Kirtling: Economic history

ECONOMIC HISTORY.

In 1086, with 20 teams at work, Kirtling had perhaps over three quarters of its land under the plough, (fn. 1) a higher proportion than the other parishes of Cheveley hundred. The open fields evidently extended over most of the centre and east of the parish, with areas of woodland and wood-pasture mainly confined to the northern, western, and south-eastern boundaries. In common with other East Anglian field systems, the furlongs were more significant as subdivisions of the arable than the fields, whose number and names changed frequently. By the 16th century much of the demesne arable lay in large pieces of between 3 a. and 30 a., but the manorial tenants, whether freehold or copyhold, still had their open-field arable mainly in conventionally sized strips of 1 a. or less until parliamentary inclosure. (fn. 2) A three-course rotation of crops was enforced on leaseholders as well as by manorial custom. (fn. 3) Much open-field land in the centre and south of the parish was inclosed before the 1580s, though not all of it became permanent pasture. Of the 1,485 a. on the Kirtling estate's tenanted farms in 1791, for example, 40 per cent was inclosed arable, 24 per cent open-field arable, and 36 per cent under grass. (fn. 4) Pasture closes were concentrated in the south of the parish and in the old and new parks in the northwest, where the new park incorporated the former 'cow leasure' (cow pasture), so named in 1567. (fn. 5) Small meadow, alongside one of the streams in the centre of the parish, was probably once divided into 41 allotments each 2 perches 2 ft. wide and held by villein tenure, but by 1588 the strips had been grouped into 14 lots. (fn. 6)

Agriculture in Kirtling has long been shaped by the existence of a great estate centred in the parish. The large home farm of Kirtling manor had four ploughs operated by slaves in 1086, a fifth of the ploughteams working in the parish. (fn. 7) After the Black Death the demesne was let for periods of up to nine years, in the 1390s apparently as a single stocked farm together with grazing in the park and woods, but in the 1410s separating the arable and the pasture. (fn. 8) The farm buildings were repaired in 1456. (fn. 9)

The successors of the 28 villani and 17 bordars recorded with 16 ploughs in 1086 (fn. 10) included many unfree tenants. The manor had 30 neifs in the early 14th century, when their labour services were worth 5s. a year each and consisted of 20 'works', 4 ploughings, and 4 autumn works. (fn. 11) Some mowing and reaping services were still exacted in the 1390s, when there were two classes of customary tenants, twelveacremen and sixacremen, probably holders of half and quarter yardlands. (fn. 12) In the 1440s and 1450s some half and even full yardlands were still identifiable as tenurial units, but other unfree holdings covered a wide range of sizes. (fn. 13) The manor was declared ancient demesne in 1397, a few weeks after Richard II gave it to Sir John Bussy, thus exempting its tenants from a variety of public dues and presumably encouraging the preservation of what became copyhold status. (fn. 14) Some copyholds were enfranchised in the 17th century, (fn. 15) but others formed the basis of quite large farms into the 18th, such as ones of 48 a. and 82 a. in 1777. (fn. 16) Several survived at inclosure in 1815, after which there were 155 a. of copyhold closes and 172 a. of allotted field land. (fn. 17) Traces of other medieval tenures survived in the later 15th century as scraps of land in the fields called molland and rent acres. (fn. 18)

In the 13th century some freeholds were reckoned as half or full yardlands (notionally 15 a. and 30 a. respectively), (fn. 19) but an active land market had led before 1300 to the creation of a few freehold estates as large as 50-100 a. (fn. 20) In 1327 a fifth of the taxpayers paid in the middle range of 1s.-2s. (fn. 21)

In the 15th century the wealthiest family was evidently the Parkers, who probably originated as the lord of the manor's park-keepers a century earlier. (fn. 22) From the 1430s to the 1450s Thomas Parker may have been the main lessee of the manor and held several public offices. (fn. 23) The family later declined or moved away, (fn. 24) though George Parker was resident lessee of Kirtling park in 1542 (fn. 25) and acquired a lease of rabbit warrens in Norfolk in 1546. (fn. 26)

