Written by Dorcus Ward
This was to be Dorcas Ward’s last presentation to the History Society. It was prepared during lockdown when her cousin Gill’s 5 year old granddaughter was doing a project on “Then and now”. Gill wanted a picture of their old carthorse Tinker, and although no picture was at hand the flood of memories generated by the project was carefully documented. Dorcas first showed pictures of the very modest farm house, now changed into two large modern homes. In the mid 40’s Copyhold Farm was surveyed by the National Institutes of Agricultural Engineering which meant the owners had to keep records about the move from horses to machines. The farm was described then as “very picturesque, but difficult to farm, small fields surrounded by trees with ponds in the middle of fields. Soils were gravel tops, drying out badly when rain was scarce”. That description hasn’t changed.
Giles Ward took over the tenancy of Copyhold farm in 1935. He had married Miriam Stevens, the youngest daughter of the landlord Mrs Stevens, who was married to Thomas Stevens, son of the founder of Bradfield College. This was the middle of the Depression, and a very bad time to start farming. Some weeks they barely got by. What made it viable was the closeness to London with its appetite for fresh milk. Miriam wrote that there were 14 farmers in the parish and “the farmer and his labourers were alike poor”. But the war changed everything. Farmers were wanted, and with a milking herd of Ayrshire cows the farm thrived. They also grew oats and barley cut with a binder and then thrashed out with a steam driven thrashing machine. Grass was the most important crop for the milking cows but also marrow stem kale and mangolds. Later maize was grown for silage, and lucerne, which is particularly deep rooted and so less prone to drought. Giles kept Large White pigs and Rhode Island Red hens. Orchard Lodge, where Bishops Road meets Mariners Lane, was exactly that, producing plums, damsons, apples and blackcurrants, with their own speciality hazel nuts or cobnuts. The farm was well populated with rabbits, so trapping and selling them to the local butcher was another source of income.
Dorcas and her sister Marion just loved growing up on the farm, riding on the hay waggons and sometimes being allowed to take their precious Copyhold carthorse Tinker up to the village on their own. Their dad Giles was a serious, quiet man who had to make his 200-acre farm work for him to pay the rent and all the bills, and provide for his family and those who worked with him. That meant he worked very hard, and always kept long hours.
But the last words have to be from Dorcas;
“It could feel as if Copyhold Farm, as a farm, was the centre of a great spider’s web of people, quite apart from all the others we knew domestically, socially or through school and the many relations from Giles and Miriam’s large families. In the 1940’s a farm did not mean the kind of isolated life it has now become for so many farmers and the few other people who still work on farms”.
The History Society again had a great evening with Dorcas, and we all hope not the last one!
