The Farming year in Oswaldkirk

Dorothy Garbutt

My Grandfather, Ramsey Ward, became the tenant of the 296 acres of Newton Grange in the early 1930s and at that time the farm was owned by Lord Feversham. My Grandfather farmed in partnership with his wife Jane and their three sons, George, Ted and Clive. The farm was then run as Ramsey Ward and Sons.

George was already married to Nelly and had a small daughter Jean. Soon their son George was born, and in 1936 Beacon Farm was bought. This was almost a 100 acres and joined with Newton Grange land up Stockings Lane. George moved to the Beacon with his family and the two farms remained as a partnership farming 400 acres. In 1937 Ted married Olive Wardell, whom he had known for many years, when both families were farming at Cawton. They had one daughter, myself, Dorothy. Their father Ramsey died in 1939, and along with their mother the three brothers continued to farm as the Ward Brothers. Clive married Rachel Richardson in 1943 whose family had farmed at Rudland. She was at that time helping her Grandmother and uncles, the Jackson family, who farmed at the neighbouring West Newton Grange. They had three children, Joan, John and Stephen.

In the early years the farm was completely worked with horses and around eighteen were kept. My earliest memories are of the last two or three horses being in use when we were potato picking and leading (digging them up and taking them back to the farm) mangel-wurzels. The last foal to be born on the farm was in the late 1950s.

When I was young we had two or three farm workers who lived in, plus another four or five who travelled to work from local villages. We also had casual labourers at busy times, hay making, harvesting and hoeing root crops. Mostly they were what was known as tramps. They used to sleep out in the buildings and used to come to the back door to collect their food. Some used to just call at the farm for food, stay the night and then move on. My Grandmother, who was a very kind-hearted lady, would never allow any of them to be turned away without a meal and somewhere to shelter for the night. When labour was scarce during the second world war, prisoners of war, billeted at Oswaldkirk village hall were brought in to help.

Spring was always a very busy time with the lambing, and also poultry, geese and ducks were kept. Their eggs were put under broody hens to hatch. They were then put out with the hen on the grass in a little coop with a small wire run in front. They were fed on bread and milk for a few weeks. When they were older they were allowed to run around the fields. We had a pond not far from the farmyard where they used to go to swim. They had to be brought back to the farm every night and let out every morning. They were slaughtered and dressed at the farm each year just before Christmas. We also kept a few hundred free range hens which were let out each morning and fed twice a day. The eggs were gathered and the hen houses closed up each night. On the arable side, after the winter’s ploughing, the corn was sown. Wheat, barley and oats were grown, then the potatoes and roots were planted which were all kept in strict rotation.

Hay time was the next busy time. I can just remember when the hay was turned with hay forks by hand, raked into heaps and made into hay stacks in the yard. In winter this was cut with a hay spade and fed in layers to the sheep and cattle. The advent of the hay turner and baler made hay making much faster and easier. At this time of year all the root crops were hoed by hand which took many hours of hard work. Work would also begin on hedge cutting, again done by hand with hedge slashers, then there  were the thorns  to rake up. This is another job that is now done mechanically. Next came harvest, I can still remember the corn being cut with the binder, and the sheaves stooked out in the fields, and then led home to be stacked either in the dutch barn, or in stacks in the yard which were left until winter.  

Haymaking at Newton Grange - Note the 'lowance' on the ground.

Then came the threshing days, when the threshing machine came and extra men were hired. My mother and aunt would have around twenty men for dinner plus ‘lowance’ (see photograph) morning and afternoon. With the arrival of the combine harvester, much less labour was needed for harvesting.

After harvest came potato picking. Potatoes were spun out of the ground and hand picked in baskets. These were emptied into small carts pulled by the cart horses which would stand patiently waiting until they had a full load to lead home. The mangel-wurzels were pulled by hand and lead back to the yard by the same horses and carts. They were then tipped into a heap and covered over with straw and soil to keep the frost out over winter. This was known as a ‘pie’ and was not uncovered until March. They were then fed to the cattle and sheep.

In the autumn after the lambs were weaned they were put into a small part of one of the turnip fields and fenced in by wire sheep nets. These nets were moved a few yards every day. They were also fed rolled corn and hay and this continued all winter with lambs being sold weekly at Helmsley market which now no longer exists. Originally they were walked to market until cattle wagons came into use.

