LOWER FARM

In October 1525, Thomas Pyke became the first recorded ‘copyholder’ of a house and two virgates of land containing 51 acres at Lower Farm. Very few people would have owned property at Easton until the 20th century. Most occupants had copyhold leases which were entered into manor court records, of which they held a copy. In general, copyholders and their families could occupy the land by paying a large initial sum (called a fine) but a modest annual rent thereafter. There was no fixed term but they could remain if at least one of three individuals named on the initial lease ‘so long shall live’. After that the property reverted to the lord.

In those days there were far fewer hedges and these were chiefly used to enclose relatively small areas of pasture or private land known as ‘severals’. The great arable fields were open and divided into strips, parcelled out by the lord of the manor between a number of tenants and often named after them. Twenty such enclosures were still shown on the estate map of 1814 scattered amongst the various village farms. Oate Leazes were also subdivisions of larger fields, eight of them lying to the north and five to the south of the main Pewsey road.

Thomas was not keen on maintenance as in 1576 his house was ‘in great ruin’ - the thatched roof needed repair and his barn was in danger of collapse. Threatened with a fine of 13s 4d, Thomas fixed the repairs using two trees allotted him by the lord of the manor. In 1594 the lease passed to Thomas’s son, James. at a cost of £65 13s 4d with an annual rent of 16s and the requirement to plant each year at least three trees – oak, ash, elm or fruit.

By 1603 the farm had passed to James’ younger brother William who surrendered the lease and the land was divided. Agnes Smyth, who was probably a relation of the Pyke family, received 15 acres with common pasture for 46 sheep at a rent of £4s 8d.  William received the house and remaining pasture for 116 sheep, paying a rent of 11s 4d.

In 1664 a third William Pyke and his sister Jane Neale divided the farm into equal shares. William No 3 must have done well on the farm. When he died in 1671 he left no will, but on his wife Margery’s death two years later the value of the inventory was £117 16s, a good amount for the period.  Some 21 acres of arable land had been sown, she had six cows and three bullocks, also 118 sheep and lambs and two pigs. Three of their beds were recorded as having feather mattresses which was a mark of prosperity - poorer people would have had flock. Margery also had clothes and money worth £10 when most people at that time had very little ready cash.

In 1675 their son William No 4 became the next tenant. On his death in 1698, the inventory of his possessions named the rooms of the house.

There was a hall or main living room and a parlour which, as was common, was used as the best bedroom, but probably also as a reception room. The kitchen contained a furnace used for brewing and also malting equipment, as beer or ale was still the universal drink. The buttery had seven barrels for storing the beer and a silt – a stone trough for salting meat.

The bedrooms over the hall contained a bible and other books, also a mark of status. There was a chamber over the buttery, but no mention of rooms over the parlour or kitchen which presumably contained none of William’s goods. His farm stock was similar to his mother’s and his clothes were valued at 5s, so he was quite well dressed. At nearly £276, his inventory indicates prosperity and he is likely to have rebuilt the old house to some extent.

William’s daughter Jane now took over the property and married Thomas Somerset who came from an old Easton family. They had a son but Jane died in childbirth - she was buried and young William christened on the same day. Thomas took out a new lease, adding William’s name to the copyhold lease of the farm, married his second wife Mary and went on to have ten more children.

The next succession of tenants was John Jennings, Stephen Brackstone, John Goodman and William Sparkes who in 1805 ran a small school in the parlour of the farmhouse. William’s son, yet another William, married John Goodman’s daughter Mary who, after her husband died, carried on farming with the help of her five children. In the 1861 census John Goodman Sparkes is said to be the farmer of 100 acres, employing three boys.

The Sparkes family were succeeded soon after 1870 by John Follett and then by his daughters, unmarried sisters Harriet and Ellen Follett, who carried on for thirty years running the farm, an unusual achievement for women at that time. 

On Ellen’s death in 1910, the farm passed to WG Trowbridge who was able to buy the property during the sale of the Savernake estate in 1929. The freehold of Lower Farm and eight acres of land were sold in 1957 for £3,250.

Lower Farm circa 1929

Lower Farmyard circa 1910