Yeovil's Virtual Museum

Quarr Close

Site of Preston Plucknett's former quarry?

 

Preston Plucknett's Preston Field, or North Field, was originally a large Medieval manorial field along the western parish boundary of Preston Plucknett, lying to the south of another Medieval field called Field's End. Preston Field was bounded by the parish boundary with Brympton in the west and to the east by the field access track known as Eighteen Acre Lane.

By the time of the 1763 Survey of the Manor of Preston, the large Medieval field had been broken up into a number of smaller fields and Quarr Close was one of these, located at the centre of the north of the former North Field and abutting Field's End.

Quarr is a local dialect corruption of quarry, so it is likely that this field contained the source of many of Preston Plucknett's early stone buildings, such as St James' church, Preston Great Farm and the Great Barn as well as many of the stone cottages that once lined Preston Lane. 

The 1763 Survey recorded that Quarr Close's tenant was Henry Gellard and the field measured (in 'old' units) 3 acres, 1 roods, 29 perches and was used as pasture for grazing livestock. At this time, however, the field was only half of what it would become since another field lay to its east, possibly called Late Deane, such that Quarr Close would, by the middle of the nineteenth-century, more than double in size.

The 1846 Preston Tithe Map shows the field called Quarr Close (Parcel 59) after it had absorbed the adjacent field to the east. The new, larger Quarr Close was bounded on the north by Eighteen Acres Sleight (Parcel 62), to the west by Hurdle Corner (Parcel 61), to the south by Higher Preston Field (Parcel 58) and Church Acre (Parcel 60). To the east it abutted Long Close (Parcel 53).

The Preston Plucknett Tithe Apportionment of 1848 noted that Hurdle Corner was owned by Lady Georgiana Fane of Brympton d'Evercy and the tenant was Thomas Hawkins (who was a tenant of over 200 acres in over 40 parcels in the parish). The field measured (in 'new' units) some 8 acres, 0 roods and 21 perches and was used as arable land for growing crops.

By the time of the 1946 aerial photograph (see below), Quarr Close had 'lost' its western projection which had been included into Hurdle Corner. On the other hand, Quarr Close had itself been enlarged by the inclusion of Church Acre (Parcel 60) and Hundred Acres and Ellis's (Parcel 54).

Quarr Close disappeared when the Abbey Manor estate was built in the 1980s and the site of the enlarged field of 1946 is now occupied by the middle section of The Toose with its various projecting culs-de-sac.

 

For details on historic land measurement (ie acres, roods and perches) click here.

 

 

The main post-Medieval fields of Preston Plucknett. The original large Medieval field called Field's End is at top left, with North Field to its south.

 

Map based on the 1849 Tithe Map showing Quarr Close (Parcel 59) at left centre.

 

This is a 1946 aerial photograph showing Houndstone army camp (at centre left). At centre is the Preston Plucknett Flax Works and at centre right is the post-war Larkhill Lane pre-fabricated housing estate. The enlarged Quarr Close is at centre left, one field away from the flax works.

 

The 1849 Tithe Map superimposed over the modern Ordnance Survey map.