The Farms of Little Eaton: Introduction
Since Saxon times, and throughout the Middle Ages, the Lord of the Manor allocated strips of land of about half an acre to families living in the village. That was enough to provide vegetables or corn to feed a family. Some villagers also were given permission to graze a cow or a few sheep on common land outside the village. In return, the Lord of the Manor had the right to require younger men and women to work for them and demand death duties and other taxes. The Lord of the Manor worked with a “Manor Court” of local worthies to oversee the arrangements.
All land belonged to the Monarch – in Saxon times the kings of Mercia and later the Norman kings or queens of England. He or she gifted land to Lords of Manors. In 1100, King Henry the First gave the Manor of Little Chester (Little Eaton, Quarndon and part of Derby) to the Dean of Lincoln who needed money to build Cathedral. The Dean and his successors did not administer the Manor themselves but leased it to local nobles – often the Curzons of Keddleston and, after 1800, the Dukes of Devonshire. The Duke of Devonshire appointer Benjamin Scott Currey, a lawyer, to administer the manor on his behalf. Scott Currey, whose brother was architect to the Duke, built Eaton House as his residence.
The strip system of farming ended in the second half of the 19th century – for Little Eaton in 1789. The strips, together with access to common land, had been leased to villagers, giving them and their children and grandchildren the right to farm there. A villager would hold a copy of the lease and over the centuries these copies acquired a monetary value. “Copyholders” would buy or sell them as long as they had the blessing of the Manor Court. In 1789, the Common Land was “enclosed”, giving some copyholders exclusive rights to specified fields, and these fields became more valuable than the original strips of cultivated land. Between 1789 and 1850, the copyholds of large tracts of the parish were bought by people from outside the village forming what became the farms of today.
The map shows the situation as it was in the mid 19th Century
Marked blue on the map are fields in the direct ownership of the Church – originally the Dean of Lincoln but taken over by the Church Commissioners in London in 1845. This land was leased to the Tempest family and became Park Farm, with some of it later becoming part of Home Farm.
The fields marked in red were acquired by William Woollatt, brother-in-law and business partner of Jedediah Strutt. Woollatt built a grand house, The Outwoods, for his daughter Elizabeth Trowell. The house and land were later sold off and the gardener’s cottage with part of the land became Home Farm.
The fields marked in yellow were acquired by John Hieron and his son and grandson to become Elms Farm and Furlong Farm. Grandson John had no sons and two of his daughters married Radford brothers. The farm was later passed to the Strutt family.
Some land around what is now Vicarage Lane was acquired by the Tempest family and became Church Farm.
Some land bordering on Breadsall was acquired by the Harpur- Crewes of Calke Abbey and later became Moor End Farm and Quarry Farm.
Two farm houses, The Orchard and Brook Hollow remain today but the land has been sold. A further farm, Vickers Row or Redfern’s Farm has disappeared entirely.