Cattle were also reared on the farm; a few were born there from the cows we kept which were milked by hand. The rest were bought in batches and were bucket-fed milk for a few weeks before being moved into loose boxes. They were turned out in the summer months and fattened during winter in large open fold yards. They were fed on a diet of turnips, which were carried into the turnip house and put through a cutter, originally turned by hand and later by petrol engine. They were also fed rolled oats, chaff, hay and straw. They too would have been walked to market around two years of age but I remember them mostly going to Malton market by cattle wagon. In the autumn, many jars of plums were bottled to keep for the winter. The apples were carried up into one of the attics, carefully laid out on the floor and were used for baking right through until spring.

Pig killing days were another event in winter. The pigs were slaughtered, put in a long scalding tub, lifted onto a creal and the hair scraped off the skin. They were then hung for a few days before being cut into sides of bacon and hams. They were then salted in the bacon house before being hung in the farmhouse kitchen. The rest of the pig was made into brawn.

I was brought up, along with my cousins, at Newton Grange, which was quite an isolated place, with no bathroom or electricity. Lighting was by paraffin lamps or candles.  Cooking was done on the kitchen fire with a large oven on one side and hot water boiler on the other. Needless to say, the kitchen fire was seldom let out and the kettle hung there always on the boil. Farmers’ wives worked very hard, with no modern conveniences and lots of people to bake for. On wash days the big boiler had to be lit in the scullery, then the dolly-tub and stick were brought into use along with a big old fashioned mangle.

Butter making was another job that had to be done. The milk was brought in and put through a separator to take the cream out of the milk. The cream was put in a large churn, which was turned by hand into butter.

As well as butter making there were baskets of eggs to be washed and packed each day. In the winter evenings the women would make clippie-rugs, sew or knit. We used to play a lot of card and board games. Jigsaws were another pastime, along with reading. In summer time we were mostly outdoors. If the lads who lived in were not working late, they used to play cricket, rounders and hide and seek around the farm buildings. In those days the cricket field was still used and we used to enjoy going to watch the matches and I still remember Uncle Clive playing in the Oswaldkirk team.

When Joan and I were quite small we were given a surprise: a load of breeding sheep arrived from Malton Sheep Fair and we were told there was a present for us. Father and uncle had bought us a retired donkey, which had previously worked on Scarborough sands. I'm afraid this donkey was rather stubborn, we would ride it a few fields away from home, then it would refuse to go any further. We would leave it and carry the saddle and bridle back home. This donkey went on to live with us for another twenty years.

We used to look forward to Oswaldkirk Show, where our farm used to show corn and roots and our mother's baking and eggs. We also used to go out gathering wild flowers to show. The Scarborough coach trip was another highlight of our year, as was the village Christmas party. The church Harvest Festival was also enjoyed; my father was on the church committee and a churchwarden for many years. We also attended the Sunday school there, which was run by Ike and  Rene White.

For a number of years, every April, Sinnington Hunt Point to Point was run over Newton Grange land, with the car park and main entrance being on Jack and Betty Wikeley's land at Bank Top Farm. One of the riders who often took part was Harry Elliott who farmed with his father at Golden Square. The Earl and Countess of Feversham were masters of the hunt and their estate staff spent many weeks building the horse jumps each year. The Coronation in 1953 was another occasion long remembered, and although it poured with rain all day, we still enjoyed games, tea and dancing in the village hall. Joan and I were in fancy dress, dressed as a nurse and a Dutch girl. We were presented with a Coronation mug and a scroll with our names on saying we had taken part in the celebrations at Oswaldkirk. These are still among my most treasured possessions.

Coronation Mug 1953.

The arrival of electricity at Newton Grange in 1960 was a cause for great excitement and made a big difference to our way of life. On leaving school, all my cousins and I worked on the farm. Joan and 1 were both married at Oswaldkirk Church and held our wedding receptions at Oswaldkirk village hall. The three Ward brothers continued to farm together until the mid 1970s when they all passed away within two years of each other. Newton Grange was farmed by John and Stephen for a number of years after this. Sadly now the land has been split off and the old stone buildings made into houses. This was the end of an era and a sign of the times in farming. George still farms at the Beacon, while Jean, who is now a widow, keeps house for him.

