HOLT CASTLE FARM, Holt

This was the largest farm in the parishes of Holt and Little Witley. It was the home-farm to Holt Castle. The castle became the farm residence in 1750 when Lord Foley of Witley Court in Great Witley parish acquired Holt Manor. It must have been a great honour to be offered the tenancy of this farm and occupy such a grand ‘farmhouse’. A farm bailiff was often employed to oversee this farm and the others in the parish.

John Lowick had the farm during the second half of the eighteenth century. His wife, Mary, had ten children three of whom died in infancy. In 1747 he was a parish constable, and a churchwarden for two periods, 1758 to 1769 and 1776 to 1780. When John died in December 1783 his widow, Mary, took over the running of the farm until her death in February 1785. They were both buried in her home parish of Grimley.

The 1793 rent book states that the large range of buildings were all new or in good repair. They included a slaughterhouse, dove house, wool chamber and brew house, as well as the more usual barns, cow houses, pig cots and cart sheds. Henry Chellingworth, a guiding-light in local farming, rented the farm from at least 1787 until his death in 1841. In 1814 he signed an eight-year tenancy agreement with Lord Foleys' agent, Thomas Selby of Kent. The rent for 589 acres amounted to £1200 per annum, payable in two equal half-yearly installments. The agreement was of a standard form that laid down strict conditions concerning stocking, cropping, fallowing and crop rotations. On the expiry of this agreement, more normal annual arrangements prevailed, but still with the same standard conditions.

Chellingworth was a churchwarden from 1788 to 1819 and 1821 to1826. He must have been a very meticulous man, for an account book survives which details his personnel expenditure. It listed such everyday items as shoes, stockings, washing, a  toothbrush, church collection and monies lost whilst playing cards with friends. Shortly before his death in 1841 Chellingworth wrote a note, which he tucked inside the binding of his account book, describing the detail of his memorial. He desired to be buried between two of his late servants, with a 'plain but decent tomb on the topp'. Chellingworth died on 12th March 1841 and was duly buried in Holt churchyard in accordance with his instructions. He left £22,580 to eighteen legatees, which was finally dispersed in 1878.

Henry Chellingworth’s Tomb

On  20th April 1841 there took place an auction of a proportion of Chellingworth's' livestock; namely 250 fat sheep, 50 ewes with  lambs, 15 cows and heifers with calves and 20  store pigs. The sheep were of the Leicester breed, and the cattle Hereford's and Durham's. In addition there were 3000 fleeces of wool. Fat sheep sold to approximately £2/10/- each, a cow with calf £20 and a store pig £5/10/-. The auction raised  a total of £1091/9/6.

Perhaps during Chellingworth’s time and according to and article, ‘Ghosts in Worcestershire’, published in The Gentleman's Magazine in 1855, the servants in Holt Castle claimed that a passage near the attics and the cellar were haunted by a lady in black and a raven-like bird respectively. The author of the article implies however that the domestics had made up the story in order cover up their forays to the ale and cider stored in the cellar!

Joseph White, Henry's grand nephew, took over after Henry Chellingworth’s death. White lived in Holt Castle where he employed nine house servants. His stewardship seems to have been a stopgap, for by 1843 he had swapped farms with his cousin, John Pickernell, of Little Witley Farm. Pickernell immediately became churchwarden, retaining the post for four years. The farm was 600 acres in extent in 1847 for which a rent of over £1200 was due. In 1851 Pickernell was employing 23 farm labourers and a farm-bailiff, Thomas Burrow. There were four servants in the Castle. Pickernell had no family of his own. His mother died at Holt Castle Farm in 1845 His brother, Thomas, farmed in Shrawley. Thomas' son, Thomas (known as Tommy) was an accomplished horseman winning the Grand National at Aintree in 1871 on Lord Poulett’s, The Lamb.

In 1856, 355 sheep were offered for sale from Holt Castle Farm. They averaged 30/- each at the auction. By 1860 John Drinkwater had taken over as bailiff. Both he and Pickernell were still at the Castle in 1864. In 1868 Frederick Munn was running the farm from the Castle, with fifteen men, six boys but no farm-bailiff. There were then only three house-servants.

John W G Tatchell was manager from 1872 until 7th October 1876. He must have been a popular employer since a testimonial was presented, along with a bible, on the occasion of his retirement. The document 'from a few of the parishioners of Holt and the labourers on the Holt Castle Estate' bestowed his virtues as  'a most kind and considerate Master'. Three of his employees signed the testimonial 'for the other forty subscribers'. During Tatchell's time at the Castle Farm a further sale of  500 sheep took place. These large sales were also social gatherings with the vendor laying-on victuals for the prospective bidders. Quantities of alcohol probably helped the bidding along!

Joseph Brooks was a shepherd at Holt Castle Farm for fifty years. He died in 1879. His gravestone in Holt churchyard makes reference to his service and the respect he held.

Joseph Brooks’ Gravestone

Worcester born James Best took over from John Tatchell in 1876. Best farmed 1350 acres with a work force of some 90 men and 20 boys. Unlike any of his aforementioned predecessors he had a young family and so employed a governess as well as up to six domestic staff. Around  1895 he became  a Justice of the Peace. Soon afterwards he took on Henry Yapp as farm-bailiff. James Best died in 1904 at the age of 70.

The Castle then became  a  private residence. In 1912 the bailiff, who reported direct to Lord Ward, was William Price. In 1916 up to the estate sale of 1920, William John Williams was the bailiff. The bailiffs' house was next to the Castle as described in the sale brochure. The Home Farm and Castle were described in great detail and glowing terms in the 1920 sale brochure. Despite this the whole went unsold until 1925 when it was split into five lots including parts of Naunton Farm. Messrs. Dewhurst and Arliss bought the bulk of the estate and retained Williams as bailiff until at least 1940. The castle retained its status as private residence.

Most of the old Holt Castle estate was situated on the best arable land in the parish. These free-draining, easily worked soils owed their existence to the underlying sand and gravel. This valuable and much needed mineral resource has been, and continues to be, quarried in Holt and neighbouring Grimley. Since the 1960s a large portion of the area between the Grimley Brook, Holt Heath and the River Severn have been subject to sand and gravel extraction. On the east side of the A449, Worcester to Tenbury road, topsoil has been replaced over exhausted workings. The resulting areas supporting sheep grazing with some arable cultivations. The washing's settlement ponds, reed beds and wet pasture are a valuable wildlife habitat, supporting bird communities that occur in few other places in the Worcestershire.

In the 1980s the buildings that once constituted the ‘model farm’ were converted in to sixteen luxury dwellings arranged around a central courtyard

Dwelling conversions at Holt Castle Farm