Cole Street Farm
Photo Tour
History of
Cole Street Farm
We are really interested to find out about the story of Cole Street Farm.
The estate agent's details said the farmhouse is 300 years old, but so far the only reference we have found is by Charles Howe in his 1983 book 'Gylla's Hometown - How a Saxon Settlement became an English Country Town'. He writes:
"The year 1792 brought my family to this town, or near at hand, because they moved into Cole Street Farm which is in the parish of East Stour. They were farmers and Ambrose How had come up from Stalbridge in 1769 and married a Gillingham girl, Catherine Peters. It may have been her desire to come back to her old home town... (we) have been here ever since.
The move to Cole Street Farm is recorded in the 1792 accounts of Ambrose How. These accounts show he was mainly producing butter. An entry on 19th February 1792 records the sale of 3lbs of butter at 9d/lb. By 16th July that year the price had dropped, as he sold 5 dozen and 1 pounds at 6d/lb.
At Cole Street in 1843 the accounts show that cheese sold for 2 1/2d/lb and butter for 9d/lb. He got 1/1d for 20 eggs and was paid 7/- for a day's ploughing. He had to pay 1/6d for a 9lb loaf of bread (approx. 4kilos), and coal cost him 1/2d for a hundredweight.
He was not over-generous in paying his men for in 1852 was entered:
Paid to Lankey for 1½ day's work 6d
Paid to Lankey for 2½ day's work 10d
This is 4d per day and there was no such thing as light work on the farm in those days.
Charles Howe remembers:
"Cider was a traditional drink and cheap in the pubs. Many people kept a barrel at home and it varied in taste and strength in different farms. At Cole Street Farm the barrels were open topped and the hens roosted over them. The droppings disappeared and if a hen fell in, too bad. When the time came to clean out the barrels all that was found of the poor old hen would be the beak and talons."
Charles Howe, the author's
grandfather, in the
uniform of the Dorset
Volunteers, c.1890. One
of the five sons of the
second Ambrose Howe,
he would have lived at
Cole Street Farm before
their move to Cowslip
Farm, (later called Brocks)
in Lintern Lane in 1870.
More recent
History
More recently, the place was owned by Mr. White (born in 1900) who had lived here as a child and was given the farm for his 21st birthday. In those days what is now our kitchen used to be the dairy/washroom, and the therapy room was the kitchen. He farmed here until 1984 and died at the ripe old age of 98.
In 1989 the 230 acres was divided up and the buildings sold to Mr. and Mrs Hawkett, who undertook the conversion of barns to holiday cottages. At this time Sette Brook barn was used as a nursery school. They sold it on, moving to Australia, where Mrs Hawkett took an active part in 'saving the whales'.
The building goes on....