Written by Dorothy E. Garbutt of Scawton, with assistance from cousins,

Jean  Bradley  and Joan Turnbull (all formerly Ward)

Farming since 1950

In the 1930s there were horsemen, stockmen and day labourers working on farms, each having distinct skills. Many of the implements they used might well have been made in the parish. The main power source, apart from the strong back of the working man, was the horse. This meant that hay and fodder for horses was a significant part of any crop rotation, with leys and stands of red clover to power work where the most sophisticated implement was a horse drawn scoop or a binder. The community needed blacksmiths, builders, carpenters, foresters, harness makers, saddlers, sawyers, stonemasons, waggoners and wheelwrights to support its main activity -  farming.

Quarrymen were needed, for stone production and this, together with forestry, was the main diversification of farming at that time. There is no sign of any big scale commercial quarrying having taken place in Oswaldkirk recently, although with eight quarries in the village, it must have been a major activity in the past. Some of the limestone was fired in lime kilns for mortar and agricultural use and at least two lime kilns could be seen until recently - one in Rievaulx Hole above the Hag, and one just below The Mount.

Farming was constrained not just by what the land would grow but by where and how the produce could be sold. Milk would not remain sweet during a journey to town, so poor was hygiene. Butter and cheese would use up milk surplus to local liquid requirements in the high time of the year, with the whey fed to pigs.

The coming of railways made a great difference and the local markets at Helmsley, Kirkbymoorside, Malton and Easingwold were all convenient for the railway. Stock or produce was taken there on the hoof or in horse drawn carts.

Later, new techniques, new timing, new chemicals, heavier use of nitrogen fertiliser and improved varieties meant that, for the first time in modern history, England became a grain exporter, with all the associated risks of an export business.

Progress continues. We have started to reverse reliance on the chemist and now pay attention to the biologist. A narrow band of tussocky grass such as cocksfoot will maintain a stock of aphid-eating beetles through the winter to reduce the need for the most dangerous of sprays. A wild flower verge with red clover keeps a population of bumble bees to pollinate field beans. Parts of a farm that are uneconomic to cultivate can be used to mount an assault team of benign insects to fight off pathogens.

Using a flow meter on the combine, with a G.P.S. satellite navigator feeding into a computer, we can find which parts of individual fields are not worth expending cultivation, seed and fertiliser on. We put them aside, generously grant-aided by Brussels, for biological warfare to preserve crops. I even hear it claimed that falconry increases small bird populations by removing magpies. We may yet see the grey partridge again.

John Lindley

Golden Square Farm

On the north side of the parish is Golden Square Farm, of 220 acres, owned by Don and Barbara Armstrong who came to Oswaldkirk in 1962. Lord Feversham previously rented it to tenant farmers who included Robert Stockhill, Mr. Kitchen and Gordon Elliott. John Henry Gill, from Leeming Bar, bought it from the Feversham Estates in the 1970s. It was a mixed arable farm with two to three hundred sheep and on which they grew corn and potatoes and made hay.

Before they had tractors two horses were used to take the wagon up the steep fields but only one horse was needed to bring it back. At one time Mr. Stockhill stopped smoking his pipe and with the money saved he bought fruit trees  to make the orchard. It is said that he planted a tree for every day in the year.  He was a Methodist Local Preacher and is buried in Oswaldkirk churchyard. A ghost is reputed to haunt the old farm and two people have been aware of it in recent years.

Nowadays part of the farm is a thriving Caravan park with camping facilities. It has a shop serving home baked bread, a well used children’s play area and room for 129 caravans. It achieved fame by winning  national prizes for the best set of  loos for six years  running in the 1990s.

Barbara Armstrong

West Newton Grange

Harry & Julie Simmonds at West Newton Grange.

Harry and Julie Simmonds, with children William (then 7 yrs old) and Clare (then 5yrs old) came here in May 1981, taking over from Mr Ray Burrell, and his wife Noel, who had been here for 32 years. At that time it was 333 acres. Some land near the river is in Harome parish, and roughly ten per cent is woodland. The subsequent addition of land from Newton Grange Farm and from Bank Top Farm has raised the farm size to nearly 500 acres. The B1257 road forms the southern boundary, and the river Rye forms the northern boundary. The White Beck, an arterial drainage ditch first dug when the monks of Rievaulx farmed here, runs through the farm from west to east. Ray Burrell took the farm over as a mixed farm, but gave up keeping cows and beef cattle after a short time, and just had sheep until 1965, when they were sold and the farm became all arable. The north-facing slope, which forms the bulk of the acreage, is a free-draining limestone soil, with some clay loam soil on the lower part, and sand near the river. When we moved here, the farm had been all arable for fifteen years, growing spring barley (for malting), winter barley (for malting and stock feed) and wheat (for whisky!). We have continued with those crops, with the addition of oilseed rape and occasionally peas. The farm is now worked by one man, with seasonal help.

