hetts mead

hett's mead

Of Stone Farm, a detached part of Preston Plucknett

 

Hett's Mead was a triangular field south of Stone Farm House.

This area is actually a detached part of the parish of Preston Plucknett, known as Preston in Stone, and the Preston Plucknett Tithe Map of 1849 shows Hett's Mead as Parcel 178. It was bounded on the north by Garden Field (Parcel 177), Hartwells Orchard (Parcel 169), to the east by Daniells Mead (Parcel 179) and Bishops Ground (Parcel 181) and to the south by the nascent stream that formed this re-entry into the Yeovil escarpment and also formed the parish boundary between Preston in Stone and the parish of Yeovil.

The Preston Plucknett Tithe Apportionment of 1848 notes that Hetts Mead was in the ownership of Henry Goodford Esq. of Chilton Cantello and occupied by Mrs Phillis Coles, as indeed was the whole of Stone Farm at this time. The Tithe Apportionment calculated the area of Hetts Mead to be 7a 2r 38p.

Other known owners / occupiers had been James Harris (1800), Mr Pester (1810), Mr Spear (1818), Stephen Coles (c1821-1827). Phillis Coles, in her later years assisted by her sons, ran Stone Farm after the death of her husband Stephen until her own death in 1877. Her son Edmund ran the farm after her death until his death in 1885. By 1886 a Mr Russell was farming Stone Farm but his widow sold up and retired in February 1900. In 1901 the tenant farmer was John Sawtell.

As seen in the aerial photograph of 1946, shown below, by this time Hett's Mead had been merged with Garden Field to form a larger field and was used as pasture, as it remains today.

 

map and aerial photographs


The Stone area reproduced from the 1849 Tithe Map. Hetts Mead is south of Stone farm House.

 

The 1946 aerial photograph showing the former Garden Field and Hetts Mead at centre, by this time merged - the former boundary between the two fields is just visible as a ghost line running east-west.

 

The modern aerial view showing the former Garden Field and Hetts Mead at centre. Again the former boundary between the two fields is just visible as a light ghost line running east-west.