This section is about Edwin & Granville Green’s farming family history from Library & Catley Park farms in Kingston & Linton, Cambridgeshire to Tookeys Farm & the White House in Astwood Bank, Worcestershire from 1876 to 1966.
I have placed Edwin, my grandfather and Granville, my father in the same section as they either farmed or lived together for over 60 years. This was at Library, Catley Park, Tookeys Farms and finally at the White House on my fathers retirement in 1966. Edwin died in 1969 aged 95 at the White House, his wife Emily Hemmant predeceased him by 10 years.
Edwin’s Early Years
I recently found a mathematics and english workbook of Edwin dated 1890, from the Winchester House School in Great Yarmouth. He appears there on the 1891 census along with a Frederick Goodby and I have a picture of the two of them in school uniforms with ‘university type caps’. Frederick was shown as being born in Knapwell but I don’t know who started at that school first. My guess is that WJ’s mother (Eleanor) living in Gt Yarmouth till 1900 with her second husband had a hand in this arrangement and if this is true then perhaps Edwin started first.
Edwin’s Adventure edwin to
The document below are recollections by Edwin in 1950 given to a family friend Owen Gibbon of a trip he took with another youth, both 18 years of age in 1894 to walk 5 horses, 1 wagon, 1 cart and a drill over 200 miles from his Uncle Henry’s (WJ’s brother) farm in Gembling Nr Driffield to his new farm at Catley Park. This included overnight stops at Bubwith Nr Selby, Doncaster, Bawtry, Tuxford, Grantham, Stamford, Stllton and High Fields on a Saturday and on Monday to Catley Park. Roads were poor in those days and the 2 youths had to arrange accommodation for themselves and their livestock. Edwin’s sisters recall that the rest of their chattels followed by train.
JourneyfromGemblingEdwin’s Marriage
Edwin aged 28 married Emily Hemmant in 1904 in Pontefract at least 15 years after they left Crofton. My assumption is that Edwin knew Emily as youngsters – perhaps at school and retained a distance friendship?
Edwin and Granville Farms
I hold Edwin’s farm account book from January 1906 at Library Farm (photo below) which shows payments, receipts and wages paid for 5 years and over 40 years worth of farm tenant valuations used for the Bank ending with Tookeys Farm before Granville purchased the farm. Edwin was a Methodist lay preacher for over 50 years as evidenced by a certificate dated 1946.
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Below are some sale particulars of Tookeys Farmhouse c 2015. Sale Price was for £1.3m.
Image-2Cambridgeshire to Worcestershire
Kathleen and Granville were born in 1906 and 1909 at Library Farm (later Moat Farm), Kingston and moved to Catley Park Farm, Linton in 1920 after Henry’s son Ernest vacated. They remained there until 1927 when they moved to Tookeys Farm, Astwood Bank in Worcestershire. I recall there was a family connection as to why Edwin and family moved to Tookeys but perhaps WJ living in nearby Beoley had some influence.
The move from ‘grain’ to ‘horn’ was quite common at this time as grain farms in the east were becoming unprofitable whilst diary farming in particular in the wetter west was more profitable. I have a marked up copy of the farm sale at Catley Park dated 1927 and in addition the 1927 stock books for Tookeys that show some livestock arriving from Catley Park, Linton, Cambridge together with stock movements with WJ at Beoley Hall Farm as well as local purchases. In addition I have an auction document showing items for sale from the outgoing tenant at Tookeys in 1927.
Kathleen Cottis
Kathleen moved to Tookeys Farm in 1927 and married Crispus Robert Cottis on 27th August 1930. I am told they were head boy and head girl at Saffron Waldron School. Cottis was a family established in Epping as an agricultural machinery manufacture particularly famous for the Cottis Hoe. I refer to a book called COTTIS OF EPPING – The story of an Essex iron foundry by Chris Johnson which traces 150 years of this business. There are many articles available on the internet such as Local London article about this important family in Epping in the 19th and 20th Century and I have created a link to one such article above.
Granville Green’s Family
Granville went to school at the Cambridge and County School for Boys and from his reports I suggest he was a far better pupil than me. He used to board overnight with Muriel Marr in Cambridge to avoid the long journeys to and from school particularly in the winter months. However, he left school at 14 to join the family farming business at Catley Farm.
He moved to Tookeys Farm when he was 17 in 1926 and he married Margaret Helen Witter from Cheshire in 1942. They met at Ethel (nee Smallwood) and Jim Dransfields wedding, where Margaret was Ethel’s cousin and Ethel’s mother was best friends of Emily Green (nee Hemmant). They had 3 children, Helen, Gillian and me (David -8). Granville died in 1999 and Margaret in 2002. Granville was a farmer, volunteer fire fighter in Birmingham in WW2, tennis player, actor in local dramatic productions, strong Methodist, keen gardener and known as a ‘gentle gentleman’.
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Granville had at least one POW working at Tookeys during WW2, one of whom rescued my eldest sister after she fell into the farm pond. My father and Gerhard Wolf corresponded for many years after WW2.
Tookeys Farm was our family home so I hope you will bear my indulgence briefly. From the picture you can see that’s it’s a fine C16/17 building originally a King John’s hunting lodge in the Forest of Feckenham, originally called Tokenoaks in the C11. It has the Fleur de Lys possibly showing royal patronage and it reputedly had a tunnel connecting it with Feckenham – it was never found despite a few attempts of cellar digging! My father purchased Tookeys farm so was probably the first Green to have a mortgage as all others were tenants.
This link takes you to a video taken in 1966 of Tookeys Farm with my 90 year old Grandfather centre stage.
On our sale of the farm in 1966 and Granville’s retirement, the property was eventually broken up. The farmhouse became a private and lovingly restored dwelling which I had the pleasure of visiting a few years ago.
My two sisters married in the 70’s and have 4 children between them and the Green name continues through my Son in 1980 and Grandson in 2010.
