Page 30 - link magazine

30
SwirdGr Wide
The lost farms in the West: Toothill Farm

Last month TheLinkhighlightedthefactthatSwindonCouncil has included Toothill Farm and the open space
around it is a possible development site as part of the local plan to 2011. Local historian Frances Bevan
reveals its past in the third of her articles on the farms of West Swindon.
The name Toothill is derived from which was founded by Thomas writes to the Governors that: 'The
the Old English or Saxon word'tot' Sutton in 1611, and comprised a Farm House will be a Sufficient
meaning 'look out' or 'watching complex of buildings on the out- Tennantable House for this Farm
post' and traditionally such areas skirts of the City of London. for a Hundred Years to come.'
were known as local meeting To finance this enterprise the A hundred years later Edward
places. Governors acquired vast tracts of Plummer was the tenant, employ-
From the early 17th Century land in Essex, Cambridgeshire and ing six men and two boys and farm-
Toothill Farm was one of several Wiltshire, including the local ing 178 acres of pasture and
local properties owned by the Gov- Elcombe estate with farms in meadow.
ernors of Charterhouse. This was Lydiard Tregoze and Wroughton. In 1940 T. Lavington, the
a hospital for war veterans of King Historical documents relating to Marlborough firm of Auctioneers,
James and a school for the 'poor,' Toothill Farm include leases and made a survey of the Wiltshire
bailiff and ploughing rights certifi- County Council owned farm as one
cates dating back to the late 16th tenancy ended and another be-
century, now held at the London gan. It gives the impression of a
IIII; Metropolitan Archives. rundown, neglected farm, requir-

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Tooth,// Farmhouse and outbui/dings, 1975,
with the Great Western Way being built in the foreground
In 1685 Charles Vylett of ing basic husbandry attention. The
Wroughton signed a twenty-one stock consisted of 14 dairy cows,
year lease on the farm described 1 4 young cattle, 2 horses; 150 fowl
as 'Toothill also known as Tuthill and three sows and young pigs.
with appurtenances adjoining to In November 1971 Swindon Bor-
certaine land called the Blagrove.' ough Council gave approval to
The farm consisted of '140 acres plans for development of a 300
thereabout' and Vylett paid rent of acre site at Toot Hill south of the
£140 per year. A420 Swindon to Wootton Bassett
The farm remained in the Vylett Road. the first of the new urban
family into the 18th Century when villages of West Swindon, home
in 1763 Jasper Yorke, husband of for a proposed 6,000 people.
Bridget Vylett became involved in Whilst the farmhouse was saved
a property dispute with his from demolition, ancient fields of
undertenant David Smith. pasture and meadowland rapidly
Yorke wrote a series of furious disappeared, though many of the
letters to the governors of original hedgelines still exist.
Charterhouse challenging Smith's Today the 18th Century farm-
claim that the farmhouse was un- house is yet again under threat.
inhabitable. Smith didn't want Converted byThamesdown Coun-
money for repairs, he wanted the cil into a social hall in 1978 and
lease, and he petitions the gover- used by various clubs and groups
nors to rebuild the house at his for overtwenty-five years, the build-
own expense, but Yorke was not ing is now claimed to be unsafe for
going to give in without a fight. By public use, and the open space
November of that year, Yorke has around the farmhouse on Bodiam
the repairs well under way and Drive has been identified as a prime
site for yet
The barn at Tooth,// Farm, 1979,
more hous-
ing. News
that would
definitely
have had
Jasper Yorke
reaching for
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