Dairy Farm is a 17th Century cottage located at the east end of the village near to the junction with the Nassington Road. Like many of the old dwellings in the village the walls are constructed of rubble and ironstone with a “one storey and attics” layout. Originally the roof would have been thatched but in 1986 this was replaced with pantiles.
Originally two tenements with two rooms in the main range, the east part has square unchamfered beams and may be an 18th century reconstruction. The window in the west has a slightly projecting ashlar base and may have been a bay window. The east tenement has a cellar. At some point the two properties were joined together, the westernmost door bricked up.
(Dairy Farm is the building on the right of this photograph)
Previous Occupants
It is difficult to pinpoint the previous residents of the property with any accuracy so we can only identify occupants from the 20th Century.
Robert and Florence Johnson and their 5 children moved from Apethorpe and took up residence in November 1904. Robert Johnson was listed as the Apethorpe Estate Bailiff in the 1901 census, so it could have been that he wanted to tenant his own farm with his sons that prompted his move to Woodnewton.
It was apparent from a newspaper cutting dated 30th July 1909 that Robert advertised for a family man to be employed as a horsekeeper for their small team of horses with a house positioned nearby to the yard. Were the horses used for farm work as well as moving the family around in a cart?
Unfortunately, the following year, Robert died at a very young age and the farm was taken on by his eldest son Thomas William. Thomas continued to run the farm and in 1915 he married Ameilia Mould of Cherryholt. We know from a newspaper cutting dated a week after his wedding that Amelia was found drowned in the river at Thrapston, thought to be suicide. He then married Gladys Morris in 1917 and after the wedding we believe that they moved to Rectory Farm at Desborough.
His mother, Florence and her sister Emily Baxter also left Woodnewton around that time as they can be found on the 1918 Electoral Roll in Titchmarsh.
After the Johnson family, Dairy Farm was owned by Walter Boynton of Woodbridge, a wealthy man having purchased Lea Hall, Gainsborough in 1913. However, his nephew, Charles Boynton was the tenant in 1921. In 1920 Charles married Nellie Starsmore who was a farmer’s helper – she would have been well placed to help with the dairy work! A newspaper article records Charles “of Woodnewton” was fined 10s for driving a vehicle without a clear registration plate. Charles and Nellie didn’t have any children but there is a newspaper cutting that mentions it was up for let again in 1928 by the owner, Walter Boynton.
Mr Thomas W Davis was married in November 1932 and in a newspaper cutting it stated that he had resided at Dairy Farm, Woodnewton for a few years, so we can assume that it was his family that took over the tenancy in 1928. Confirmation can be found in the 1936 Kelly’s Directory that the Davis family were farming at Dairy Farm during that period. However, by the 1939 Register he had moved to South Farm at Lobthorpe in Lincolnshire.
In 1940 the Pike family from the nearby Willowbrook Farm purchased the property and James (Jim) Hull became the foreman of Dairy Farm and lived in the Farm House until he retired. A Mr John Sheath then took over the position. I would imagine that the Pike family were the first to buy the property from Lord Brassey and up until then it was tenanted.
In the 1980’s, Dairy Farm ceased to be a working farm, so the buildings were sold and converted into a residential property. The early pig sties and later grain barns, which were situated in the building parallel with the road, became the living quarters of the barn conversion; the barn where the bullocks were housed became the bedrooms. The conversion was named Byre House.
2022