Church Farm, Great Linford
Church Farm, Great Linford.
Church Farm is located at the top of a private drive adjacent to St. Andrew's school on the west side of Great Linford High Street. It is one of only two farmhouses originally on the High Street to have survived into modern times, the other being The Cottage. The book A Guide to the Historic Buildings of Milton Keynes (1986, Paul Woodfield, Milton Keynes Development Corporation) offers the following description of the farmhouse.
Farmhouse of the 17th century, stone built with a tiled roof. Three bays with a cross passage between the left two bays, to the rear of the stack. The right end bay may be an addition beyond a second gable stack. Modern panelled door and windows. Three rendered brick buttresses have been added to the front.
There is one other surviving part of the farmstead, a thatched barn that that was subsumed into the grounds of St. Andrew’s School in July 1975.
Church Farm barn, now part of St. Andrew's School.
Benjamin Pavyer
We can confidently identify one of Church Farm’s tenants in the early 1800s, thanks to an Indenture document (Buckinghamshire Archives DX-2228) drawn up in 1808 by the Uthwatts of Great Linford Manor. This document does not name Church Farm (or any other farm for that matter), but it does provide a list of some of the farmers in the parish renting from the Uthwatts and the field names and total acreage included with each tenancy. Armed with this information, we can cross reference with the 1840 tithe map (Buckinghamshire Archives Tithe/255) for the parish, which also provides the field names associated with each of the farms, but with the added benefit that the map unambiguously locates each farm in the landscape.
The tithe map does not name Church Farm, but it is clearly identifiable (the "house and homestead" is numbered as 90 on the map), and four fields totaling 57 acres in the tenure of a Benjamin Pavyer in 1808 can be exactly matched to four corresponding fields totalling 56 acres on the tithe map. These were named Home Close (#39) Oat Ground (#38), Elm Ground (#37) and Far Ground (#35.) The land associated with Church Farm, all of which in 1840 was designated for grazing, can be seen below on an extract from the tithe map. Fields are numbered as above, and dwellings are coloured red, outbuildings in grey.
The tithe map does not name Church Farm, but it is clearly identifiable (the "house and homestead" is numbered as 90 on the map), and four fields totaling 57 acres in the tenure of a Benjamin Pavyer in 1808 can be exactly matched to four corresponding fields totalling 56 acres on the tithe map. These were named Home Close (#39) Oat Ground (#38), Elm Ground (#37) and Far Ground (#35.) The land associated with Church Farm, all of which in 1840 was designated for grazing, can be seen below on an extract from the tithe map. Fields are numbered as above, and dwellings are coloured red, outbuildings in grey.
1840 tithe map of Great Linford (Tithe/255) showing Church Farm. From the collections of Buckinghamshire Archives and reproduced with permission.
The indenture also mentions a messuage (an old word for a dwelling) or tenement in the occupation of Benjamin, so it seems almost certain that he was living at Church Farm, though it was unlikely to have then been called that, or indeed that it even had a name. As to Benjamin, we know little of his farming career, except for the crucial detail that in 1829, he was forced to sell up under a “distress for rent”, indicating that he had fallen on hard times, as this was essentially the right of a landlord to seize and sell items to recover unpaid rent. The sale notice carried in the Northampton Mercury of November 14th, 1829, makes clear the dire situation, the list of lots including not only his farm stock and equipment, but his furniture and even the firewood!
Above, notice of auction under distress for rent. Reproduced with permission of the British Library Board.
However, Benjamin was clearly an adaptable fellow, for it seems that he subsequently reinvented himself as a teacher, and by the time of the 1841 census was living at the schoolhouse located at the centre of the almshouses in the manor park. For more on the life of Benjamin Pavyer, click here.
William Jefferson
Turning back to the 1840 tithe map, this normally helpful document raises more questions than answers. The cartographer of the map clearly went to great pains to attempt an accurate depiction of the buildings in the village, but it is immediately noticeable that in the case of Church Farm, the farmhouse depicted is a poor match. It is much smaller than the present property, though as previously mentioned, A Guide to the Historic Buildings of Milton Keynes does allude to an undated extension having taken place.
The ownership is ascribed to the Lord of the Manor Henry Andrewes Uthwatt, and the occupation to a William Jefferson, which also presents something of a problem, as the name Jefferson appears in no other record that can be found in connection to Great Linford, even the 1841 census. There is however a William Jefferson, born circa 1798 recorded on the 1841 census at Tickford End in nearby Newport Pagnell. He was a maltster, meaning he was involved in the brewing trade. There are a number of records for the name William Jefferson in Newport Pagnell, but there is nothing that definitively links him or any of his kin to Great Linford, though William could well have been “occupying” the farm in name only, with someone else running the day-to-day affairs there on his behalf.
