Michael Allen Recollections

Crown Farm and Hall Farm

I was born at Crown Farm, Deopham and my first memory was of moving to Hall Farm shortly before Christmas 1940, after the death of my grandfather Walter Allen.

The Crown owned Crown Farm from 1876 following the death of Bevil Amyas who died intestate and no relatives could be traced. The farm was let to Archibald Rowing who also farmed and lived in Wicklewood. In 1890 Archibald Rowing died and the farm was let to my Great Grandfather William Allen from 1892. The farm at that time was known as Hall Farm. William had been farming at the neighbouring Hall Farm at Low Common Deopham which he rented from Lord Wodehouse, the Earl of Kimberley. I believe that the farm was sold to Lord Wodehouse and William continued to farm both Hall Farms together.

My Grandfather Walter Allen moved to what is now known as Crown Farm on his marriage to Helen Pollard in 1898. (Helen Pollard was a great niece of Archibald Rowing.) The name of the farm was changed to Crown Farm to prevent confusion because my grandfather and my great grandfather were both W. Allen, Hall Farm, Deopham!

My father, Archie Allen, was called up to serve in the army in the latter part of the first world war. After the armistice was signed, he returned home to Hall Farm.
He remained living at Hall Farm and took over the running of Crown Farm from my grandfather. The Crown Farm house was let at this time to a Mr and Mrs Dring.
When father married Hilda Banham in 1925, they moved into Crown Farm house.

My brother and I were both born at Crown Farm. When we moved to Hall Farm, Crown Farm was sold to Frank Law. His step-son Jack Brown farmed Mill Farm Deopham.

My father farmed Hall Farm until his retirement in 1966 when I took over the running of the farm until I retired from farming in 2001.

Until electricity came to Deopham the Hall Farm house, barn and cowshed had been lit by acetylene gas. The gas was produced by having a tray of carbide and regulating a drip of water on it. The gas produced was stored in a gas holder. The gas holder became so rusty that it was not safe to use so we had to use oil lanterns or tilley lamps until electricity came.

Church

My father had been a church warden on and off for many years. In 1960 he attended the church annual meeting. When he came home I asked him if he had had a good meeting. He replied yes, and told me that I had been elected on to the P.C.C.!

So began 53 years on the P.C.C., 28 years of which as a church warden. I was the fourth generation to be a Deopham church warden.

Some church furniture had been obtained from redundant Norwich churches. I cannot remember when. The present high altar replaces the one now standing in the South Aisle. The old choir stalls now stand at the west end of the North and South Aisles.

A pulpit now replaces the original which has been disposed of.

The decalogue boards have been moved “temporarily” from either side of the high altar to either side of the door of the tower screen.

[There are pictures of all the items mentioned above in the church photos.]

The 5 bells had to be lowered from the bell frame because the frame was unsafe. Four of the bells now rest on strengthened window sills in the first floor of the tower.

The fifth bell, the tenor, is mounted in a new steel frame resting on top of the original bell frame in the belfry and is used as a calling bell for services.

[A full account of the bells can be found here.]

Treasure Trove

In 1993 metal detectorists were searching an area of Church Farm when they uncovered 2 gold Roman coins. This find was reported to Norwich Castle.

Dr John Davies from the Castle and Andrew Rogerson from the Rural Life Museum at Gressenhall came out and I hired a JCB digger for the day. We marked out the area where the coins had been found. This area was carefully checked by the metal detectorists. We then removed about 2 inches of soil from the area, checked this soil again then checked the area again until we had removed the soil to a depth of about 14” -18”.

In total we found 26 gold coins and 4 silver coins. An inquest was held at Dereham which I attended.
The coins were declared to be treasure trove and are normally on display at Norwich Castle.

As each coin was discovered Dr Davies dusted the coins and identified them.
They came out of the ground shining as if they had been buried yesterday.
They were dated from 350 AD to 402 AD.

The photos of the coins are © Norfolk Museums Service.

Piggett’s Lodge

There was a pair of cottages in Victoria Lane which I converted into one house. When we started work on the conversion it soon became evident that the cottages were not Victorian as we had thought but they originally had been one timber framed house with the date 1634 on one of the chimney breasts. I lived there until I moved to Wymondham in 2016.

