Yeovil's Virtual Museum

grass dean

A Victorian field in Preston Plucknett

 

Grass Dean was originally part of a large field called Deane, or Dean Field, in the north of Preston Plucknett, to the north of Preston Road and west of Larkhill Lane. It was subdivided into four fields by the middle of the nineteenth century.

The 1846 Preston Tithe Map shows Grass Dean in the centre of the field system to the north of Preston Great Farm and Preston Road and west of Larkhill Lane. The Preston Plucknett Tithe Apportionment of 1848 noted that Grass Dean was owned by Lady Georgiana Fane of Brympton d'Evercy and the tenant was Thomas Hawkins.

Shown as Parcel 79 at the centre of the map below, Grass Dean lay to the east of the now long-gone field access track running up the centre of the map and Dodham Brook to its east. It was bounded to the north by Field Dean (78) and to the south by Arable Dean (80). However, as seen on the aerial photograph below, by 1946 it had been joined with Arable Dean to form a larger field.

Grass Dean disappeared when Abbey Manor was built in the 1980s and the site is now occupied by Acer Drive.

 

 

The main post-Medieval fields of Preston Plucknett.

 

Map based on the 1849 Tithe Map showing Grass Dean towards centre top, lying between the field access track, Eighteen Acre Lane (now a footpath), running up the centre of the map and Dodham Brook to its east.

 

This is a 1946 aerial photograph showing Grass Dean at centre, by this time joined with Arable Dean to its south, the new large field lying immediately north of the new farm that had been built in Higher Sleight. At lower left is Houndstone army camp and at lower right is the post-war Larkhill Lane pre-fabricated housing estate. At centre is the Preston Plucknett Flax Works.