Haskells: The Life and Death of a Whittle-le-Woods Farm

You would have to be a very long-term resident of Whittle-le-Woods to remember Haskell’s Farm. Its farmhouse and outbuildings were demolished in the early 1970s and its farmyard and fields are now covered by housing. It was a small family farm, little more than a smallholding, one of hundreds of such farms that covered the rolling hills that surrounded the east Lancashire textile manufacturing towns throughout the nineteenth century and into the twentieth. Most are now gone, their fields absorbed into larger concerns (or built upon) and their buildings torn down or converted into private houses. In this article I will chart the history of Haskell’s, as an example of this unsung but important aspect of Lancashire’s agricultural economy.

Haskell's Farm is in the foreground of this early twentieth century photograph, taken from Dolphin Brow, with Waterhouse Green beyond. Note its "Laithe House" design, with the barn attached to the farmhouse. Note also its orchard and the river Lostock running between the orchard and Waterhouse Green. The photograph is from the George Birtill collection

It was called Haskell’s in Kenneth Hodgkinson’s history of Whittle and Clayton-le-Woods, but Haskell’s was not its original name and it did not acquire that designation until the Haskell family took it on in the early twentieth century. Its proper name was Waterhouse Green farm. Its farmyard was situated on a flat piece of land just across the river Lostock from Waterhouse Green, the farmhouse and attached outbuildings snuggled under the steep bank of Dolphin Brow. Its fields were on the top of the bank, between what is now Preston Road (the A6) and Chorley Old Road. The tithe apportionment schedule of 1840 states that it was 10 acres in size, but by 1851 it was just under six acres. Either way, it was a very small farm, but in the nineteenth century, Lancashire had a higher proportion of small farms than almost every other English county. Towards the end of that century, the average farm size in Lancashire was 40 acres, compared with 80 acres for England as a whole and the average for East Lancs was only 30 acres, with many of 10 acres or less.

The Small Farms of East Lancashire

Haskell’s was not even the smallest farm in Whittle-le-Woods. In 1851 there were 34 farms in Whittle. The largest were the home farms of Shaw Hill and Crook Hall, each around 75 acres, followed by Swansea farm at 52 acres. Only two other farms were over 40 acres and 15, or 44%, were less than 10 acres, the smallest being a mere 3 acres. The average size of Whittle’s farms was just under 20 acres (see Table One below).

Table One: Farms in Whittle-le-Woods in 1851. This table is derived from the 1851 census, including all those who gave their occupation as "Farmer of ... acres". As the census did not include names of farms, but only the roads on which each farmer lived, a certain amount of guesswork has been needed to match farmers to the farms on contemporary Odnance Survey maps

Such figures conjure up a stereotype of poor, uncouth peasants scratching out a subsistence existence from straggly crops and sore-infested animals while living in damp and draughty hovels. This was indeed the view of some contemporary commentators. R. W. Dickson wrote in 1815 about Lancashire’s small farmers, “Men of this stamp are quite unfit for the management of land and besides they have neither the capital or knowledge necessary for rendering the land productive and beneficial” and in 1851 J. Caird was still complaining that “Unfortunately, the great proportion of [Lancashire] is held by small farmers who, however industrious, do not possess the intelligence or capital requisite to meet the natural difficulties”. The implication was that the rental income that gentleman landowners could expect to gather from such farmers was limited by their country bumpkin-ness. However, more recent research has shown that, far from being backward and fit only to meet their occupants’ meagre needs, east Lancashire’s small farms were thriving small businesses that played an important role in providing produce for its growing industrial towns.

A paper by Michael Winstanley of Lancaster University, published in 1996, offers a positive view of these farms. He points out that, “small-scale farming was far from confined to the geographical periphery, but was in fact most heavily concentrated in areas with low indices of "rurality" close to densely populated urban settlements”. Farms like Haskell’s were predominantly dairy farms, supplying milk, butter and cheese to those living in the industrial towns. Small farmers also reared pigs and as the 19^th century wore on, poultry. Many of the farmers retailed their produce directly to customers, travelling into the towns themselves to sell their wares at markets. This maximised their returns and as they were family farms, with wives and children working in the fields and milking sheds, they saved on labour costs. Rather than peasants, Winstanley suggested that east Lancashire’s small farmers should be regarded as petit bourgeoisie. Winstanley also showed that when the nationwide agricultural depression took root in the late 19^th century, Lancashire’s small farms weathered the economic downturn better than larger, less flexible and adaptable concerns.

