6. Land Management

 

Most of the gentleman landowners did not live in Prestwood.  They leased their land to others (except for woodlands, which were kept in hand as long-term capital investments and did not need day-to-day management).  The yeoman farmers who worked their own land, on the other hand, lived locally and were usually far more important in the day-by-day life of the parish.  Sometimes they increased their holdings by renting additional land.  The remaining farmers were the “husbandmen” who rented land for farming, sometimes a considerable amount.

 

1. John Allen

He and his wife Sarah, in their forties with no children in the 1841 census, lived at Dennerhill Farm and leased the land there from Jane Baker.  By 1851 the farm had been taken over by Edward Davis and the Allens returned to their main home farm in Ashmansworth, Hampshire.  A John Allen at Peterley (tenant of Joseph Reynolds) appeared in the 1784 list if the Poll for Knights of the Shire, and this may have been the father of the John Allen at Dennerhill.

 

2. Thomas & John West

Thomas West (not to be confused with the wealthy Londoner who had recently taken over the Nanfan estate) kept a small farm in Prestwood between Prestwood and Kiln Common, with a farmhouse and two meadows (known as West’s Farm), but also grew crops on fields to the north and west of the Nanfan estate.  All this land was rented from Lord Carrington.  He died about 1841 and the farm was taken over by his son John (then 49), who had been running Newhouse Farm (owned by Thomas Ives) since about 1837, until it was taken by Arnold Davis some ten years or more later.  John West also leased from the Carringtons a number of arable fields on the west side of Prestwood Common, one directly south of the Sheepwash, and five adjoining Collings Hanger Farm.

 

3. Joseph Biggs

Joseph Biggs had considerable holdings in the centre of the parish, including two major farmhouses, Collings Hanger and Knives, at both of which he lived at different times, using the other for various bailiffs who helped him manage all these lands.  Collings Hanger Farm was leased from Jane Baker and Knives Farm from Richard Davis.  He also ran the small Peterley Corner Farm, part of the Dormer estate.  The Biggs family were not traditional farmers, more associated with the building trade.  In 1841 Joseph installed his father John, then 74, at Peterley Corner with a 60-year-old housekeeper.  John was still there in 1851, and still said to be working as a bricklayer, having by then married his housekeeper, but  this part of the farm s actually being run by Georgeanna Stevens, a farmer’s daughter.  Biggs also held a couple of fields and orchards on the west side of Prestwood Common, leased from the Edmonds’s of Sedges and Atkins Farms.  Some of the land belonging to Knives Farm was sold to build the new church and rectory in 1849, plus two fields west of the church [Prestwood Park] to Thomas Evetts.  Joseph’s son John Jr. was also a bricklayer and small landowner in Great Kingshill.

 

4. Elisha Essex

Elisha Essex, who was a grocer as well as a farmer, was based at Moat Farm in 1837, which he leased, as well as fields to the east of the farm, from the Hampden Estate.  These fields extended beyond the new parish boundary.  In 1841 he moved house to Greenlands Farm, at the south end of Lodge Wood, also part of the Hampden estate, and left a farmhand in charge at Moat Farm.  His father William had been a grocer in Prestwood before him.

 

5. John Olliffe

Master baker John Olliffe lived at Panrkidge Farm on the east side of Prestwood Common, not far from Moat Farm, and owned a few pasture fields behind, as far as the parish boundary.  He also owned three encroachments: a meadow and house [Old Flint Cottage] in the centre of the common that he leased to James Croft in 1837, another meadow and house on the edge of the common near the Green Man, which he leased to the grocer John Wright in 1837 [Oliver Wright’s House], and a small plantation near that which he felled and replaced with a cottage leased to John Sawyer in 1841 [Spindle Cottage].  He had also rented four meadows and a double cottage (Cat's Croft), opposite Moat Farm, from the Lady Bois Charity in the 1830s.  The Olliffes and Wrights had both long been associated with the area - John, Joseph and Samuel Wright, and William Olliffe, appeared on the 1784 list for the Poll for the Knights of the Shire.  By 1852 the land with Wright’s house was owned by William Crouch (who d not live locally).

6. John Clarke

John Clarke had Prestwood Common Farm, whose land abutted Pankridge Farm to the east and also included fields outside the parish north of Pankridge.  This was all leased from Thomas Furnivall.  John died before 1841, when his widow Rebecca carried on the farm with her son Alfred.  By 1851 it had passed to John’s brother William.  Both John and William came from Great Missenden, where John had been a linen draper and William a baker.  Their father had also been a baker.

 

7. George Pearman

50-year-old farmer George Pearman took over Ninneywood Farm in the 1840s, leased from Francis Cole.  He came from Hertfordshire.

 

8. Joseph Stevens

In 1837 a Thomas Stevens owned one arable field (let to James Tilbury) in the NE corner of the parish, just east of Andlow’s Farm, and many more fields outside the parish on the east side.  He is not in the 1851 census and may have lived elsewhere or have died.  It is possible that he was the father of Joseph Stevens (1801) from Chalfont St Giles who, in 1851, was a farmer at Primrose Hill Farm, just outside the parish south of Heath End.  Joseph's wife Alice Jane Hall was the daughter of a Worcestershire farmer and her widowed mother, Ann (1771), lived with them.  None of their children were married.  Joseph was helped on the farm by his eldest son William (1822), while Georgeanna (1824) was in charge of Peterley Corner farm in Prestwood for Joseph Biggs, together with two younger brothers Cornelius (1834) and Edwin (1839).  Anthony (1826), a timber dealer, and Alfred (1832), a chair turner, both lived with their parents and the youngest children Alice (1836) and Mary Ann (1841).

 

9. Jabez Taylor

This young farmer was only 29.  He managed Hotley Bottom Farm (93 acres) in the far north-east corner of the parish.  He was born in Little Missenden and still had family there.  In 1841 Abel Austin ran this farm. 

 

10. James Tilbury

 

 

 

The main farms in 1851 making up the parish are summarised on the following map.  In descending order of size (percentages of total farmed area in the parish, totalling about 1300 acres) they are:

1.                   17%. The holdings of John West on the west side of Prestwood (two blocks separated by the             Nanfans estate).

2.                   15%. The Davis’s holdings on Denner Hill.

3.                   12%. Collings Hanger Farm (Joseph Biggs).

4.                   10%. The Masons’ holdings (Fry’s and Hatches Farms).

5.                   10%. Atkins Farm (Edmonds).

6.                   9%. Nanfan Estate.

7.                   8%. Ninneywood Farm (George Pearman).

8.                   6%. Hotley Bottom Farm (Jabez Taylor).

9.                   6%. Dormer Estate at Peterley Manor (tenancy currently vacant).

10.               3%. Andlows Farm (the Honnor family).

11.               2%. Moat Farm (Elisha Essex).

12.               1% each: Three small farms (Pankridge, John Olliffe; Prestwood Common, William Clarke; and             Peterley Corner, the Stevens family) plus a corner of the Hampden Estate.