Tuesday 16th July 2024  

The Home Farm of the Nether Hall

Submitted by Kate Hutchinson
Story written in 1991

The old stone farm house still stands. The house [30 Soar Road] is occupied by Mr Pepper's two sons Norman and Brian, and their sister Addie (Mrs Culley) lives in the cottage on the left of the farm.

The open barns and out houses have been demolished and the road out the back of the farm yard which led to the meadows is now Windsor Close. The little jitty leading off the bend of the road leads to Station Road, and the land beyond the jitty formerly one of the farms meadows is a little estate of very expensive houses called "Foxes Hollies".

There was a small farm and farm house to the left of Home Farm. It was owned by Mr George Gamble who kept a small herd of cattle, the house was demolished when the builders moved in. Running across the top right hand corner is Freehold Street. The Pepper herd were bought down that street to the milking shed in the yard. Although the residents kept their entry doors shut, the cows were no respecters of streets and very often they made a mess on the pavements and sometimes on the steps. It was Norman and Brian's job to inspect the street daily and if there was any trouble they had to take buckets of water and swill the pavements and steps. Consequently the street earned the nickname of "Cow Muck Lane." Freehold Street is very much the same, a few new houses have been added at the beginning of the street, and the land at the back of the street, top right hand corner is now a cul de sac of OAP bungalows called Catherines Close.

There is a new block of OAP flats called Revell Close named after the Rev Revell, vicar of Quorn 1974-1982. All traffic that goes down Freehold Street has to come back that way as there is no outlet at the other end only two jitties, one leads to Meynell Road and the other to Station Road.

The road running from left to right in front of the farm house is Soar Road. The present tenant of Wharf House is Mr Sharp and the building has been extensively refurbished, but the old weigh bridge has been taken away.

The meadow in the top left beyond the jitty belonged to Home Farm and in the centre was pond called "Jackie Mann's Pond" and beside the pond was a drain and when there was a good flood the water seeped out of this drain into the pond. In that day the people who owned the outdoor beer off in Freehold Street used to stock goods in the cellar and if a flood was imminent they would keep their eye on this drain because when the flood water seeped out into the meadow they knew that it would start to seep into their cellar. So they had to clear all the stock into a safe place. The white fronted building is still an outdoor beer off licence in 1991.

There were walled in allotment gardens in the area which is now Harrington Close, named after the eighth earl of Harrington, master of the hunt on the forest side of Quorn Hunt. He died in 1917.

In the stack yard (back towards the jetties) there was a cess pit and in those days there were no water closets and the toilets were latrines (a large bin and a seat on top with a hole in) and the nearby residents were allowed to empty their bins into the cess pit at night. The people of today use the latest flush toilets and toilet rolls but in those days the "toilet rolls" were newspapers cut into 6 inch squares threaded on a piece of string and hung on a nail in the closet which was usually a little brick outhouse at the top of the yard. A very unpopular sight but nevertheless a common one was when the March winds did blow. A good wind would whip up the squares of newspaper and many of them would stick on the hedge rows (and they didn't look like May blossom). Perhaps that was the reason that the artists of old avoided Quorn.

A previous tenant of the wharf house was Mr Stirling who was a town councillor and Mrs Stirling could be seen walking round the village with a yoke and two pails of milk which was sold loose in those days.

In the very old days the wharf house and the wharf bridge and the coal wharf belonged to the Freeman family. One of the Freeman family emigrated to Australia and became connected with the early combustion engine and his ingenuity earned him a fortune, but when he died in his adopted land the family in England could not claim any of this money because they could not produce his birth certificate and the Australian government would not part with the money.

In between the two barns was the entrance to the farm yard from Freehold Street. This is the way the cattle would walk to the milking sheds. The first barn has been demolished but the second one has been beautifully refurbished and tuned into a nice little workshop where they produce ships in bottles. Consequently it became known as "The Bottle Factory". They export their products all over the world and it employs about six people. The owner informed me that in the early days of the factory the farm was still working and if they left the door open very often a cow would try to enter the workshop. Two late bits, Soar Road still floods and Norman and Brian instead of working their farm now keep the best allotment on the Barrow Road (Flesh Hovel Lane)

Submitted on: 2009-08-25 Submitted by: Kate Hutchinson Artefact ID: 508 Artefact URL: www.quornmuseum.com/display.php?id=508 Print: View artefact in printer-friendly page or just on its own (new browser tab).