Yeovil's Virtual Museum

Higher Broadmead

Of Stone Farm, a detached part of Preston Plucknett, then Marsh Farm

 

Higher Broadmead was a large square field northwest of Stone Farm on north-facing sloping ground to the west side of Stone Lane.

This area is actually a detached part of the parish of Preston Plucknett, known as Preston in Stone, and the Preston Plucknett Tithe Map of 1849 shows Higher Broadmead as Parcel 153. It was bounded on the south by Great Stone (Parcel 152), on the west by Higher Pear Tree Close (Parcel 1132 - in the Parish of Yeovil), to the north by Lower Broadmead (Parcel 154) and on the east by Stone Lane.

The Preston Plucknett Tithe Apportionment of 1848 infers that Higher Broadmead (Parcel 153) and Lower Broadmead (Parcel 154) were originally one large field but at the time of the Apportionment was divided into two fields, as they remain today. Both were in the ownership of Henry Goodford Esq. of Chilton Cantello and occupied by Mrs Phillis Coles, as indeed was the whole of Stone Farm at this time. The Tithe Apportionment reckoned Higher Broadmead as 8a 0r 10p.

Other known owners / occupiers had been James Harris (1800), Mr Pester (1810), Mr Spear (1818), Stephen Coles (c1821-1827). Phillis Coles, in her later years assisted by her sons, ran Stone Farm after the death of her husband Stephen until her own death in 1877. Her son Edmund ran the farm after her death until his death in 1885. By 1889 a Mr Russell was farming Stone Farm but his widow sold up and retired in February 1900. In 1901 the tenant farmer was John Sawtell. By the 1920s Higher Broadmead was being farmed by WF Snell & Sons of Marsh Farm to the immediate west.

During 1925 both Higher Broadmead and Lower Broadmead were subject to Foot-and-Mouth disease control orders, but both were declared free of the disease in November 1925.

Today Great Stone, Higher Broadmead and Lower Broadmead are combined to form one very large field, with a portion of the latter fenced off to form a paddock. The whole field remains as pasture - see photo below.

 

The Stone area reproduced from the 1849 Tithe Map. Higher Broadmead is towards top left.

 

The 1946 aerial photograph showing Higher Broadmead at centre. Stone Lane runs vertically just right of centre.

 

The 1849 Tithe Map superimposed over the current Google Earth image. Although the field boundaries do not align precisely, remember that the 1849 survey was undertaken by hand using primitive surveying equipment. Higher Broadmead is towards top left but is today joined with Great Stone.

 

Great Stone, looking northwest from the southeast corner. The lower slopes seen in this photograph are the former Higher Broadmead which is today combined with Great Stone to form one large field. Photographed in 2015.