From Waterhouse Green Farm to Haskell’s Farm

We cannot date the foundation of Waterhouse Green (Haskell’s) farm precisely, but we can make an educated guess. Some of Whittle’s farmhouses date from the 17^th century and probably replaced earlier buildings, but there was an expansion of small farms in the late 18^th and early 19^th century. This was due to the growth of the population of Lancashire, leading to increased demand for farmland and for accommodation for those who wanted to farm. Marginal land was turned to farming and some farms were sub-divided or sub-let. Some of Whittle’s farms listed in Table One have more than one family as farmers and some family names occur more than once, offering evidence for this sub-division.

It is most likely that Waterhouse Farm began as a separate holding during this expansion. The design of the farmhouse reinforces this view. It is a “laithe house”, a design common among northern farms of this period. A decent sized farmhouse has a barn and other outbuildings attached to it in a line that runs east-west under the bank of land on which the fields sit. It may be possible to date its foundation more precisely. In 1825, a new turnpike road was constructed, running from the top of Shaw Brow north to Radburn Brow and bypassing Chorley Old Road as the main road from Chorley to Preston (this road is now Preston Road, part of the A6). This led to the isolation of a wedge of agricultural land between the new turnpike road and Chorley Old Road. It appears that the southern end of this wedge was enclosed after the road was built, as field boundaries and ownership within the wedge do not correspond to those outside it. Waterhouse Green farm is at the southern tip of this wedge, with originally one outlying field further north. It was in existence as an entity in 1840, owned by Cordelia Elizabeth Freeman, the proprietrice of the Crook Hall estate. It was the only land that she owned in that area. This appears to date the establishment of the farm to between 1825 and 1840.

It is possible that the farm was built on part of th original Choley to Preston turnpike (now Chorley Old Road). Old maps appear to show this road running to the north of the river Lostock prior to the construction of Waterhouse Green Bridge. 19th century odnance survey maps show a path running east from the farmhouse to Chorley Old road - this may be th original path of the turnpike road.

In 1840 the farm had four fields. Barn field and Cock field were pasture, while Slackey Meadow and Hill field were meadow, growing grass for winter feed. There were just two acres of pasture, barely enough for one or two cows. By 1851, the outlying Hill field had apparently been given up. Small farm tenancies tended to be renewed annually, allowing tenants to add or subtract land according to their needs. For some reason, Hill field remained undeveloped for many years after the rest of the surrounding land had been turned to housing, but it is now the site of Paradise Close.

Taken from the Whittle-le-Woods tithe apportionment map, this drawing shows the extent of Watehouse Green farm in 1840. Hill field is separate from the farm's other three fields and had been given up by 1851

The footpath leading from the Bay Horse on Preston Road up the hill to Chorley Old Road marks the northern boundary of Haskell's farm, after Hill field had been given up

For much of the nineteenth century, the tenants of Waterhouse Green Farm were the Beardsworth family. In 1840 the farmer was 47 year old John Beardsworth. He had been born in Whittle, his father possibly another John Beardsworth, who died in 1848 aged 80. His wife Alice, who was seven years older than him, was also born in Whittle and they had at least five children. In 1841, four of their adult children lived with them in their relatively spacious farmhouse. Their daughters Mary and Catherine undoubtedly helped on the farm and with taking the produce to market. Sons Edward and James brought in extra income through their employment as labourers.

This gate and steps on Chorley Old Road now leads to the back garden of a house on Langdale Grove, but it originally served a path that led to Waterhouse Green farm. It is possible that this path followed the original route of the Chorley to Preston turnpike road prior to the construction of Waterhouse Green bridge.

While small-scale farming was economically viable in east Lancashire, extra income was always welcome. Some of Whittle’s small farmers had other jobs, including, in 1851, innkeeper, quarryman, block printer and cotton manufacturer (overseeing home-based handloom weavers). Others, including the Beardsworths in later years, took in lodgers. Waterhouse Green farm also had an orchard, on the flat ground between the river Lostock and the farmhouse. This was not unusual, the tithe apportionment schedule of 1840 lists no fewer than nineteen orchards in Whittle, with apples the most likely produce.

