home close

home close

Of Stone Farm, a detached part of Preston Plucknett

 

Home Close is the small field immediately west 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 Home Close as Parcel 175. It was bounded on the north by Hetts Orchard (Parcel 171), to the east by Hartwells Orchard (Parcel 169), Stone Farm House (Parcel 176) and Garden Field (Parcel 177), to the south by Daniells Mead (Parcel 179) and to the west by Plantation (2 - Parcel 174).

The Preston Plucknett Tithe Apportionment of 1848 notes that Home Close 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 reckoned the area of Home Close to be 3a 1r 31p.

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, Home Close was used as pasture, as it remains today.

 

maps and aerial photographs


The Stone area reproduced from the 1849 Tithe Map. Home Close is west of Stone farm House.

 

The 1946 aerial photograph showing Home Close at centre.

 

The modern aerial view showing Home Close at centre, unchanged since 1946 apart from the absorption of Plantation 2, such that Home Close's western boundary is adjacent to Stone Lane, and an access drive has been added along the northern boundary.

 

Gallery

 

Home Close seen from the northwest corner, looking south. Photographed in 2015.