The history of Park Farm

1. Introduction

Park Farm is situated at the top of Vicarage Lane in Little Eaton, and is one of the oldest properties in the village. This article traces its history, from the earliest records in the 1400s, to its early use as a dairy in the 1500s, and to the building of the farmhouse and farm buildings in the 1600s. It records the families that lived at Park Farm through later centuries, either as tenant farmers or owners of the land and buildings.

2. Early History: 1400 to the 1799 Enclosure Act

Park Farm is situated in an ancient Park, part of the Manor of Little Chester, granted by King Henry I to the Deans of Lincoln. The Dean held the formal position of Lord of the Manor of Little Chester (which included Little Eaton, Quarndon and part Chester Green in Derby) but the rights and duties of the position were administered by more local people such as the Curzon family, the Degge family and the Dukes of Devonshire. Under the local administrators, the land was leased to “copyholders” who occupied it (or, on occasion, sublet it to third parties). Changes in copy holdings or tenancies are recorded in “Manor Court Rolls”, now held in the Lincoln Records Office.

In 1483, Richard Curzon was recorded as copy holder for the land on which Park Farm now stands. The Curzons were a very wealthy family based at Kedleston Hall, and they sub-let the land and buildings to other people. The records from the 16th century show that a “Dayhouse”, or dairy, was situated where Park Farm and Dove Barn now stand. The park around it was “common land” where some villagers were allowed to graze their cattle. A place to milk the cows would be well used. There were probably also one or two simple dwellings on the site. The Court Rolls record that the land and buildings were let to Agnes Ward (in 1483), Thomas Topler (1513), John Corkeram (1515) and William Bainbridge (1561) and his son Robert.

In 1563, the tenancy passed to the Litchfield family. The Litchfields, originally from Heage, owned or were copyholders of land in Little Eaton beyond the Park, including Edgecroft to the north of the parish and the “Boat Meadow”, across the river in what is now Allestree. Their main holding was a “farme” in the area later known as Park Farm. The family, including Anthony, John, Rowland and William were recorded as living in the Park until 1674. In William’s will he left the land to his three daughters who lived elsewhere and surrendered the land to others.

The Degge family were Lords of the Manor from 1668 to 1751. A document entitled “A Particular of the Estate of Simon Degge Esq. Derby” gives the Rents for Little Eaton in 1752 and 1762. The particulars include a reference to “the Near Park, late Parloby, and the close beyond it,” each with a rent of £9. The Parlobys were reasonably wealthy and probably occupied Park Farm for about 50 years. It is possible that the house became one dwelling rather than two semi-detached homes.  John Parlby/Parloby had married Anne Wright at St Werburgh’s in Spondon in 1686.  Ann Parloby, by deed, left the poor of Little Eaton the sum of £10. The name Parlby is listed as a Charity giver as late as 1875.

On Parlby’s death, or when his widow moved out, the property went to Peter Frignall, then Michael Tempest who had “a messuage with orchard, garden and outbuildings and 11 acres” (a “messuage” is a house and the land on which it stands). Michael Tempest was a farmer from Burley in Duffield and his family continued to live there. Michael had three sons, John, William and Michael. Michael Tempest the elder died in 1778.  William Tempest, his son, inherited and is listed as “an Occupier” of some of Lord Scarsdale’s land.

In 1779 there was an Act of Parliament allowing people who could claim they had regularly used the common land in the park to “enclose” fields there. The house, land and buildings of Park Farm were awarded to Lord Scarsdale, a descendant of the Richard Curzon who was copy holder in 1483. William Tempest and John (son of William’s brother John) were awarded the copy holding of several fields close to Park Farm. William Woollatt (brother-in-law of the mill owner Jedidiah Strutt) was awarded another nearby field. Shortly afterwards, sometime in the 1780s, Lord Scarsdale passed the copy holding of the house and buildings at Park Farm to John Tempest. In this way, the Tempests took control of the house and much of the land that was later to become Park Farm.

3. The Brown Family: 1814 to 1850

From about 1800, Juda and Thomas Brown occupied the house at Park Farm. Juda (Judith) was a Tempest. She was born in 1780, the eldest child of John Tempest, a yeoman farmer and his wife Elizabeth (nee Webster). They lived at Windley, north of Duffield.  Juda’s father died when she was twelve and she had an illegitimate child when she was 16, a son Thomas Tempest. He was brought up by her mother and with her siblings. Juda’s youngest brother was born a few months after their father died, i.e. he was 5 when Juda’s son Thomas was born.

Juda was married in 1798 when she was nearly 18 to Thomas Brown (born 1775).  They married in St Alkmunds on Aug. 8th 1798 when her son was 19 months.  Thomas Tempest never lived with them, nor did he take the name Brown. He lived in Little Eaton and Holbrook all his life and had a big family of his own.