When the 1930s style fireplaces were removed in the downstairs rooms we exposed two inglenook fireplaces. The one in the western cottage had been reduced in size 3 times in the past. The bressummer [load-bearing] beam had been badly damaged by scorching and had to be replaced with a new oak beam.

We also exposed a large bread oven at one end of the inglenook. In the bread oven was a very old pair of child’s leather boots. Both boots were the same, neither left nor right! It is believed that they were put there when the oven was sealed up, top fend off evil spirits. I cleaned the boots and put them back in the oven.

All four of the fireplaces have got burn marks on the bressumers made with a red hot iron. I am told that it was believed that if a piece of wood burned once it would never burn again. [There is a fascinating article on this subject here.] We certainly had a difficult job to burn the bressummer which we replaced!

On completion of the renovation I named the house Piggett’s Lodge after the two adjacent meadows, Piggett’s Pasture and Piggett’s Pightle. Piggett’s Pasture has been known as “Piggy” for many years. It was used by the football club and cricket club. An old double decker bus was used as a changing room and pavillion. If anyone has a photograph of the bus, I would like to have a copy.
Piggy was also used by the Wymondham Motor Cycle Club, of which my father was a founder member, to hold Motor Cycle Scrambles on two occasions.
Other events held on Piggy were a cart horse derby and also fetes. At one of the fetes a greased pole was put across the deepest part of the pond and there were two competitors, one at each end who each tried to cross the pole. There were several duckings.

Land Drainage

In the 1850s and 1860s, when Hall Farm was part of the Kimberley Estate, a very comprehensive drainage scheme was carried out – see here for the plan.
Ditches were dug and on some fields main drains were laid to the ditches. These drains consisted of a flat clay tile at the bottom with a horseshoe shaped clay tile inverted on top. Both tiles were about one foot long.
Feeder drains were laid to join the main drains. These drains consisted of clay pipes of about 2 inches diameter – some of these had one slightly flattened side to prevent them from rolling out of place.
All the ditches and trenches were dug by hand and pipes were laid using special tools.
On some fields the drains were laid up to about five feet deep where they reach the ditch and about 10 to 12 yards apart as shown on the plan.
The tiles were almost certainly made in the Kimberley Estate brickyard. I am told that all the work was done by a large gang of Irish navvies.
Many of these drains are still working well today but some areas have been re-drained over the years.

Hall Farm Barn

This barn was used for many village celebrations including Coronations, Jubilees and Church Fetes.

The interior of the east end wall had been decorated for coronations with two union jacks, a crown and Prince of Wales feathers under which was painted GOD SAVE THE KING (or QUEEN). Unfortunately, when electricity came to Low Common, I think in 1947, the last word was obliterated by fuse boxes and switch gear etc. My father reckoned it now said “GOD SAVE the (Electricity Board)”.

See below for details of Queen Victoria’s Golden Jubilee celebrations of 1887.

The barn and other buildings have now been converted to residential use.

Low Common Chapel

I remember the chapel which had been built at Low Common. I believe it was closed in about 1934 because it was unsafe. It was demolished (or fell down) during the 2^nd World War and a bungalow was later built on the site.

There was a cottage or a pair of cottages next to it to the north. Also there was a row of stone cottages which had large back gardens. The council built the present council houses in the gardens and the tenants moved back into the new houses and the stone cottages were demolished. There was a well and hand pump. The pump is still there.

[There are pictures of this chapel and the cottages here.]

Church Farm

When Church Farm was sold at auction in 1963 on behalf of Mr Geoffrey Peacock [who had bought it from the Ecclesiastical Commissioners] we decided that it would make sense to purchase if possible. Church Farm was a block of land in the middle of Hall Farm.
We were successful in our bid and shortly afterwards sold the house to a Mr and Mrs Wood. The house was completely unmodernised. In due course they sold the house to Philip Curl who married Nicola Gurney. Upon arrival, she recognised the kitchen gallery as having come from Bawdeswell Hall.

Accounts for Golden Jubilee Dinner, 1887

Date	Change
26/10/22	Published