The GLEBE FARM, KINGSTON DEVERILL, WILTSHIRE; INGLESHAM FARM, HIGHWORTH, WILTSHIRE; KINGSTON DEVERILL FARM, KINGSTON DEVERILL, WILTSHIRE; EAST KNOYLE, WILTSHIRE COLLECTION

This material is held atMuseum of English Rural Life

Reference
- GB 7 FR WIL 6
Dates of Creation
- 1861-1929
Name of Creator
- Stratton family of Wiltshire
Language of Material
- English.
Physical Description
- 16 documents

Scope and Content

Contains: Letter of M W Mortimer to R Stratton about Kingston Deverill chapel 1929l; account book for church rate and churchwarden's accounts for Kingston Deverill, Wiltshire 1887-1900; loose accounts of Inglesham Farm, Highworth, Wiltshire and Kingston Deverill Farm, Kingston Deverill, Wiltshire 1861-1920; sale catalogue of flock of sheep 1865; farm diaries of Kingston Deverill Farm 1867-1869; leases of Glebe lands in Kingston Deverill, 1869, Kingston Deverill Farm 1896, 1915, Glebe Farm 1906, 1915, 1921; recipes for an aliment in calves n.d.; valuation of live and dead farming stock, hay, straw, chaff, fodder, corn, feeding stuffs and manure, tenant right etc the property of Richard Stratton at Kingston Deverill, Wiltshire 1919; an account of the farming history of the Stratton family in Wiltshire from 1864-1933

Administrative / Biographical History

Information about the donor's family is given in VCH: Wiltshire, v.4. At the end of the Napoleonic wars, the Strattons were dairy farmers. Between 1816 and 1860 they acquired downland cheaply and reclaimed it. In 1855 or 1856, William Stratton occupied Inglesham Farm, Highworth, Wiltshire and in 1865 Kingston Deverill Farm, which has been in the family's possession ever since. The family was especially successful in withstanding depressions in agriculture after 1880 by adjustments to their traditional sheep/corn systems, by a substantial change to dairying in the 1920's and by obtaining grass sheep rather than arable sheep.

Farm size: Inglesham Farm: about 300 acres; mixed soils, river alluvium and upper highlands; Kingston Deverill Farm: 1693 acres; The Glebe Farm: 342 acres; a farm at East Knoyle; all mainly on chalk; tenants to the Marquess of Bath