arable dean

arable dean

A Victorian field in Preston Plucknett

 

Arable Dean was originally part of a large field called Deane, or Dean Field, in the north of Preston Plucknett, to the north of Preston Road and west of Larkhill Lane. In the 1763 survey of the Manor of Preston, The large field was pasture and known as Dean Close. At this time it was beginning to be subdivided. It was subdivided into four fields by the middle of the nineteenth century.

The 1846 Preston Tithe Map shows Arable Dean in the centre of the field system to the north of Preston Great Farm and Preston Road and west of Larkhill Lane. The Preston Plucknett Tithe Apportionment of 1848 noted that Arable Dean was owned by Lady Georgiana Fane of Brympton d'Evercy and the tenant was Thomas Hawkins.

Shown as Parcel 80 at the centre of the map below, Arable Dean lay to the east of the now long-gone field access track running up the centre of the map and Dodham Brook to its east. It was bounded to the north by Grass Dean (Parcel 79) and to the south by Higher Sleight (Parcel 81). However, as seen on the aerial photograph below, by 1946 it had been joined with Grass Dean to form a larger field.

Arable Dean disappeared when Abbey Manor was built in the 1980s and the site is now occupied by West Brook.

 

maps & Aerial photograph

 

The main post-medieval fields of Preston Plucknett.

 

Map based on the 1849 Tithe Map showing Arable Dean as Parcel 80 at centre, lying between the field access track, Eighteen Acre Lane (now a footpath) running up the centre of the map and Dodham Brook to its east.

 

This is a 1946 aerial photograph showing Arable Dean at centre, by this time joined with Grass Dean to its north, the new large field lying immediately north of the new farm that had been built in Higher Sleight. At lower left is Houndstone army camp and at lower right is the post-war Larkhill Lane pre-fabricated housing estate. At centre is the Preston Plucknett Flax Works.