Folly Farm Memories

All the Davies residents of The Folly Farm

Who Lived There?

The Folly Farm was first rented in 1855 by Edward Davies (1821-1890) and his wife Martha (née Jones 1829-1885). Eight of their nine children were born there, and the sixth, Thomas Powell Davies (1862-1952) took over running the farm from his father, married his cousin Kate from across the valley and raised his three children, Morley, Hartley and Mary (sadly they lost one child in infancy).

1871 census for The Folly Farm

1901 census for The Folly Farm

It’s interesting to note TP’s sister Martha Smallman (née Davies 1858-1901) and Kate’s sister-in-law Rose Hughes (née Breakwell 1872-1951) were visiting. Rose’s husband John William Hughes (1864-1893) sadly died shortly after their marriage and before their son Trevor was born. As a result, Trevor spent a lot of time at The Folly with his cousins before going to fight in the WW1. Afterwards he emigrated to North America, settling in the San Francisco Bay area before retiring to Santa Barbara. Rose followed her son, dying in San Anselmo California in 1951. Several of you knew him; he sponsored Hartley’s daughter Veronica for a trip to work in the US in 1961. We still have very strong ties to his descendants.

Morley Davies, Trevor Hughes, Hartley Davies small

Lance Corporal Trevor in uniform with cousins Morley (l) and Hartley (r)

Trevor & Eve Hughes, Trevor’s mother Rose (née Breakwell) and children Nancy & Paul

1911 census for The Folly Farm

Recollections

The children of Morley, Hartley and Mary (variously our parents and grandparents) spent many happy days with grandfather ‘TP’ and have wonderful memories, some of which are shared here:

TP’s grandson Bryan Davies:

“One Easter a fox killed a lamb in the meadow near the Folly, so TP laced the dead lamb with strychnine and left in the meadow overnight. Next morning we found the dead fox and took it to a steamroller working nearby and persuaded the driver to burn it in his furnace!”

“Bill Buffon used to walk up the granary steps carrying a 2 cwt (224 lb) sacks of grain”

“Preserved hams and glitches hung from hooks in the kitchen, TP had to scrape out blow fly maggots.”

TP’s granddaughter Veronica Schroter (née Davies):

“Ant said I regaled him with dirty jokes in the granary obviously before I was sent to a young ladies academy.”

“TP taught me how to birth lambs. Difficult ones had their legs caught up.”

“There were 14 cart horses at the Folly when I was younger, and 14 cats outside who came in for milk. A fierce bull lived in the mixen area and the poultry lived in the orchard.”

“Morley, Hartley and Mary had a governess for their earlier studies in the school room in the garden.”

“I have my grandmother’s (Kate) beautiful inlaid walnut upright piano bought around 1900 with brass torcheres.”

“We skimmed the cream off the fresh milk in the dairy and drank it.”

“Flitches of ham hung from the beams in the kitchen where the workmen came in for “bait” around 9 am. A snack.”

“TP put my lame and retired pony Smokey down when I was about 12 and at school so I refused to see him so much before he died in 1952.”

“Ant and I had sixpence each for each dead mole we picked up in our traps in the school holidays. He skinned them and sent them off to a mole waistcoat maker and we fed the carcasses to the pigs in their style behind the granary.”

TP’s grandson Ant Davies:

“The mole business was big. Up to 24 dead each day. I despatched the skins to Horace Friend and Co in Wisbech. In winter my fingers would be very painful as warmth returned after setting and recovering traps down the more hills. On one occasion I was walking with your dad (Bryan) and uncle Morley on the Bankhouse (a field near the top of Oakkley mynd) when he saw a mole hill moving and took a mighty kick at it and a mole flew up in the air. I often tried to replicate this but never could.”

“As a young boy I rode with Grandad on the front of the saddle as he surveyed the flocks of sheep. At every field there would be a bottle of disinfectant by a gate that he could use for any sheep infested by flies. I remember he carried a thorn hooked stick that he could use from the saddle to unhook the gate links to avoid having to dismount.”

“As he got older it was the car. Always a cache of tools so that we could mend gates and fences as we toured the farm as well as surveying the flocks.”