West Newton Grange is mentioned in the Domesday book, and is believed to stand on the site of a ‘Grangia’ run by the monks of Rievaulx. They were presented with the land by Robert, Lord of Sproxton shortly before 1200 AD. The original Lordship of West Newton comprised this farm, Bank Top, Newton Grange and Golden Square Farms. Research is still being carried out to establish the exact dates when the various subsequent occupiers were here, such as members of the Sandwith family, tenants from 1534 until 1740. The large family of Seamers who gave their name to the woods, farmed here from 1740 to 1916, benefiting from the huge boost in farm incomes towards the end of the Napoleonic wars. Many of them are buried in Oswaldkirk churchyard.

The farm was part of the Feversham Estate until 1946, and Mr Cook, from Kirkbymoorside was their last tenant. His daughter visited us early this summer and brought a photo of the house with her, as a 14 year old, in it. The farm was sold away from the estate after they left. Sinnington Hunt Point-to-Point was held across this farm up until the late 1960s.

The traditional farm buildings were mostly built in 1928, just before tractors were introduced, with a few much older, but they are too low for modern farm equipment. Two large steel framed buildings have been erected to store crops and large machinery. One old farm building has the names and weights of previous farm workers, such as ‘bullocky’, ‘stick boy’, ‘ploughman’, and others from the 1890s to the Second World War, with a few drawings, including a plough, and an aeroplane drawn by a German prisoner of war who was brought here to work from the POW Camp, Eden Camp, near Malton.

The house was mostly built about 1740, probably when the Seamer family first came, and has not changed substantially since then. The attic was used to store wool and a winch is still there, possibly early Victorian, which was used to haul it up. There is an old duck pond near the house. The orchards, on the 1911 map but not the 1850 one, were probably planted when the railway came and were a source of income for the farmers’ wives, who used to sell fruit, sending it on the train to Leeds, the nearest station being Nunnington.

Julie Simmonds

Bank Top Farm

Bank Top Farm.

Stephen Wikeley.

Stephen Wikeley has been at the farm all his forty four years and four generations of his family have lived in the parish. His mother, Betty, lived at Bank Top with her parents, William and Mary Metcalfe, from 1933. She married Jack Wikeley from Bridge Farm in 1948. Jack and Betty farmed 125 acres from 1975 until 1991. Electricity was not installed in the farm until the mid 1950s. Usually two men were employed, with extra people recruited at harvest time, when Mary Metcalfe was feeding regularly twelve people for dinner. They had cows, sheep, pigs and two horses to work the land and their crops were wheat, barley and oats.

Reaper & Binder at Bank Top Farm.

In 1991  sixty two acres were sold to Ian Armitage of Leysthorpe Hall and in 1992 another fifty acres to Harry Simmonds of West Newton Grange. Peter and Chris Burn now occupy some of the barns which they are converting into a house, and Stephen looks after a further ten acres.

Stephen Wikeley

Manor Farm

This was one of the smallest of the eight farms in Oswaldkirk.  Manor Farm house  was built in the late 1600s  possibly about the same time as Ivy Cottage opposite. The present farmhouse was lived in by the Stablers, the Pickerings, and then the  Makins. Don Harrison and his family, who were related to both Charlie Oldfield and to Stephen Wikeley, lived and farmed there between 1942 and 1957.  The farm had sixty to eighty acres of land, with a smithy, a fold yard and a stock yard, the remains of which can still be seen adjacent to the farmhouse. The farm would have had mainly cattle as the ground was not very productive for crops.

In the nineteen fifties and sixties the Cooper family sold the land gradually, firstly for a garage with petrol pumps, and then for housing, now Manor View and St. Oswald’s Close. Otto and Rosemary Greenfield bought the house from the Coopers and have  lived there for nearly forty years. 