An estate covering most of the parish was put together in the mid 16th century when the Norths combined the main manor with Bansteads and the rectory manor, (fn. 27) besides piecemeal acquisitions of half a dozen small freeholds, probably none larger than 50 a., between the 1540s and the 1570s. (fn. 28) At first the Norths let Bansteads (363 a. in 1542), Parsonage farm (the rectory land), the park, the woods, and the demesne separately. (fn. 29) The estate had 44 tenants on Kirtling manor and 14 on Bansteads in 1553. (fn. 30) The rental seems to have risen sharply from under £250 in 1602-3 to c. £500 in the 1610s, by when three quarters came from leases by indenture and the rest from annual tenancies. (fn. 31) In 1627 Lord North broke the 320-a. old park into six tenanted lots, (fn. 32) but most of the park was back in hand by 1653, when in all the Norths farmed 500 a. themselves. (fn. 33) The park was again let to tenants and under tillage until 1675, when 40 a. was put back to grass with the intention (apparently never fulfilled) of restoring the rest later. (fn. 34)

By 1668 the estate had 21 tenant farmers: four farms were let for between £40 and £70 a year, five for £10-£30, and eleven for less than £10. (fn. 35) The number of farms was reduced before 1696 to thirteen, of which two were let for £150 or more: Hill farm, created from 174 a. in the old park in 1685, and (probably) Hall farm. (fn. 36) The number remained about the same until the 20th century, though their sizes were frequently altered. For much of the 18th century there were four large and up to a dozen smaller farms, (fn. 37) but more careful management in the 1770s led the estate to consolidate some of them as the opportunity arose so that by 1781 there were two significantly larger holdings of 265 a. (Hill farm) and 505 a. (Hall farm). (fn. 38)

Several quite large freeholds survived alongside the Kirtling estate, including Edward Hovell's 162 a., sold in three portions between 1583 and 1590 to Walter Pratt. (fn. 39) Other landowners based in Kirtling had extensive interests elsewhere, such as Richard Derisley (d. 1592), of a family resident in the parish by the 1430s, who owned another house at Brandon Ferry (Suff.), had land in eight other parishes along the Suffolk-Cambridgeshire border south of Kirtling, and whose gun, crossbow, and hawk indicated a leisured and gentlemanly life style; (fn. 40) or Robert Higham, a gentleman who owned a small manor in Swavesey in the 1580s; (fn. 41) or William Ball (d. 1614), in the service of the 2nd Lord North until 1600, who left £2,300 among his wife and children. (fn. 42) Their counterparts later in the 17th century were the Crekes, Thomas (d. 1656) and his posthumously born grandson and namesake. (fn. 43) Related to the Derisleys, (fn. 44) the grandfather bought two small farms from the 3rd Lord North in 1612 (one of them once rented by his father, also Thomas), (fn. 45) and in 1643 was the second largest contributor to the Scots loan in the whole county. (fn. 46) The grandson occupied a house of nine or ten hearths in the 1660s and 1670s. (fn. 47)

Some owners of large estates outside Kirtling acquired farms there too. The Afflecks of Dalham Hall (Suff.), for example, bought Mill End farm in a parcel with a manor in Moulton (Suff.) in 1716 and evidently still owned it (82 a. after inclosure) until they sold off the whole Dalham estate in 1901. (fn. 48)

At inclosure in 1815 the earl of Guilford ended up with three fifths of the parish, 1,792 a.; three others had 175-205 a.: the Revd. Philip Williams, prebendary of Winchester cathedral (Moat farm at Upend, and Whybrows farm at Kirtling Green), George Dobito (Bansteads farm, received from the earl in an exchange, and land in Upend), and the glebe; five more had 80-130 a. (fn. 49)