If a resident of Church Farm did receive a knock on the door from the census taker in 1841, identifying that tenant is nigh-on impossible, as the census lacks any identifiable address information; everyone is simply a resident of the village. It is possible to look at a census and try to divine the route the enumerator took house to house, but attempting this with the Great Linford census provides only half satisfactory results, and even cross-referencing to the 1840 tithe map is far from reliable, as it is clear the enumerator took a rather indeterminate path. Matters are further hindered by the fact that not everyone living in the village would have been liable to pay tithes.
The 1851 census has 10 persons identified as farmers or graziers, but all can either be associated with other farmsteads, or otherwise discounted as connected with Church Farm. Trade directories in this period are equally unilluminating, though the 1853 Musson & Craven’s directory offers the name of a farmer, Edward Jefferson. He cannot for now be connected categorically to any farmstead in Great Linford, but the surname Jefferson is an intriguing one, as it hints at a connection to the aforementioned William Jefferson. Indeed, an Edward Jefferson was born to a William and Sarah Jefferson at Newport Pagnell on March 16th, 1798. This clearly represents a plausible match. Edward was to be found at Sherington, Buckinghamshire, on the 1851 census, recorded as a farmer, which certainly does not invalidate the working theory that he was also associated with Church Farm, as it is not unknown for tenant farmers to occupy two or more farms at the same time in different parishes or even counties. As a final piece of circumstantial evidence, Edward died in 1854, and does not appear on the Kelly’s trade directory published that year for Great Linford.
All the farmers named in the 1861 census can be excluded as tenants of Church Farm, though the Kelly’s trade directory of 1864 includes a farmer named John Harrell and a Mrs Martha Holmes, a grazier, neither of whom can be associated with any specific farmstead in the parish. Either might then have been the occupant of Church Farm, but both prove rather enigmatic, appearing on no other record for Great Linford or for anywhere else that can be positively identified. The situation does not become much clearer in the following decades, with neither census records, trade directories or newspapers providing any clarity on the tenants of Church Farm.
In 1881, the Ordnance Survey produced the first 25 inch to the mile map of the parish, and Church Farm is clearly visible, the depicted footprint of the building much more in keeping with the farmhouse of today, and with a well indicated, which can be still seen today from the High Street. Notably, it appears that the barn has already become part of the school’s property. Click here to view the 1881 OS map.
The ownership is ascribed to the Lord of the Manor Henry Andrewes Uthwatt, and the occupation to a William Jefferson, which also presents something of a problem, as the name Jefferson appears in no other record that can be found in connection to Great Linford, even the 1841 census. There is however a William Jefferson, born circa 1798 recorded on the 1841 census at Tickford End in nearby Newport Pagnell. He was a maltster, meaning he was involved in the brewing trade. There are a number of records for the name William Jefferson in Newport Pagnell, but there is nothing that definitively links him or any of his kin to Great Linford, though William could well have been “occupying” the farm in name only, with someone else running the day-to-day affairs there on his behalf.
If a resident of Church Farm did receive a knock on the door from the census taker in 1841, identifying that tenant is nigh-on impossible, as the census lacks any identifiable address information; everyone is simply a resident of the village. It is possible to look at a census and try to divine the route the enumerator took house to house, but attempting this with the Great Linford census provides only half satisfactory results, and even cross-referencing to the 1840 tithe map is far from reliable, as it is clear the enumerator took a rather indeterminate path. Matters are further hindered by the fact that not everyone living in the village would have been liable to pay tithes.
The 1851 census has 10 persons identified as farmers or graziers, but all can either be associated with other farmsteads, or otherwise discounted as connected with Church Farm. Trade directories in this period are equally unilluminating, though the 1853 Musson & Craven’s directory offers the name of a farmer, Edward Jefferson. He cannot for now be connected categorically to any farmstead in Great Linford, but the surname Jefferson is an intriguing one, as it hints at a connection to the aforementioned William Jefferson. Indeed, an Edward Jefferson was born to a William and Sarah Jefferson at Newport Pagnell on March 16th, 1798. This clearly represents a plausible match. Edward was to be found at Sherington, Buckinghamshire, on the 1851 census, recorded as a farmer, which certainly does not invalidate the working theory that he was also associated with Church Farm, as it is not unknown for tenant farmers to occupy two or more farms at the same time in different parishes or even counties. As a final piece of circumstantial evidence, Edward died in 1854, and does not appear on the Kelly’s trade directory published that year for Great Linford.
