Location Now

Pre-New Town Location

Information about this Farm:

The Bromsgrove, Droitwich and Redditch Messenger – Saturday 7th August 1880

Bentley House Farm – Growing Crops – Sold by Auction

LOWER BENTLEY FARM, included in the Bentley Estate, was farmed by Francis Brown before and during the early 1900s. On 22 March 1909 Thomas Goulbourne of Wood row Farm, south of Redditch, went with his father to view the farm, and on 31 March he arranged with Mr Jagger, the estate manager, to take on the tenancy. The removal of furniture, equipment and livestock took place between 26 September and 15 October.

These details we know from the Boots Scribbling Diary of 1909 in which Thomas Goulbourne recorded details of the weather and farming aerobes from day to day at Wood row and then at Lower Bentley.

The weekly wage for adult farm workers was then 15 or 16 shillings. The mixed fanning included the rearing of sheep and pigs, and the growing of wheat, beans, swedes, mangolds and hay. Farm work included ploughr^ seeding, rolling, harrowing, harvesting, threshing, hedging, ditching cartage and maintaining the farm buildings.

In 1955 there was a sale of all the livestock and farm equipment which yielded £4,215. Included in the sale were three tractors, a 1937 Model L Case, a 1943 Fordson and a 1947 Fordson, indicative of the initial replacement of horse power by motor power in the late 1930s.

In 1955 the new tenants of the farm concentrated on dairy farming and the rearing of beef cattle, sheep and pigs. The area tended to be waterlogged, so they had the farmvard concreted over and much of the land had to be drained.

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