Location Now

Pre-New Town Location

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Information about this Farm:

WHEELEY FARM had purchased the Cattespool estate. The timber-framed farmhouse was built by his son Robert around 1640. It soon had stonework additions, a porch and a western wing to the house, and stone walling round the garden. Over the years both Cattespool and Wheeley Farms have been farmed together by the Peytons or by their tenant farmers. The last tenant farmer at Cattespool in the 1930s was a Mr West and the last member of the Peyton family to own it was Mrs Gilpin Brown. The house was let during WW2 and occupied by evacuees,

Following this it needed renovation and modernisation including the installation of electricity, sanitation and running water.

One interesting feature of Cattespool is the quarry which existed on its land. When, in 1974, the A448 dual carriageway was being constructed between Bromsgrove and Redditch, the contractors quarried stone and gravel from the quarry and then landscaped the area with a dam to create a trout-fishing lake which is used by a syndicate. Cattespool farmhouse remains, much as it has been for over three centuries, a picturesque 17th century building.

Wheely Farm was tenanted and farmed in the 1890s and until around 1905 by James Brickley, then by Charles Taylor until his death in 1929, followed by his widow Elizabeth Taylor in the 1930s. Hubert Green then took over the farm and, after his death in 1954, his two sons carried on. The elder son, Beresford Green, lived at the farmhouse and he became long-serving chairman of the Tutnall and Cobley Parish Council in succession to Mrs Tustin of Broad Green Forge, who had also served for many years. The younger son, Roy Green, lived in the nearby cottage, newly built for him. It was in 1985 that the Green brothers retired and the farm was bought by Robert Baines. Beresford Green retained one field so that he could still continue to serve on the parish council. Roy Green's widow lived on for some years in a bungalow on Cobley Hill, now "Trie Shielling".

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