All the farmers named in the 1861 census can be excluded as tenants of Church Farm, though the Kelly’s trade directory of 1864 includes a farmer named John Harrell and a Mrs Martha Holmes, a grazier, neither of whom can be associated with any specific farmstead in the parish. Either might then have been the occupant of Church Farm, but both prove rather enigmatic, appearing on no other record for Great Linford or for anywhere else that can be positively identified. The situation does not become much clearer in the following decades, with neither census records, trade directories or newspapers providing any clarity on the tenants of Church Farm.
In 1881, the Ordnance Survey produced the first 25 inch to the mile map of the parish, and Church Farm is clearly visible, the depicted footprint of the building much more in keeping with the farmhouse of today, and with a well indicated, which can be still seen today from the High Street. Notably, it appears that the barn has already become part of the school’s property. Click here to view the 1881 OS map.
William John Short
William John Short and his family arrived in Great Linford sometime between 1899 and 1901, having secured the tenancy of Church Farm. William had been born circa 1858 in Nash, Buckinghamshire, but had moved to London as a young man, where he found work as a wheelwright. He married Elizabeth Catherine Townsend at St. Pancras in 1885, and the couple would go on to have six children between 1886 and 1889. The first five were born in London, but their last child, a daughter, Jessie, was born in 1899 at Woolstone in Buckinghamshire.
Why William chose to relocate back to Buckinghamshire and what he was doing in Woolstone is unknown, but the birth of Jessie allows us to pin down their arrival in Great Linford as sometime between 1899 and 1901, as the census of 1901 finds them at Church Farm. This is also the first time the farm is named as such in a census record. William had a full house in 1901, with nine people listed on the census. Aside from himself and his wife, there were their six children, William, aged 14, James, aged 13, Edith, aged nine, Nellie, aged seven, Richard, aged four and Jessie, aged one. Rounding out the household is William’s 66-year-old widowed mother Emma.
William is omitted from the 1903 Kelly’s trade directory for the village but is acknowledged in the 1907 edition. In 1910, a Valuation Office Survey map was produced for the parish (Buckinghamshire Archives DVD/2/X/5), similar to the 1840 tithe map in that it provides a list of owners and occupiers of properties and land in the village. Church Farm is clearly visible and named in the accompanying index. The owner is named as William Uthwatt and the occupier as William Short. The extent of land parceled up with the farmstead has almost doubled from the figure reported in 1840, to 105 acres, with a value of £133. Significantly, the land (labelled as 33) associated with the farm now includes an area abutting St. Andrew’s Church, including land given over as glebe for church use, so very possibly the name Church Farm was adopted when the acreage of the farm was increased sometime between 1840 and 1910.
Why William chose to relocate back to Buckinghamshire and what he was doing in Woolstone is unknown, but the birth of Jessie allows us to pin down their arrival in Great Linford as sometime between 1899 and 1901, as the census of 1901 finds them at Church Farm. This is also the first time the farm is named as such in a census record. William had a full house in 1901, with nine people listed on the census. Aside from himself and his wife, there were their six children, William, aged 14, James, aged 13, Edith, aged nine, Nellie, aged seven, Richard, aged four and Jessie, aged one. Rounding out the household is William’s 66-year-old widowed mother Emma.
William is omitted from the 1903 Kelly’s trade directory for the village but is acknowledged in the 1907 edition. In 1910, a Valuation Office Survey map was produced for the parish (Buckinghamshire Archives DVD/2/X/5), similar to the 1840 tithe map in that it provides a list of owners and occupiers of properties and land in the village. Church Farm is clearly visible and named in the accompanying index. The owner is named as William Uthwatt and the occupier as William Short. The extent of land parceled up with the farmstead has almost doubled from the figure reported in 1840, to 105 acres, with a value of £133. Significantly, the land (labelled as 33) associated with the farm now includes an area abutting St. Andrew’s Church, including land given over as glebe for church use, so very possibly the name Church Farm was adopted when the acreage of the farm was increased sometime between 1840 and 1910.
Valuation Office Survey map 1910 (DVD/2/X/5) showing Church Farm and land numbered 33, shaded light green. From the collection of Buckinghamshire Archives and reproduced with permission.