After inclosure and the death in 1824 of the estate's biggest tenant, George Dobito of Hall farm, (fn. 50) the estate reorganized its land as three farms of over 350 a. (Hall farm, Parsonage farm, and Place farm), one of 250 a. (Hill farm), two of 150-200 a. (Oak farm and Pratts or Pratts Green farm), and a smallholding based on the Queen's Head inn. A separate farm of 100 a. (later called Lower farm) was created in Upend in the 1850s, but otherwise the units remained much the same until the Second World War, though the sizes were adjusted. The only other big farms, all tenanted, were Vicarage farm (174 a., often let to one of the estate's tenants), Bachelors Hall, Bansteads, Moat farm in Upend, and Upend Little farm. (fn. 51)

Sheep and corn were the mainstays of most farmers until the 20th century but dairying was also important in the 17th and 18th centuries. The flock on the manorial farm numbered 48 in 1086, (fn. 52) 220 in the late 14th century, (fn. 53) over 260 in 1562, (fn. 54) and up to 500 in the 1660s, the last two figures including new lambs. (fn. 55) The manorial sheepwalk was let to a tenant farmer after the Norths moved away from Kirtling Hall in 1677. (fn. 56) Tenants also kept sheep in the later Middle Ages, occasionally as many as 60. (fn. 57) Liberty of fold was attached to several freehold estates c. 1550, (fn. 58) but on the eve of inclosure owners of such rights could fold only fairly small numbers with the lord of the manor's sheep. (fn. 59) The total flock in 1793 was 600 Norfolks. (fn. 60) In the 1840s George Dobito, tenant of Hall farm, bred black-faced Suffolk rams. (fn. 61) Raising sheep remained important until the end of the 19th century, began a sharp decline after 1900, and lingered into the 1940s on only one farm. (fn. 62)

Wheat, barley, beans, and peas were stolen from a house in Kirtling in 1305, (fn. 63) and the main cereals grown on the manorial farm c. 1390 were wheat and peas, with smaller amounts of maslin (wheat and rye sown together), barley, and oats. (fn. 64) Under the Norths in the 1540s the emphasis shifted to barley: part of the crop was used by the household, either as pig-mash or malted for the brewhouse, but part was sold in London and a little in Newmarket. Wheat was grown both for sale and for making bread for the household, oats for making oatmeal, rye for sale, and bullimong (mixed grain) as cattle feed. (fn. 65) In 1563 there were separate storage areas on the home farm for malt, wheat, and bullimong. (fn. 66) The large household at Kirtling Hall in the late 16th and early 17th century was partly fed from the home farm, but even so, in 1602-3 the farm sold surplus wheat, barley, malt, oats, mustard seed, calves, sheep, bacon, hens, capons, eggs, pigeons, and rabbits. (fn. 67) Mustard, hops, and orchard fruit were grown by some yeomen farmers in the 17th century. (fn. 68)

The manorial farm had a bull and 15 cows in 1387, (fn. 69) and the Norths kept a dairy herd primarily to provide themselves with milk, cheese, and butter. (fn. 70) In the 1660s they were also raising beef cattle. (fn. 71) By the 1610s dairying had spread widely among the farmers, right across the social range from gentlemen to labourers. (fn. 72) The writer Roger North later remembered the Kirtling of his childhood c. 1660 as consisting of 'tillage farms and small dairies', where the youths were at leisure from noon until milking time. (fn. 73) In the later 17th century the larger farms had separate dairies and cheese chambers, whereas in smaller houses cheese was made in the buttery. The largest dairy herds numbered a dozen, and poorer people might keep only a single cow, (fn. 74) but production was for the London market, not just home consumption: (fn. 75) in 1696 one farmer had 588 lb. of cheese in store in July. (fn. 76) Bullimong was widely grown as cattle feed. In the 1660s one smallholder sowed as much of it as he did wheat and barley. (fn. 77) The local Suffolks remained the preferred breed in the 1790s, (fn. 78) though at least one farm in the 1780s had both 'Scotch beasts' and heifers. (fn. 79) Dairying probably declined sharply after inclosure, (fn. 80) and from the 1830s John Clover, tenant at the newly established Place farm since 1825, was breeding dualpurpose Durham shorthorns, gaining a considerable reputation by the 1850s. (fn. 81) In the 1840s George Dobito at Hall farm was also involved in fattening cattle, (fn. 82) but by 1870 there were barely 100 cattle in the parish. Numbers rose again to 200-300 in the earlier 20th century, but the small dairy or beef herds kept on some farms were secondary to mainstream arable farming. (fn. 83)