Brothercare at Manor Farm

Rosemary and Otto Greenfield, of Manor Farm, started  the Brothercare charity shop in the old dairy in the early 1980s. All kinds of secondhand goods were sold and nearly £15000 was made over several years with the help of more than twenty volunteers. The money was distributed to many needy charities including the Red Cross, Save the Children, Vision, Cafod and towards supporting a child in Tibet. It was a remarkable venture.

Rosemary Greenfield

Broad Farm

After the dispersal of Col. Benson’s estate Broad Farm was bought by A.M.A. Syndicate Ltd who sold it to Frank Sparling in 1934. In 1946 he sold it to Major Gordon Foster, from Leysthorpe Hall, who passed it on to his son Michael Foster. Olga and I bought some land in 1968 from Manor Farm and then purchased Broad Farm in 1972. By 1990 we had seventy two acres.

During the last fifty to a hundred years wheat and barley were mostly grown on the farm. Oats and large quantities of hay were needed for the horses. Silage was made in the 1940s and became an important part of their diet. They were used for working the farm as well as for riding - no Land Rovers in those days. I personally found an old Oswaldkirk Horse Show prize ticket when I was cleaning out the old stable, but undated. Broad Farm had its own threshing machine which was horse driven and a large granary  in which to store the wheat.  Potatoes were grown for human consumption, barley for feeding the sheep and  turnips and mangolds for the cattle. I am sure that the Malt Shovel would have brewed beer using local barley.

A few Shorthorn cows, a dual purpose breed for milk and beef,  would be kept and milked by the farmer’s wife who would then make butter and possibly cheese. A sow would be in the pigsty for breeding pigs for bacon, but not on a large scale. Sheep would be brought in for fattening,  having been bred on drier hillier farms, and free range poultry would feed on home grown wheat. Every village, including Oswaldkirk, had a slaughter house to deal with the cattle except for the pigs which were killed and cured on the farms. Pig killing parties were quite a social occasion in the winter. No farm was complete without a sheepdog or two and some cats, as rats and mice were an ongoing problem.

Now for the marketing: wheat would be taken to the railway station at Nunnington or Gilling by horse drawn transport. Cattle would go by rail also and would be driven along the road to the station  by dogs. They would often be taken to the livestock market in Carlton Lane, Helmsley.

When we first came to the Broad Farm we grew hay, wheat and barley. A few years later we brought the cattle over from our other farm in Grosmont and developed our dairy farm which we worked for many years.

Martin Hogarth.

Hall Farm

Hall Farm House.

Hall Farm has a stone farmhouse, built in 1760, on the Main Street in Oswaldkirk with a superb view over the fields and in earlier days it was the farm for Oswaldkirk Hall. John and Mary Collinson owned and farmed the 300 acres from 1967 to 1992.  Previous tenants of Col. Benson were Joe and John Wood,  Mr. Metcalfe and Mr. Lister. There were farm buildings on top of the hill to the south and the Collinson family built a bungalow near them in 1989 into which Selwyn and his family moved in 1991. On their land they have made a pond and also a copse named after their daughter Beth as it was planted in the year that she was born. They grow wheat and barley together with sheep and suckler cows. The farmhouse with one acre was sold to the Morgan family in 1997.

Hall Farm today with Selwyn, Virginia & Beth Collinson.

Bridge Farm

Bridge Farm lies on the southern boundary of Oswaldkirk parish. The house was built in 1850 and was lived in by Ernest and Mary Ward in the nineteen thirties, followed by Francis and Minnie Wikeley who moved there from Tylas Farm, Rievaulx. George and Joan Masterman farmed there for Major Gordon Foster after they were married. They later moved to Birch Farm, Leysthorpe, and Bob Masterman moved into Bridge Farm.

In 1983 the Collinson family bought the farm  with one hundred and fifty acres and Selwyn and Virginia moved into the farmhouse. In partnership with his brother Marcus they farmed Hall Farm and Bridge Farm together. They grew wheat mainly and also had pigs and poultry.

In 1991 Bridge Farm Barns were sold to the Price family who have now converted them into several houses. In 1993 the Collinsons sold Bridge Farmhouse, together with three acres of land to Charity and Tim Meredith. The Meredith family, with their three children George, Sam and Cora, are emigrating to New Zealand this autumn and the house will change hands again.

Selwyn Collinson.