Little can be found on the Shorts relating to their time at Church Farm, but there were two tragedies in quick succession, with the death of two of their children. Nellie Christina Short passed away in September 1903 at the age of ten, and Edith Annie Short died in April 1908, aged 17. Happily, there was something to celebrate in 1914, with the marriage of William John Short Jnr to Jessie Austin of Marsh Farm.
We know the Shorts were registered to vote at Church Farm as they appear on the electoral rolls of 1918 through to 1922, but their tenancy appears to have passed without incident or remark in local newspapers. They are recorded on the 1921 census, which does not (as is usual for this document) provide an address, with William describing himself as a farmer on his own account, so working for himself.
The Shorts departed Church Farm circa 1923, but this did not quite signal the end of their connection to the village, as the Kelly’s trade directory of 1924 reveals that they have moved only a short distance away within the parish, to Wood End Farm, which as the name implies, was located at the north end of Linford Wood. They were there until circa 1926 before moving on again. William is to be subsequently found on the 1939 register, a mini survey conducted on the eve of World War II, where he is described as a retired farmer, living alongside his farmer son Richard and daughter Jessie. Their address is Cold Harbour Farm in Woburn, where William passed away at the age of 85 in 1943, his wife Elizabeth having predeceased him in 1929.
We know the Shorts were registered to vote at Church Farm as they appear on the electoral rolls of 1918 through to 1922, but their tenancy appears to have passed without incident or remark in local newspapers. They are recorded on the 1921 census, which does not (as is usual for this document) provide an address, with William describing himself as a farmer on his own account, so working for himself.
The Shorts departed Church Farm circa 1923, but this did not quite signal the end of their connection to the village, as the Kelly’s trade directory of 1924 reveals that they have moved only a short distance away within the parish, to Wood End Farm, which as the name implies, was located at the north end of Linford Wood. They were there until circa 1926 before moving on again. William is to be subsequently found on the 1939 register, a mini survey conducted on the eve of World War II, where he is described as a retired farmer, living alongside his farmer son Richard and daughter Jessie. Their address is Cold Harbour Farm in Woburn, where William passed away at the age of 85 in 1943, his wife Elizabeth having predeceased him in 1929.
Ashley William Elmer
The electoral rolls provide a new name at Church Farm in 1923, Ashley William Elmer. He was born on October 29th, 1888, at Oving, Buckinghamshire, to an agricultural labourer named Thomas and his wife Mary, nee Hartwell. By the time of the 1911 census, and still living with parents, Ashely had found work as a farm labourer. He was still at Oving by the time of the next census in 1921 but had arrived at Church Farm by at least 1923. He was still single, but perhaps feeling his prospects had improved, he married an Emma Berril Franklin from Loughton, Buckinghamshire the following year.
The couple had two children at Great Linford, Mary in 1924 and Thomas in 1927, but something clearly went wrong for the family that year, as on April 13th, the live and dead stock of the farm was put up for sale, along with various items of agricultural equipment. We know this was no ordinary sale, as a poster advertising it survives (Buckinghamshire Archives D_201/76) that describes it as taking place under a “distress for rent", the same fate that befell Benjamin Pavyer in 1829. We do not know (and may never know) what misfortune had befallen the Elmers, but we can presume that the sale had been arranged by William Rupert Edolph Andrewes Uthwatt.
The couple had two children at Great Linford, Mary in 1924 and Thomas in 1927, but something clearly went wrong for the family that year, as on April 13th, the live and dead stock of the farm was put up for sale, along with various items of agricultural equipment. We know this was no ordinary sale, as a poster advertising it survives (Buckinghamshire Archives D_201/76) that describes it as taking place under a “distress for rent", the same fate that befell Benjamin Pavyer in 1829. We do not know (and may never know) what misfortune had befallen the Elmers, but we can presume that the sale had been arranged by William Rupert Edolph Andrewes Uthwatt.
Church farm for sale poster (D_201/76.) From the collections of Buckinghamshire Archives and reproduced with permission.
Having lost the tenancy of Church Farm, the Elmers appear to have relocated to Great Woolstone in Buckinghamshire, as a daughter, Dorothy May Elmer was born there in 1928, but tragically died as a newborn. The family are to be found at Loughton on the 1939 register, with Ashley employed as a “public works labourer.”
Arthur Moseley
Meanwhile, a new tenant had arrived at Church Farm. Arthur Moseley, who is to be found on the 1928 electoral roll alongside his wife Charlotte. Arthur had been born circa 1881 at Newport Pagnell and by 1911 was working as a bricklayer’s labourer. He had married Charlotte Louise Hart in 1898, who had moved from London with her daughter Florence Edith Hart. Arthur and Charlotte had three children of their own together, Dorothy Maud in 1898, Norah Louise in 1904 and Emily Kathleen in 1908.