“One job I remember was being a “lion tamer”. We used old shepherds huts to house hens on the stubble after the harvesting. Transporting the hens in these huts was a risky business as their terror would cause them to crowd in a corner of the hut and suffocate. So my job was to travel with them and continuously move them apart – feathers and hens flying everywhere!”

“I kept a little book during the holidays and noted down every job. At the end Grandad would carefully go through every page and award payment – 2d for collecting eggs, 1d for finding a nest in a farm building, etc. By the end of the holiday I wouldn’t have made a million but it gave me a sense of pride.”

“Grandad was a Methodist preacher and on a Sunday my mother and I would go with him. Mother (Mary Davies) would play the organ and I remember sitting by his feet in the pulpit. It is said that I would pull at his trouser bottoms if I felt he was going on too long.”

“I learned to work the horses – muck spreading with a cart and horse, raking a second crop of hay or the straw after harvest. But by the time I was 10 i could take control of a tractor – not officially but under the care of Bill Bufton so once I was 14 I could take a tractor anywhere and reverse trailers.”

“There were 7 or 8 regular workers – Bill Bufton assumed in the later years a sort of management role. He had started there at the age of 14 and was in charge of the horses when I was young and later became the main tractor driver, Ernie Beven/Lane/Bill ? lived in a shepherds hut and never turned up for work on a Friday having spent all his pay at the pub on the Thursday night, Charlie Davies who was deaf and dumb. He looked after the pigs and was the butt of some jokes from the workers. Every morning he came into the kitchen for some breakfast and my Mother talked to him with a mixture of lip reading and sign language (I still remember the letters of the alphabet). He lived with his mother in the Widows Row – a line of tiny cottages at the north east edge of Lydbury North.”

“Various cousins would appear from time to time. Uncle Morley and family brought a caravan and stayed in the Meadow below the farmhouse. I remember, embarrassingly, being the last to discover the secret of Aunt Effie at a family evening gathering in the caravan.”

“Uncle Hartley had an office in Bishops Castle and so Graham and Veronica would appear on a Friday.”

“Grandad had a couple of dogs – one was a tan colour looking very like a fox – so was called Fox Davies. When the strychnine laced lamb killed the real fox I remember Grandad having a dreadful fright as Uncle Morley brought the fox back to the house – he thought it was his dog.”

“As a young girl my Mother was a very keen horse rider. She and her horse Skippet would often go over the Long Mynd or to Bishops Castle. She also had various money making projects. She kept rabbits for their skins and the rabbit hutches were still there when I was a boy. She kept turkeys and apparently had a nightmare getting them in at night because they would go off and roost in the hedges anywhere. She and Uncle Hartley had a favourite dog, Boylo. They developed a language unique to them and their dog. I believe Veronica has learned it.”

“My Mother had many stories from the farm. Ned Whitefoot drove two horses for heavy jobs and to keep them together he would say ‘Up together Prince’ or similar. He also had just one for say ploughing. One day with the one horse my Mother heard him saying “up together Prince”. On another day she asked him whether his feet hurt after a whole day ploughing and he said ‘Oh when I gets home I just dangle my feet in a bucket’.”

“Grandad took us along when he went on an occasional/annual? holiday to Prestatyn to stay with Aunt Lizzie. Bezique was their favourite game. Aunt Lizzie lived with another lady whose name excapes me. But my memory is of many childless female couples. With the benefit of hindsight there were no men to go round after the slaughter of WW1. Another such couple were Aunt Dollie and her friend Mabel Dann (I suspect this was a relative from the Smallman side of the family). Aunt Dollie came every year to stay for a while at the Folly.”

TP’s grandson John Davies:

I once visited the Folly and nearby Linley Beeches with my Uncle John Davies. He recalled staying at The Folly and being sent by TP down to the Five Turnings crossroads at 6am. He was to meet a group of Italian prisoners of war who were due to work on the farm that day. He waited and waited and waited… until noon, fearful he had messed up in some way. He found his grandfather and the Italians at the other end of the farm; they had arrived from a different direction.