Location Now

Pre-New Town Location

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Information about this Farm:

KEYS FARM, with its black and white timbered farmhouse, was probably established for a well-to-do family in the Forest of Feckenham in the seventeenth century. The farmhouse has a spiral staircase which encircles the three great tudor chimneys clustered together in the centre of the building. It has timbered ceilings, walls of wattle and daub, and heavy oak doors with locks. In one of the bedrooms four large cupboards of thick oak, with heavy engraved oak doors with locks, are believed to be safes for the valuables of visitors staying there. There are four attic rooms, two with windows and two without, the latter having hard plaster floors, used probably for the storage of cheese. One of the dark attics has a trap door in the floor, giving access to a deep cavity which has a base floor some five feet above the ground floor level. Within this cavity there have been found clay pipes, old dipped matches, an old hand-made boot and much else, suggesting that it may have been used as a catholic priest's hiding place.

The house has since been modernised and its old draughty windows replaced. There have been two barn conversions, one large and one of moderate size.

Source: A Hundred Years In Tardebigge – The Revd Alan White