In 1929, Dorothy, having attained the age of 30, became eligible to vote, hence her inclusion on the electoral roll that year. Her two siblings may also have been resident at Church Farm as neither were married, but as they were not yet themselves eligible to vote, we cannot be sure as to their exact whereabouts. The following year, a Percy Arthur Bonar is registered at Church Farm. It is impossible to tell what had brought him to the farm, perhaps he was a labourer who had come there to work, but one way or the other, he must have made an impression on Dorothy, as they were married in 1931.
Exactly how long the Moseleys remained at Church Farm is unclear. Arthur and his wife are registered to vote at the address in 1931, but this is the last electoral roll presently available to check. We know they were gone by 1939, though not from the village, as the register compiled that year places them at number 1, Station Terrace, where in an unexpected change of career, Arthur is now described as a manservant.
In 1929, Dorothy, having attained the age of 30, became eligible to vote, hence her inclusion on the electoral roll that year. Her two siblings may also have been resident at Church Farm as neither were married, but as they were not yet themselves eligible to vote, we cannot be sure as to their exact whereabouts. The following year, a Percy Arthur Bonar is registered at Church Farm. It is impossible to tell what had brought him to the farm, perhaps he was a labourer who had come there to work, but one way or the other, he must have made an impression on Dorothy, as they were married in 1931.
Exactly how long the Moseleys remained at Church Farm is unclear. Arthur and his wife are registered to vote at the address in 1931, but this is the last electoral roll presently available to check. We know they were gone by 1939, though not from the village, as the register compiled that year places them at number 1, Station Terrace, where in an unexpected change of career, Arthur is now described as a manservant.
Leonard Cecil Watkins
As to Church Farm, the next farmer we can associate with it is Leonard Cecil Watkins, who is recorded there on the 1939 register, along with his wife Margery May Watkins, nee Russell. Leonard had been born at Falfield, Gloucestershire on November 9th, 1902; his wife was also a native of Gloucester, born May 14th, 1908. As an interesting aside, a comment penciled into the margin of the 1939 register notes that Leonard is a member of the A.R.P, meaning an air raid precautions warden. He is also recorded as a dairy farmer, on his own account. We do not know when the Watkins arrived at Church Farm, but the Northampton Mercury of December 2nd, 1938, records that an L.C. Watkins took a prize for his pigs at that year’s local Christmas agricultural show. Though it does not provide his place of business, we can presume this to be the same person.
We can find sundry references to the Watkins in newspapers throughout most of the 1940s, with Leonard winning various other prizes at agricultural shows, and Margery taking a keen interest in district nursing. For instance, in the Wolverton Express of May 19th, 1944, she is mentioned in connection to the Great Linford branch of the New Bradwell Nursing Association. She is mentioned again (Wolverton Express, July 6th, 1945) helping to organise local fundraising for a charitable event known as the Alexandra Rose Day. However, the Wolverton Express of June 7th, 1946, reported on her retirement from fund-raising activities, and hereafter mentions of the Watkins at Great Linford cease, perhaps intimating that the couple had moved away.
We can find sundry references to the Watkins in newspapers throughout most of the 1940s, with Leonard winning various other prizes at agricultural shows, and Margery taking a keen interest in district nursing. For instance, in the Wolverton Express of May 19th, 1944, she is mentioned in connection to the Great Linford branch of the New Bradwell Nursing Association. She is mentioned again (Wolverton Express, July 6th, 1945) helping to organise local fundraising for a charitable event known as the Alexandra Rose Day. However, the Wolverton Express of June 7th, 1946, reported on her retirement from fund-raising activities, and hereafter mentions of the Watkins at Great Linford cease, perhaps intimating that the couple had moved away.
Undated picture of Church Farm from the air, perhaps circa 1970.
John Cook
Little is presently known about John Cook, but he may have been the last farmer of Church Farm, and appears to have been engaged in rearing Turkeys. A Cook family, headed by a Francis George Cook were also associated with Lodge Farm at around the same time, and there was a son named John born 1938. A John Cook was certainly resident at Church Farm in 1962, as he is mentioned by name in the Wolverton Express of November 30th, which reported that the fire brigade had been called out early in the morning of the the 29th to deal with a blaze that had broken out near an "electric grain drying plant" near to the farm. The damage was minimal but many tons of grain and barley were saturated with water.
Turkeys on the move, Great Linford High Street. Undated photo.
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