Alice Beardsworth died in 1866, aged 82 and John followed her in 1868. The farm was taken on by their daughter Catherine, assisted by her younger brother James. This arrangement lasted until James’s death in 1896, aged 72. In 1901, Catherine, then aged 79 was still farming the land and had for company a 21-year-old lodger, William Mather, a teacher at the elementary school on Preston road.

By 1911 Catherine had died and the farmer was 38 year old George Haskell. He had been born in Portsmouth in 1873, the son of a farmer and hay and straw dealer and had worked on his family’s farm before moving to Lancashire to seek his fortune. Such a move was less unusual at that time than it would be now. Farming in the south of England was in a state of depression, due to competition from cheap imports, while as we have seen, the thriving market for produce in the Lancashire mill towns kept the small farms of East Lancashire busy.

In 1898, George Haskell married Margaret Monk, the daughter of a Bretherton farmer. By 1911 they had been at Waterhouse Green farm for at least five years and had four children. Haskell was lucky to secure Waterhouse Green farm as at that time up to twenty applications could be made for a single vacant tenancy. Doubtless, the fact that both he and his wife had been brought up on farms counted in his favour. Ownership of the farm remained with the Haskell family for the rest of its existence – hence the popular name of Haskell’s farm.

These fragments of willow pattern crockery, dug up from a garden in Grasmere Grove, may have been discarded from Waterhouse Green farm

The Demise of Haskell’s Farm

 In the 1921 census return, George Haskell was still living in Waterhouse Green Farm, but listed his occupation as a labourer at Lowe Mill Print Works - and out of work. Three of his children were weavers in local mills. Overall, small-scale farming remained viable in East Lancashire for the first half of the twentieth century, but by the nineteen-sixties small farms had had their day. At the same time, pressure was growing for land for new housing. Plans were afoot for a designated “new town” in Central Lancashire, to embrace the triangle between Preston, Chorley and Leyland. Owners of small farms were often keen to sell their increasingly unprofitable land to developers.

In 1968, the owner of Waterhouse farm was J. Haskell, possibly George’s son James, who would then have been aged 57. His address was Greenacres Farm, Chorley Old Road (situated by the junction with Radburn Brow and now a small housing estate). Waterhouse Green farm was described as being used for poultry – 1960s maps show a large square building to the west of the farmhouse that may have accommodated battery hens.

In the same year, the Preston building firm of Conlon Brothers applied to Chorley Rural District Council for planning permission to build a housing estate on the whole of Waterhouse Green farm’s six acre site. There would be 47 new houses sited on two new cul-de-sac roads, with fourteen houses on the site of the farmhouse, yard and orchard (Grasmere Grove) and 33 on the fields above (Langdale Grove). Planning permission was granted, provided that new sewers were constructed and the ground level of Grasmere Grove was raised up, to reduce the risk of the river Lostock flooding the new houses. By 1973, Haskell’s farm was no more and J. Haskell presumably retired on the profits of the sale.

Looking down Shaw Brow towards Waterhouse Green we can see the houses of Grasmere Grove on the site of the former farmyard and orchard and those of Langdale Grove on the top of the bank. This was once Barn field

The farm buildings were all demolished when Grasmere Grove was built. Haskell’s is one of very few of the Whittle-le-Woods farms listed in Table One that has completely disappeared; while few others are still working farms, in most cases the farmhouses and outbuildings remain, generally as private houses (the main casualties, apart from Haskell's, are Old Crook and Darwen's, which were both on Dawson Lane). The survivors bear witness, as Haskell’s now cannot, to a once-thriving agricultural economy in this apparently inhospitable part of Lancashire. Meanwhile, the houses of Grasmere and Langdale Groves have been joined by many more as Whittle-le-Woods has slowly evolved from a village to a dormitory town.

 Sources Used

Census returns available at UK Census Online 

1921 census available at Findmypast  

Tithe maps available at Lancashire Archive, Preston.

Historic Ordnance Survey maps available at Old Maps
Gritt A (2016) The farming and domestoc economy of a Lancashire smallholder. In: Hoyle R (ed) The Farmer in England, 1650-1980. London: Routledge 
Hodgkinson K (1991) Whittle & Clayton-le-Woods: A Pictorial Record of Bygone Days. Chorley: CKD Publications.
Winstanley M (1996) Industrialisation and the small farm: Family and household economy in 19th century Lancashire. Past and Present  152(1): 157-195