days there was no police force and such justice as there was, was in the hands of the local Justices of the Peace and of the village Constables. The Constables were ordinary villagers chosen annually, often selected unwillingly, by the parish vestry to try to enforce justice and to apprehend thieves or criminals. They also were expected to collect taxes and were therefore often unpopular with the other villagers and little supported.

The farmers were generally the richest people living in the villages, with the landlords often living in London, or many miles away.  The farmers often felt themselves to have been under siege from the villagers, and local town poor, as their fields, full of valuable animals including horses attracted the frequent attention of ill disposed, and often semi starving villagers or passing thieves.  The only solution was for the farmers and other members of the community, at this period before the police force had been invented was to club together to offer rewards for the apprehension of thieves and other malcontents.

 

An advertisement for the half yearly meeting of the Barking Association.

The Ipswich Journal, January 30th 1796.

 

 

All to soon James himself would need to call on the services of the association.

 

 

 

BARKING ASSOCIATION. WHEREAS some time in the Night of the 18th inst. the Home Barn of Mr, JAMES MOORE, of Badley, was broken into, and a quantity of dressed WHEAT was feloniously stolen from the heap. Any person who shall apprehend, or give information of the offender or offender, so as he or they may be lawfully convicted of the said robbery, will be intitled to and paid the sum of 2£. 10s. out of the public stock of the said Association, by applying to Mr. Sam. Harwood the Treasurer.  And the said James Moore hereby offers a further reward of 20£. to be paid on conviction as aforesaid. 21st Dec. 1801.

[1]

It hasn't been possible to find out if anybody was caught stealing the wheat.



The Association would continue to meet at the Fox Inn at Barking for many more years to come, and as the following advertisement from the Ipswich Journal dated Saturday 28^th June 1824 shows, both my great great great great grandfather James Moore of Badley, and his sons, James Medows Moore of Darmsden, and John Kirby Moore, of Combs were regular attendees at these dinners at the Fox Inn.

 

 

J.W. Pennington of Combs listed above was Joseph Pennington, a gifted land surveyor, land agent and steward since 1772 for Lord Ashburnham. [2]  He was living at Holly Oak Farm at Combs, and it appears that John Kirby Moore was living at the farm, possibly learning to farm.  In 1831, John married Joseph Pennington's daughter Henrietta. He was later to become steward for Lord Ashburnham.

 

With the aid of the newspapers, and also records in the Ipswich Records office, I have been able to fill in the backgrounds to many of the other farmers listed above, and they will feature in many forthcoming posts.

 

 

I find myself imagining them all carousing into the evening around a roaring fire, and although the Fox is nowadays a Chinese restaurant, I hope one day to be able to visit it during opening hours.

 

 

 

[1] The Ipswich Journal - Saturday 26 December 1801

[2] The Journal of John Kirby Moore of Badley.  Edited by Michael Durrant, published by the Suffolk Family History Society, August 2001.