|
Underlined Text & Images are used for Hyper-Links to more
Relevant Information
|
|
Yeomen,
Wives and Workers
|
The oak tree
in the front meadow’ was already in its prime. with its branches cut back or
‘pollarded’ well above the ground, cattle were unable to eat the new’
growth and the timber could be used on the farm. This process was common, it
could be repeated about every 15 years and may have continued for centuries. In
1706 the lard of the manor commissioned a survey of all his oak trees. Oaks had
many uses, especially in the construction of wooden battleships. so it was
important to know’ how’ many there were.
Tottergill prospered over the next 150 years and by
the time Thomas Hodgson, ‘yeoman’, died in 1827 the estate was valued at
around £300. In the surrounding area the quarries, coalmines and limekilns
were busy. The tracks on the hillsides behind the farm were used by the
workers in their daily journeys. Lime, made by burning limestone and coal in
the farm’s limekiln, would have been used to improve the fertility of the
land, part of the wave of agricultural improvements, which had swept through
the country. Proximity to these deposits would have increased the value of
the farm at that time.
|
Remains of Lime Kilns
|
Other great
changes were afoot, the railways were coming, revolutionising transport and
taking coal to the new industrial centres, Coal heavers and pitmen lived in the
village below and soon workers on the local railway would join them. Industry
was bringing prosperity
to Castle
Carrock and a wave of new building began, using a hard ‘white’ local
sandstone in preference to the traditional softer ‘red’ variety.
Tottergill
had been home not only to generations of Hodgson’s, but records also show a
succession of others who lived and worked on the farm - Joshua Dixon,
husbandman, William Beeton, labourer, and Thomas Wilson, a poor man. Their wives
- Marys. Elizabeths, Tabithas and Rachels are mentioned too. The Hodgson women
lost their infants to early deaths in the same way as the worker’s wives. The
farm by now, although still owned by Thomas Hodgson, was tenanted out of the
family and when Thomas died 1848 he left no sons. An imposing and poignant
memorial tablet in Castle Carrock church is dedicated to the memory of Thomas,
his wife Mary and daughter Mary Jane, upon whose death the farm passed to her
surviving sister, Ann.
At this time
married women were unable to own property an their own right, so a trust was
formed to hold the farm, some 600 acres, for Ann, who was married to William
Watson. The Watson’s were a force to be reckoned with in Castle Carrock They
were the chief landowners and benefactors in the village and many local
buildings are attributable to them..
The
new range of imposing farm buildings at Tottergill reflected the growing
affluence of the times. Constructed of regular squared sandstone with crow
stepped gables, they included a tall central tower with dovecote openings,
stables, cartsheds and pigstyes, even a built-in hen coop. At the back, the
high, double doorway enabled direct access for carts bringing hay into the loft.
The buildings were for mixed farming, keeping animals and growing a variety of
crops to feed them This
was practiced
throughout the area and was to continue for another century, but the view from
the farm was changing for ever.
|
