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Introduction
Although this farm has been in the same family for the last 250
years, there is evidence of much more ancient occupation at Elm
Farm. The area was thickly populated in Roman times and there is the
site of a Roman villa and a listed Roman vineyard in the village
nearby. The Romans left the area about 410 AD, so the villa and
vineyard must both have been used before then.
Part of the Wansdyke runs through the farm and is monitored by
English Heritage. The Wansdyke, a scheduled listed monument, is
thought to be a defensive ditch, built in the sixth or seventh
century by the Anglo Saxons, who took over after the Romans left. It
may have been used to mark the boundary between kingdoms and it is
believed that the name Wansdyke means Woden's Ditch, after the Saxon
god Woden.
Burnett, the village in which Elm Farm is situated, was mentioned in
the Anglo-Saxon chronicles and Saxon gold pendants, beads, Roman
pottery and a stone Roman coffin have been found near the farm.
In
1084 Burnett and all of its lands belonged to William the Conqueror.
Later, in the Doomsday Book, Burnett was held by "Ulward’s wife" and
the population of the village was shown as 36 - a figure which has
increased very little since that time.
The 1700's
The hedges and
field names are well recorded and we have the original schedule from
1755. The history of the farm since 1755 is well documented as it has
been farmed by the same family since then.
There are records and evidence that coal
mining took place at Elm Farm. However, the quality of the coal was
poor and mining ceased in the eighteenth century. There remain clay
pits which were used for making land drains and their remains can be
seen today.
The 1930's - 1980's
Levels of food production in Britain have
varied over the years.
In the 1930’s there was a slump, and farmers
went through a difficult time. The price of food – and farm income -
was very low until the Second World War when imports of food came to a
standstill and there was a desperate food shortage. Here, like other
farms, we were asked to grow more wheat to feed the nation. To do this
we removed hedges and ploughed up old pastures. Little concern was
given to the impact on the environment, all farms were working to
avoid starvation.
This policy continued through the 1950's and
1960's. It was not until the 1980's, with the emergence of modern
farming methods, that there was a surplus of food in this part
of the world. The Present Day
From the
1990's onwards, people became interested in environmental and health issues.
Over-production in this country today has led to compulsory
restrictions on what we produce and how we produce it.
With the present problems facing farming
in Britain, it is difficult to see into the future, but, as with other
farms, we have diversified. With the knowledge gained by this farm
over the years and the on-going monitoring of wildlife, we feel we are
able to demonstrate to the public how we have integrated conservation with farming and the benefits this
policy has for wildlife and the countryside. |