Much land was in poor condition on the eve of inclosure: the open fields poorly drained, and four fifths of the pasture closes unimproved, 'covered with rushes, ant-hills, old pollards, black and white thorn bushes, and brambles'. Both sowing and harvest were late for the neighbourhood. (fn. 84) Matters were not improved by the mere fact of inclosure: the agent for the Kirtling estate, James Innes, thought in 1856 that Vicarage farm was the worst he had seen for wasting land on open ditches and banks instead of proper fencing. In the 1850s, however, Innes borrowed money under the government's loan schemes for under-draining, a process completed between 1862 and 1866, thus greatly improving the land. (fn. 85) A four-course rotation was normal by then, (fn. 86) as opposed to the three shifts operated in the 1790s. (fn. 87) In the 1870s wheat and barley covered almost half the acreage, oats and fodder crops a quarter, and grass (for hay or pasture) a quarter. During the agricultural depression wheat was still favoured but less barley was grown and up to three times as much hay was made as previously, while oats replaced roots as the main fodder crop. (fn. 88)

The move back into cereals after 1945 was largely complete by the 1970s, from which time wheat and barley covered up to three quarters of the total acreage, with some sugar beet and grazing. (fn. 89)

The consolidation of farms into larger units began during the depression after 1918. Hall farm and Hill farm were both untenanted for two years, the former after its tenant's bankruptcy, then let to Stephen G. Howard of Moat Farm rent free until brought back into cultivation. Hill farm was afterwards let to the Newmarket Co-operative Society, but Hall farm remained with the Howards. (fn. 90) Howard's father, also Stephen (d. 1892), had bought the 44-a. Lower farm in 1888, and he acquired the 153a. Moat farm in 1894, parts of a growing accumulation of farms and other property. (fn. 91) After S. G. Howard's death in 1934 his widow (d. 1954) and executors continued to farm Hall and Upend farms for the Kirtling estate as a single enterprise with their own land. Their son Gerald Howard, M.P. (kt. 1961, d. 1973), kept the farmhouse at Moat farm but set up a partnership with the Bowyer family, Kaye Farms Ltd., to run the farms. (fn. 92)

Frank Bowyer had become tenant of Place farm in 1898 and, like the other larger tenant farmers in the neighbourhood, his family enjoyed a comfortable middle-class lifestyle; (fn. 93) although the farm ran into difficulties in the 1930s, it was rescued after the County War Agricultural Committee forced his son, also Frank, to give up the tenancy in 1941 to his younger brother Kenneth, who since 1929 had built up a large agricultural haulage and contracting business. By the time that the Bowyers retired in 1986 they farmed 2,000 a. in Kirtling and neighbouring parishes. (fn. 94) The number of full-time farms had fallen from seven in 1970 to three by 1986. (fn. 95)

The bloodstock industries of Newmarket made far less impact on Kirtling than on the parishes closer at hand, but there was a stud farm at Upend by 1900, and in 1935 Col. Jack Anderson established the Upend stud on c. 100 a. From the mid 1980s it was part of Fittocks stud in Cheveley. (fn. 96) The former jockey Frankie Durr had training stables at Vicarage farm c. 1990. (fn. 97)

