Home Mead
Home Mead
Of Stone Farm, a detached part of Preston Plucknett
Home Mead was a small field at the northern end of Stone Farm to the east side of Stone Lane. A mead simply meant a meadow, derived from the Middle English mede. Home Mead therefore meant the meadow by the home, the home in this case being the dairy house in the adjoining parcel to the south.
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 Home Mead as Parcel 158. It was bounded on the west by Furze Leaze (Parcel 157), on the south by Dairy House Plot (Parcel 159), on the east it was bounded by Pit Orchard (Parcel 160) and to the north by a small brook marking the parish boundary, the other side of which are fields in the parish of Mudford.
The Preston Plucknett Tithe Apportionment of 1848 notes that Home Mead was 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 the area of Home Mead as 3a 3r 26p.
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 1886 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.
At some time before 1946 Home Mead, Furze Leaze and Plot were merged to form a large square field as shown in the 1946 aerial photograph below. In more recent times this field was itself merged with Pit Orchard (Parcel 160), Orchard Close (Parcel 161), Long Orchard (Parcel 162), Square Orchard (Parcel 164) and Great Orchard (Parcel 163) to form the very large present-day field shown in the recent aerial photograph below.
maps and aerial photographs
The Stone area reproduced from the 1849 Tithe Map. Home Mead is top, right of centre.
The 1946 aerial photograph showing at centre the field created by merging Home Mead, Furze Leaze and Plot. The dark wavy band running across the top third of the photograph is a tree and bush-lined brook that forms the parish boundary between Preston in Stone to the south and Mudford to the north.
The modern aerial view showing the large field at top right formed by the merging of Furze Leaze, Home Mead, Plot, Pit Orchard, Orchard Close, Long Orchard, Square Orchard and Great Orchard. At left the boundary hedge between Lower Five Acres and Lower Ground has been removed very recently to form a similarly large field.
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. The location of the former Home Mead is at top, right of centre.
Gallery
Between the hedge and the tree line, both running the full width of this photograph, is the large modern field comprising the former Furze Leaze, Home Mead, Plot, Pit Orchard, Orchard Close, Long Orchard, Square Orchard and Great Orchard. Photographed in 2015.