News of old farmhouse

I too would be interested in old pictures, but for a different reason.

Sheet 78 of the reprint of the one-inch Ordinance Survey map, shows the building, named Maynards Farm in 1886. I was born in Essex and moved to Chineham in 1979.

However, I have discovered, from a Settlement Examination held under the Poor Laws in 1794 at a division of the Surrey County Court, that, in the early 1770s, my four-times great-grandfather Isaac Lock worked for a farmer named Thomas Maynard, in Old Basing.

I think this area was classified as part of Old Basing in some of the old Tithe maps.

Also, in 1773 Isaac married Ann Watmore, just across the fields at St Andrews Church in Sherborne St John, and, interestingly, the couple were removed to Old Basing four days after the marriage, under those same Poor Laws.

I am fascinated by the coincidence that I should have moved so close to the area occupied by my ancestor such a long time ago.

I have photocopies of pictures taken of the farmhouse just before it was demolished, but by then it was in a very poor state of repair.

-Tony Lock, Chineham.

Sir.-I hope I can help with a little history of Crockfords Farm.

My mother and her family moved to Crockfords Farm from Padworth Common when she was seven, in 1910. Grandfather Rivers and his brother farmed it between them.

My grandfather and his family lived in a cottage, with his brother and family in the farmhouse.

All the children had to walk to Old Basing School, sometimes taking a shortcut through Daneshill brick works.

Both of the older boys served in the First World War. I don't know why they left Crockfords Farm but they went to Chineham Farm and ran it for many years on their own.

When they retired, the farm was taken over by Mr G Snook. The last people to farm at Crockfords were the Bowman family.

My aunt, Mrs Kent from Oakley, was the last of the family to die, just under two years ago. She was born at Crockfords Farm in February 1913.

-Mrs R Rendell, Bramley Road, Little London.