Fee Farm Road
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Planning Applications
Fee Farm
| ADDRESS: Fee Farm, Fee Farm Road
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| ADDRESS: Fee Farm, Fee Farm Road
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Historical Notes
FEE FARM was built by William Machel senior in 1766, with later additions in 1785 and 1819. The farmhouse probably replaced an older farm, which paid a fee to Westminster Abbey for the use of the land—hence the name. A beagle hunt used to meet here to pursue hares on foot. At one stage a large pond that at one time existed some 50 yards in front of the farmhouse.
Claygate had several farms in centuries past. There was Beazley Farm by Littleworth Common which ceased milk production in the 1950s in favour of horses; Slough Farm had a dairy herd of Red Poll Cattle and later pigs but later had horses; Manor Farm had a dairy herd of prize-winning jersey cows but later had horses; Elm Farm had dairy cows and chickens and sold delicious cream, but later had a plant nursery business and horse-feed shop; Barwell Court had a big herd of Friesian milking cows and grew cereals, but later kept horses; Horringdon Farm had one of the last big dairy herds of Red Poll cattle and grew cereals and potatoes, but but later horses and grazes young cattle for Loseberry Farm; Loseberry Farm no longer keeps a dairy herd; it later kept a house cow and young stock for the dairy herd at Stoke D'Abernon.
Fee Farm
In the latter part of the 19th century Fee Farm comprised about seven acres of which nearly three acres were orchards, and the rest mainly meadow and arable land. It had a cottage, the usual farm buildings and a paddock. The area covered by the farm was bounded on the east by The Causeway and Coverts Road, on the south and north by what later became Woodlands Close and Cornwall Avenue respectively, and on the west by Claygate Common. It is quite possible of course that the farm was somewhat larger in earlier times, as in 1838, when James Scott was the tenant, the farm had a rateable value of £21 which would have been rather excessive for a farm of that size.
On the farmland, opposite the 'Corner Shop' and roughly where the house called 'Two Trees' now stands, was a smith's shop and a yard built some time before 1709 by John Romain. In 1709 it was occupied by the widow of Richard Perkins for a yearly rent of 2s.6d. for 41 years, subsequently by William Wood, then by John Woodlatch, and finally by Stephen Humphrey who obtained a seven-year lease of the shop in September 1893. In that year, and for at least the previous 20 years, James Taylor was the tenant farmer, but in the following year Edward Dalton took over the tenancy, while the Foley family were the landlords.
In April 1920, Lord Gerald Henry Foley sold Fee Farm and its land, including the shop, to George and Rundle Brendon for £1,300. They in turn sold it to Percy and Charles Mitchell of Seaton, Devon, for £2,750 in October 1923. The Mitchell brothers were builders and in the late 1920s/1930s Fee Farm Road was created, but not made up, and houses were gradually built along either side of it. Fortunately, the farmhouse itself survived and was not demolished for redevelopment as might easily have been the case in those days when the preservation of old buildings was not so controlled as it is today.
In the mid 1930s, a strip of land on the northern boundary of the farm was acquired by Esher Urban District Council to create an easier and safer access to Common Road from The Causeway. This short stretch of road was built in 1938 and named Cornwall Avenue after an adjacent house called Cornwall House, which together with Newlyn, had been built two years beforehand. Most of the houses along this road were given West Country names, presumably either at the inspiration of the Mitchells who came from Devon, or perhaps because the householders thought that West Country names would harmonise with the name of this road.
Source
- Peebles, Malcolm (1983). The Claygate Book. (Millennium edition). Stockbridge: by BAS Printers Ltd. ISBN 0-9508978-0-9.
- Many thanks also for the photos, many supplied by Terry Gale, from the Claygate Local History Facebook group.
