Farming

Penkhull Farm was the largest of five farms that covered the area of Penkhull. This farm which has formed the basis of a major study of its life from the time of Domesday 1086 all of which is included in a ninety-minute video of its history from Domesday to the 1960s, but also and importantly of the last farmer in Penkhull, Doug Jarvis and his wife Betty. It is probably one of the largest essays available on this site amounting to twelve pages of well researched documents and interviews with photos on this site.

The farm situated in Garden Street, formally Farm Lane and previous to that Tittensor’s Lane and was listed as one of the ancient messuages in 1714 manorial survey. It went then by the name of Drarwell and was occupied by the Dale family. The Hearth Tax returns of 1665 refer to a Roger Dale, having property with five hearths.  Roger died the same year, leaving the farm to his son, Thomas, a bachelor, aged thirty-two. He later married Margeria Townsend, daughter of a wealthy local farming family, in 1672 which was not uncommon at the time. The parish listings of 1701 confirm a Thomas Dale, yeoman, as living in Penkhull aged sixty-nine. In the list of 1714, his son, also named Thomas, occupied the farm but died four years later in 1719, aged forty-five. His estate was left to his sisters, Elizabeth, and Maria. Between the years 1720 and 1781, both the farm and considerable copyhold land attached passed to the Alsager family of Alsager Hall, near to Congleton.

Almost every possible bit of historical information has been researched to provide a twelve-page essay of over seven-thousand words. To achieve this, the information from Manorial Surveys, extensive Manor Court Rolls covering many centuries have been utilised to the full, tithe schedule, reeve books, census returns, parish registers and other documents far too many to list here, a massive undertaking.