Kirtling Hall generated much employment in the parish. In the 1660s and the 1730s, as well as the permanent establishment in the house, kitchen, garden, dairy, brewhouse, home farm, and woodyard, the family hired a dozen or more casual labourers at a time for seasonal jobs such as weeding, threshing, muck spreading, picking stones, clearing tree stumps, ditching and hedging, carting, clipping sheep, slaughtering livestock, and destroying rats and moles. The household also made heavy use of local blacksmiths, coopers, bricklayers, building labourers, and a chimneysweep. (fn. 98) The estate may thus have helped to sustain the tailor and draper who had amassed a modest wealth by the 1550s, (fn. 99) a knacker recorded in 1632, (fn. 100) and a grocer by 1691. (fn. 101) The grocer's shop and warehouse of the Canham family at Kirtling Green lasted into the late 18th century. (fn. 102)

The woods offered livelihoods to tanners in 1559, (fn. 103) the 17th century, (fn. 104) and 1729, (fn. 105) and a sawyer in 1765. (fn. 106) The estate evidently made charcoal in the 1660s, prepared and sold timber, underwood, and bark (for tanning) throughout the 18th century, (fn. 107) and employed two gamekeepers in the 1780s. (fn. 108)

A malthouse was sold by John Ward to a Norfolk gentleman in 1710, (fn. 109) and one branch of the Collin family were maltsters (and for a time also tenants of Parsonage farm) almost throughout the 19th century. (fn. 110) A manorial windmill first mentioned in 1310 (fn. 111) was leased from the early 15th century (fn. 112) and probably from the start stood at the location first recorded in 1582, where the Cowlinge road crossed the end of a windy spur. (fn. 113) It continued in use under an independent miller until 1875, and to 1891 or later in the ownership of the Collin family of Parsonage farm. (fn. 114)

The farms were nevertheless always the main source of work. Seasonal unemployment may have been a problem in 1802-3 (fn. 115) and was apparently exacerbated by inclosure, after which there were high peaks of poor-relief expenditure in winter and troughs during haymaking and harvest. (fn. 116) Full employment was reported in 1830 (fn. 117) and labourers without work in the winter of 1864-5 were set to work on under-draining estate land, (fn. 118) but Kirtling seems to have suffered more than neighbouring parishes from recurring distress and a high level of unrest. A parish Association for the Prosecution of Felons existed by 1797. (fn. 119) Several men were gaoled in 1822 for conspiracy to strike and prevent others from working, (fn. 120) perhaps contributing to a legacy of bitterness against the farmers which saw arson attacks, mostly in stackyards, in 1831, 1835, 1849-50, 1853, 1864, and 1875. (fn. 121) Animal maiming was rarer, recorded only in 1850. (fn. 122)

In the 1850s the agent for the North estate, James Innes, tried to counter heavy unemployment by encouraging emigration, while he and John Clover of Place farm were the first in the district to set out allotments for the poor. (fn. 123) Employment on the farms fell from 230 men and boys in 1830 to 150 in the 1850s and barely 100 in 1881. (fn. 124) Including farmers there were still over 100 men working in agriculture in 1950, though the number in 1986 was only 23, (fn. 125) and in 1991 it was claimed that only one Kirtling man worked on the land. (fn. 126)

Before the First World War the estate still employed a gang of nine for building work, as well as gamekeepers and a caretaker at the Tower. (fn. 127) Throughout the 19th century a couple of dozen families derived a living as craftsmen, but around 1900 the last of the village coopers, carpenters and wheelwrights, bricklayers, shoemakers, tailors, and butchers ended their careers, only the blacksmith continuing until the Second World War. (fn. 128) A builder newly established in the 1920s specialized in work for stud farms but in the 1930s had its offices and workshops at Kennett. (fn. 129) There had never been more than three shops until the 1890s, when there were briefly as many as six before falling back to two after 1918, one in each of Upend and Kirtling Street. (fn. 130) The shop at Upend closed c. 1956; (fn. 131) the one in Kirtling Street was open only two days a week in 2000.