The Tempests were beginning to acquire land in Eaton Park, so Juda and Thomas may well have been given Park Farm to live in by Juda’s brother, John Tempest, or by Juda’s grandmother and by John Woollatt (Juda’s step grandfather).  A third possible way in which the Browns came to Park Farm was through Dorothy Webster Trowell, the daughter of William Woollatt, who was copyholder of land near to the house in the Park and a relation of Juda’s Mother.

Dorothy Trowell was only 12 years older than Juda, had also recently married and had a baby girl (Elizabeth, born 1798).  She and her husband John Trowell lived at The Outwoods, the grand house less than a mile from Park Farm, with many servants. They owned significant amounts of property in Little Eaton and elsewhere. John Trowell died in 1802. Thomas Brown rented some of Mrs Trowell’s fields in Little Eaton. The Browns and the Trowells were in close contact for the rest of their lives, Thomas becoming her Bailiff and some of the Brown children servants and employees.

Juda and Thomas’ first four children were born in Little Eaton, baptised at St Alkmunds, Duffield. Their next 5 children Mary, Lucy, Alice, Maria and Ann were baptised at Holy Trinity Church, Kirk Ireton and their “residence” was given as “Millfields”. Their father’s occupation given as “farmer”.  (Millfields is now holiday cottages near Carsington Water and the farm probably beneath of the water.) Mary, born 1806 died in 1811, aged 5. Although she was buried at Holy Trinity Church, Kirk Ireton, her address at time of death is given as Windley.

Maybe she was with her grandmother while her mother was pregnant with baby number 8. It is unclear why they went to Kirk Ireton during these years. Mrs Trowell and her daughter had also moved (to Ashbourne).  These two moves could be related.

In 1814 the Browns’ two youngest daughters at the time, Maria and Ann, died within a week of each other.  The babies were buried back in Duffield at St Alkmunds and the Browns moved back to Little Eaton at about the same time.

The Browns added to the population of Little Eaton (395 in 1801 and 501 in 1831) by having 5 more children, all baptised at St Paul’s Little Eaton. Maria and Ann, the names of the babies who died, were used again for Maria, born 1819 and their last child Ann, born 1824. It is to be wondered how the family all fitted into Park Farm, described later as having three rooms downstairs and three rooms upstairs. There was also a cellar down stone steps. By the time Ann was born in 1824 some of her older brothers and sisters would have left home. Juda, Lucy, Alice and later John and William were living and working at Thornhill, Markeaton with Mrs Trowell and her daughter.

From 1812 to 1830s the Tempests were becoming Copyholders of more and more fields in Eaton Park and Thomas Brown became their main tenant farmer. Thomas Tatum had also just paid £650 to 2 Radford sisters for the Upper Lees (10 acres) which he then let to Thomas Brown. Thomas Brown was listed as a farmer of 80 acres in Little Eaton in 1833. 

In the 1830s, the present Park Farm may have been known as the Outwoods Farm.  In 1838 when Hannah, the Browns’ second daughter married Rev. Wm. Wootton, a Baptist Minister, the marriage announcement said “daughter of Thomas Brown of the Outwoods Farm.”

In 1845 the Church Commissioners in London took over 100 acres of Eaton Park, including Park Farm.  They let all of this land to William and Thomas Tempest who continued to sub-let to Thomas Brown.

Thomas Brown was on the register of persons entitled to vote (at Outwoods) in 1835 and 1847 (in Little Eaton) in Kelly’s Directory of 1848. (The Reform Act of 1832 entitled men who occupied property with an annual value of £10 or more to vote. About 1 in 7 of the male population).

In 1845, Park Farm, now with the address Magpie Hill, an address used by later residents at the farm, was described as :-
“House, buildings, yard and Near Park.  Small farmhouse, stone and thatch.
3 rooms below and 3 above in moderate repair.
Barn, 3 bays, stone and thatch and small cowshed.”

Juda, Thomas and their youngest child Ann were in close contact with those of their family who were at Thornhill and were there for the 1841 Census. John, their son, farmed here for many years from 1840 onwards. They may have been visiting him at the time of the Census as they were back at Park Farm soon after.

Thomas died in 1849.  In the 1851 Census, Park Farm, now 94 acres was recorded as run by a 70-year old widow called Jude Brown. Living with her were her newly married daughter, Ann and son-in-law John Brickwood, a telegraph engineer.  There was also a farm worker called John Wheeldon living in.

Although she isn’t at Park Farm on the 1851 Census, Elizabeth Chambers, a 16-year old servant is recorded as dying at Park Farm in 1852, buried at St Paul’s; residence Park Farm.  In the 1851 Census she is recorded as a housemaid in the household of John Tempest, Paper Manufacturer of Little Eaton. She had recently arrived with the Tempest family from Leicestershire.

