Cell Barnes Farms

 This week we are returning to small groups of 19th century farms to make some sense of the present topography.  As usual I have begun with an extract of the 1840 tithe map of St Peter's and picked up part of the route of Hill End Lane.  We need to remind ourselves that the orientation of the tithe drawings was not N–S as are the majority of other maps, but approximately E–W.  For comparison with the Ordnance Survey maps therefore. the tithe extract has been rotated a quarter turn.

The farms are printed in orange.  Great Cell Barnes was a large residential property, 
but it possessed a large tract of land which was farmed.
COURTESY HALS

The route of Hill End Lane has been labelled and we discover that three places lie along it.  At the top is Beastney's Farm, no longer extant, but its site is near the corner of Camp Road and Hill End Lane. Beastneys is marked as a locator for the other two places described below, but we will return to Beastneys in a later post.

Further along the lane is Little Cell Barnes Farm, which in 1840 was being farmed by James Bunn, its owner being Earl Verulam.  The homestead and agricultural buildings of the farm are still in use, most recently as Rodell's Scaffolding business and the community building of London Road Residents' Association.

Cell Barnes Lane is to the left on the 1872 surveyed map.  Hill End Lane is routed top to bottom
and Nightingale Lane drops off the bottom of the map.  No fewer than six ponds can be
identified.

By the 1922 survey agricultural cottages have been built.

The 1937 survey shows the extent of the Cell Barnes Hospital and the extension made to
Great Cell Barnes for transformation to the nurses home.
COURTESY NATIONAL LIBRARY OF SCOTLAND

Immediately opposite Hill End Lane is another Verulam structure, the residential dwelling known as Great Cell Barnes.  This was transferred to Cell Barnes Hospital for use as as a nurses home, but much extended during its lifetime.  Today is is used by Emmaus for its community businesses and community homes for a number of people who have experienced homelessness.

The same features shown as part of the eastern London Road estate on a modern aerial photo.
COURTESY GOOGLE EARTH

One building which we might have seen is an attached pair of agricultural cottages along the eastern bend of Cell Barnes Lane which were not built until the 1860s; and a further pair in Hill End Lane where Ashbourne Court now stands.  These cottages were built on a small triangular field called Little Orchard.  Although not labelled on the annotated tithe map it is field 818, and the access road beside the current building continues as a pathway to Drakes Drive and forms the northern side of the former triangular field.

Homestead and associated buildings of Little Cell Barnes c2010.

View of Great Cell Barnes c2010.

The houses which today are between Ashbourne Court and Frobisher Road were built in the field named Aldwick (a place where alder trees grew).  Alders tend to favour streams or damp places, and as nearby residents are aware surface water is still an issue in periods of high rainfall!  On the western side of this former field and on the other side of Drakes Drive is a short residential road which has been named Aldwick.

On the eastern side of Hill End Lane is the boundary of the former Cell Barnes Hospital which is shrub and tree lined. Most evidence of the former hospital has now disappeared and the new 1990s  residential community of Highfield has grown up in its place, of which this is the southern part.

Former agricultural cottages in lower Cell Barnes Lane.

Ashbourne Court looking through to Drakes Drive at the far end of the pathway.
A pair of agricultural cottages were located where the modern building is today, on
the site of a small triangular shaped orchard.
COURTESY GOOGLE STREET VIEW

Aldwick, taking its name from a field between Drakes Drive and Hill End
Lane, is a short residential road.

Most of the fields annotated on the tithe map are self-explanatory, with Wood Field adjacent to Aldwick, and Brick Kiln close to Great Claypits – so we assume the older buildings hereabouts were built using bricks made here.

Less clear are the fields Dull Winch and Middle Winch.  Nearby is also Further Winch, so the naming is clearly related and is assumed to describe some kind of lifting or winding activity.  Their origin may therefore be related to the movement of clay for the brick making, already a former practice by the mid 19th century.

Along Nightingale Lane is Walnut Tree Meadow.  A number of other former farms are known to have had walnut trees close to their homesteads which provided a contribution to local seasonal nutritional food supply.

As we walk along the roads, lanes and pathways along or near Hill End Lane it is easy to observe evidence of the former landscape, and realise that the ground is rarely level, even where we know it has been moulded to its present shape by machinery when modern developments grew out of the ground.