GATLEY FARM/COTTAGES, Holt
Gatley is situated next to Rowley Farm down Ockeridge Lane, on the western edge of Holt parish. The name Gatley is probably derived from the Old English ‘gat’ or ‘cat’ + ‘leah’, meaning clearing where, respectively, the goats or cattle are kept. This smallholding has a complicated history and has been variously known as Gatley Farm, Gatley Cottages or just Gatley.
Thomas Mates, Miotts or Miats is the first identifiable occupant of Gatley. He was not without fault, for in 1731 the annual manorial court fined him six pence for building a cottage on the waste at Holt. Two years later he failed to appear at the court for which he was fined six shillings and eight pence. He was fined one shilling in each of 1735, 1736 and 1738 for the same ‘offence’. Thomas died instate in May 1743 at Holt , Letters of Administration being granted to his son Thomas Jun. only after Thomas' mother died in 1761. There then appears to have been a flurry of documents drawn-up to cover the movement of property rights within the Miotts family. Thomas is mentioned in the 1775 List of Holt Freeholders and Copyholders. Thomas Jun. prepared his Will in 1781 at which time he was a victualler, probably at the Red Lion. He left the Three Tuns and Gatley to his wife, Mary, then to his son John on her death.
From at least 1787 to about 1789 Edward Carter held the leasehold of Gatley, letting the farm to William Ford before the latter moved on to farm at Wood Farm. In about 1790 the leasehold went to Thomas Jones who let it to George Thomas for about four years, then to Edward Crofts. In 1810 Jones was mentioned in the Holt Enclosure Act. By 1815 he had let the farm to William Goodwin of Holt Mill. John Goodwin took over the let on his father’s death in 1817. In 1821 the primary lease on the land reverted to Lord Foley, but the let to John Goodwin continued until 1826 at which time the land associated with Gatley was subsumed in to neighbouring Rowley Farm under Joseph Rutter.
From at least 1839 the two cottages at Gatley were let to agricultural labourers or estate staff. William Bevan was resident in 1839; labourer John Cocum had replaced him two years later. William Roberts was in the second cottage from at least 1839 until 1871. Edward Jones was present in 1851 through to at least 1891. Charles Taylor, a gamekeeper, was resident in 1871 and probably from at least two years previously. James Hinton, who was present in 1891, succeeded gamekeeper William Hawley who was in residence in 1873. Thomas Moss was resident in 1903. At the time of the 1920 sale Gatley Cottages were let to Thomas William Jones of Rowley. At the 1920 sale Jones bought Gatley Cottages as part of the Rowley Farm sale lot. The cottages each consisted of two bedrooms, a living room with open range and a back kitchen with an oven.
Jones’s son Joseph lived in one of the cottages until 1934. When Thomas William died, Joseph moved to the farmhouse at Rowley. Joseph Jones then sold off the cottages with a ten acre meadow, along with three fields consisting ‘No-gains’, to H Barrington Esq. Elt bought the whole lot at auction in July 1952. The sitting tenant, George Henry (aka Harry) Cooper who was employed as stud groom by Joseph Jones, bought the cottages and land at its associated meadow from Elt soon afterwards. Harry Cooper’s wife, Margaret Elizabeth Howe Jones, was the daughter of Thomas Henry Jones who had left Rowley for Sankyns Green Farm before 1909.
Gatley is still in the hands of the Coopers, the two cottages having been knocked through to form one residence.
Last updated 28 July 2009
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