Between 1814 and 1850, Juda and Thomas Brown, who started by renting a few fields had created a substantial farm of nearly a hundred acres to pass on to their daughter and son in law.

4. The Brickwood Family

Juda Brown died in 1853. The farm was taken over by her daughter Ann and son-in-law John Brickwood, now calling himself a farmer and telegraph officer.  They continued to run it until about 1864 when the family moved back to Markeaton.

The Brickwoods had three sons (one, James, died aged 3) and 4 daughters in Little Eaton and a further daughter after they left and went back to Thornhill farm in Markeaton.  Their oldest son, Jude’s grandson Thomas, farmed at Thornhill with his Uncle John. The Brickwoods had joined him by 1870 and took over the farm when John (Brown) died in 1875. On the 1871 Census Thornhill farm s recorded as being 90 acres. John Brickwood died there in 1886 and Ann in 1897.  Son Thomas farmed at Thornhill until 1911 and died in 1917.

All the Brickwood children married between 1880 and 1900 in Mackworth, Derby or Little Eaton.

 5. The Robinson Family

 Soon after the Brickwood family left in 1864, Park Farm was taken over by Hiram Robinson and his wife Mary. We can find no reference to them on the 1871 Census but Kelly’s Directory gives Hiram as a farmer in Little Eaton in 1864 and in 1870.

There is also a report of him, a farmer from Little Eaton, serving on a jury at the Derbyshire July sessions in 1867(the foreman was John Tempest and other jurors from Little Eaton included Thomas Pratt and Joseph Tatum.)

There are however 2 confusing newspaper reports in the Derby Mercury of Auctions of farming stock at Park Farm, Little Eaton.  The first is on 17th Nov 1875 and mentions the late Thomas Robinson. The same advert is repeated in the next two editions of the newspaper. Were Thomas and Hiram the same person?  Or is this Hiram’s father who was called Thomas and was also a farmer?

The next record of the Robinsons was in newspaper advertisements in March 1880.

These adverts relate to the sale of farming stock at Park Farm, Little Eaton, instructed by Mrs Robinson (“who is declining farming”). Whether this was Mrs Thomas Robinson (Hiram’s Mother) or Mrs Mary Robinson (Hiram’s wife), it is known that the Robinsons left Park Farm by 1880.

6. The Hastie Family

In about 1879, the farm was taken over by the Hastie family.  John Hastie, his wife Isabella and five of their children were born in Berwickshire.  They then moved to Buckinghamshire where they had three more children before moving to Shottle (where they were neighbours of the Tempests in Windley). Their eldest son, Thomas, had moved back to Scotland and their youngest daughter died as a baby. The rest of the family came to Park Farm, recorded as a farm of 102 acres with the address as “Park Farm, Magpie Hill”. They all lived and worked at Park Farm for the next 20 years.  Two farm workers were employed in the early years.

John Hastie became an important figure in the village, acting as a member and then Vice Chairman of the village School Board. Col. Noel from The Outwoods was chairman. George Thums was also on the school board.  By the 1891 census John was 70 and Isabella was 55.  His son John married the daughter of a farmer in Turnditch but continued to live with his parents at Park Farm while his wife lived in Turnditch. Despite this arrangement, they had four children, the eldest of which, William, lived at Park Farm – he later had an adventurous life in the army and as a planter in Malaya. (William came back to Little Eaton in 1909 to attend the funeral of his father, who was killed by a horse while working at Elms Farm).  Elizabeth was an elementary school teacher who married and moved to Nottingham. Isabella lived with Eva Green, a teacher at Little Eaton school. Alexander and Michael moved back to Scotland. Alfred moved away but came back to marry Alice Tomlinson, another teacher at the school.

By 1901 the Hastie family had moved out with John living with his wife, two sons and a daughter in Alfreton Road.  Isabella died in 1902 and John died in 1914. They are buried at St Paul’s.

7. The Yates Family

The farm was taken over by William Yates in 1901. William was 26, a farmer’s son from Ednaston who had worked on his father’s farm and as a labourer with a neighbour so he was an experienced farmer. He lived with his unmarried sister Mary and two cattlemen, Percy Withering (aged 23) and Frank Bull (aged 17). In 1905 Mary married Charles Hancock of Brailsford and moved out. William married Annie in 1907. 

In 1910, a list of “Duties on Land Values on Properties in Little Eaton” was compiled and signed by George Tomlinson Thums of Church Farm, L.E. giving: William Yates occupier of “Little Eaton Parks” owned by the Church Commissioners.  104 acres, value £167.

By 1911, William Yates was 36. He and Ann (27) had a daughter, Margaret (aged 3). There were 3 servants living in the house with them: William Hawksworth (25) a waggoner, Arthur Bishop (21), a cowman and Marie Jolley (17), a general domestic. Later, William Hawksworth and Marie Jolley married.  Their grandson, Gordon William Hawksworth and his wife now live in Allestree.

The Yates family lived at Park Farm for 20 years. Their daughter Margaret married Samuel Crowther in 1936. (The family is not connected to the William Everard Yates who died of wounds in 1918 aged 21 and is buried in St Paul’s churchyard).

In 1917 (in the middle of the war) Mrs Yates advertised for a “respectable girl” to work at Park Farm.

In the early 1920s William and Annie were still at Park Farm and were both on the register of electors. But by July 1920 there was a notice of a forthcoming sale of Park Farm in the Derby Advertiser: By Jan.1921 there was a Sale of Stock Notice “the farm having been sold”, and another on Feb 16th 1921.

In 1921, the farm was sold by the Church Commissioners to George Thums, a farmer and butcher from the village.  The Yates family had to move out and there are newspaper advertisements for the sale of their stock: 42 cattle, 7 horses, 10 sheep and some poultry. William was only in his mid-40s and may have moved back to his father’s farm in Ednaston.

 While the Yates family lived at Park Farm it was still fairly isolated. The only building on Vicarage Lane were the Church, the Parish rooms, a private house belonging to Percy Currey and the Vicarage (Rev M.S. Bayliss). The Vicarage was built in 1860 and gave the lane its name. The Hatherings was built by Mr Currey in 1911 and Heiron’s Wood was built in 1924. There was only a track up to Park Farm with allotments on the left after Heiron’s Wood.

8. The Thums Family

George Thums was born in 1841 and came to Derbyshire from Nottinghamshire in about 1860. He married Elizabeth Wilkinson in Derby in 1864. Their first three children were born in Derby.  They moved to Little Eaton in about 1870, living first in Millwards Lane and then Alfreton Road. George was a butcher. The couple settled on the Alfreton road and had five more children. George, Herbert, Millicent, Ada, Arthur, Henry and Frederick are all mentioned as pupils of Little Eaton school in 1881. Joseph died aged 7 months.

In 1921, George bought Park Farm and Henry, now married to Harriet and living at Park view, moved in.

The family grew to include Arthur and Mary (Mary and her husband John Laurence Easter were John Easter’s parents).  Meanwhile, Henry’s brother Arthur took over Church Farm in the village (now the Long Barn and the Stone Barn).  The two families lived in the two farms (known locally as Top Farm and Bottom Farm) until the late 1930s when Arthur died. Park Farm was sold and Henry and Harriet moved to Church Farm.  Their children had married by then but lived nearby and continued to help to run the farm and the butcher’s shop.

The Kinder Family

In the late 1930s the farm was bought from the Thums by Garford Lilley, a wealthy businessman from Derby. At the same time, he bought The Outwoods nearby (see separate article on the Outwoods).  When he bought it, Garford Lilley probably ran Outwoods and Park Farm as one enterprise with managers rather than tenants occupying the house at Park Farm.

By 1939 the farm house was occupied by two unmarried brothers:  Frederick Kinder (age 30) and Albert Kinder (age 28).  They remained at the farm during the war years but moved on shortly afterwards. They continued to act as agricultural contractors in the village until the 1960s.  Frederick later married and had a daughter.  His wife and daughter moved to Stanley Common.

The Essex Family

We know little of the Essex family, other than they lived at the farm during the late 1940s and early 1950s.  There were five children, four boys (George, David, Kenny and Graham). Another boy was born after they left Park farm. They then moved to Home Farm, next to The Outwoods.

11. The Redfern Family

In 1952, Garford Lilley sold Park Farm house, buildings and about 40 acres of land to Albert Redfern and his wife.  In 1958 Albert retired and the farm was taken over by their son Peter and his wife Doreen.  They had two daughters, Heather and Catherine (later Stead).  The Redferns farmed Park farm and lived there for the next half century.

12. The Hunter Family

In 2010 the barn and house were divided into two lots.  The barn was bought by Rob and Marie Clifford and converted into a separate dwelling.  The house was sold to Philip and Ruth Hunter. Some of the land was retained by the Redfern family.

The farm house was refurbished in 2011 and let first to Gail and Laurie Bryant and then to Matt Hill and Kaye Forster. In 2015, the house and garage were extended and the Hunters moved in to live there in 2015.

Ruth and Philip Hunter

 NOTES:

1. We are grateful to John and Janet Easter and Mike Bagworth for their help in compiling this account, and to John Hunter for the artist’s impression.

2. This record is far from complete and may not be entirely accurate.  We would welcome corrections or additions addressed to Philip Hunter using our contact form. CONTACT