Author Colin Needham
From the Southrepps Society Archive
Early Days William and Jemima
The Tylers (William and Jemima) were from Hackney in London where the family owned butcher/grocers shops. William Tyler was born in 1838 and his occupation in 1881 is recorded as a butcher and it is presumed that his shop sold meat and dairy products. They had cowhouses (farms without fields) in Tottenham with over 100 cows fed on waste food and vegetables from Smithfield and other markets.
The Hackney Tylers had at least seven children, Jessie, Amie, Robert, Alice, Lizzie, William and James.
Around 1890 William Tyler took on the tenancy of Hall Farm This farm was one of many on the Gunton Estate, a very large estate that included land and property across North Norfolk.
The sketch of the Hall shown below was made by Dolphin in 1837.
William, over time, moved his family to Southrepps. His brother Robert continued the butchers business in Hackney. Robert died aged only 37 in 1907 and his death may have ended the Hackney business.
William Tyler died in 1906 and is buried in Southrepps Churchyard.
Tyler Brothers Jemima, James and William
Census records show that by 1911, his widow Jemima Tyler described herself as a farmer and head of the household at Southrepps Hall Farm and her two sons James and William were both farmers at the hall. The activities on the farm included arable and livestock husbandry together with an intensive retail and wholesale horticultural business employing many seasonal workers from Southrepps and the surrounding villages.
Before and after the First World War much of the Gunton Estate was sold off by auction including Hall Farm and the Tylers purchased the freehold of the farm including the Hall.
Hall Farm was a short distance from Gunton railway station and produce from the farm could be speedily transported to London and other wholesale markets.
The original farm was centred around Southrepps Hall but it also included land in Thorpe Market village and land off Topshill Road. Sheds and large greenhouses were built and a borehole and reservoir provided water for irrigation.
The farm, unusually for this part of Norfolk, specialised in growing horticultural products for their London shops and the local hotel market. A significant part of the business was the very large scale open field rearing of ducks for meat. The ducks were a profitable but just as importantly, the large flocks were part of the crop rotation, fertilising the soil. Each year about 30 acres of ground were grazed by the ducks and then ploughed and planted with potatoes.
William Tyler was well known in the county as a successful farmer and a well regarded employer. William built “Brevik” House off the Cromer Road. William died in 1956 at “Brevik” House and is buried in the family plot at Southrepps Church. Wanda Tyler died in 1963.
On the death of Jemima Tyler in 1920 the farm traded as Tyler Brothers. James Tyler died in 1937. His brother William served in WW1 and was discharged as wounded in 1918. He married Wanda Scheel Peterson, whose Norwegian family had interests in shipping based in West Hartlepool. William and Wanda had one son Peter Scheel Tyler.
As well as cattle, pigs, corn and potatoes, the farm produced thousands of ducks, tons of rhubarb, flowers, and soft fruit. Hall Farm was at one time one of the largest producers of blackcurrants in the county. The farms employed dozens of men and women from Southrepps and the surrounding villages who worked on the fields, in the large greenhouses, and tending stock. There were duck breeding pens on the Lower Street Common.
Trade directories list the Tyler Brothers business as Farmers, Fruit and Flower Growers, Coal Merchants and Poultry Purveyors.
James Tyler, a cousin of Peter, died relatively young before WW2. After his death the Hall was occupied at various times by farm workers but was ultimately abandoned and became derelict. The ground floor was used for the storage of animal fodder and during the war troops were billeted in some of the buildings. The Hall was eventually sold in 1950 to Mr & Mrs A Coleman. They restored the property and lived there for a number of years until it was sold on. The house was subsequently purchased in 1979 by Peter Sladden.
Peter Tyler
Peter Tyler, William Tyler’s son was the last Tyler at Hall Farm. Peter was a prize winning pig breeder and his farm was equipped with the best of buildings and equipment. On the death of Peter, his widow Rosalind built a bungalow opposite the Hall on the east side of Hall Road, called the ‘Cedars” now Emm’s Stems. They had two daughters Diana and Helen. Helen and her husband Mark Webster moved into the Cedars.
In the hands of Peter Tyler it became a splendid example of how to dovetail a variety of farming operations into an efficient farming unit. Under his leadership the farm was split into four main units: the rearing and marketing of ducks, the breeding and fattening of pedigree pigs, the growing of strawberries, blackcurrants and rhubarb and the production of arable crops.
In the 1960s the size was 265 acres. The farm produced over 200 tons of rhubarb each year, all picked by part-time women from the surrounding villages. Strawberries were contract grown for Chivers and the farm produced many tons of blackcurrants each year for processing locally.
At any one time there were 10,000 ducks on the farm at various stages of growth. Eggs collected from the breeding stock were hatched on the farm and the kept in sheds for three weeks before going onto the grass fields. Between 1000 and 1500 ducks were killed, plucked and packed for dispatch throughout the year.
The pig unit was established in 1958. Pedigree pigs were bred on the farm from a rotating stock of 50 sows. The unit produced up to 500 fat pigs for bacon every year as well as pedigree stock for sale to other pig farms.
Peter Tyler was a founder member of United Pig Breeders Ltd. He was an expert in state of the art pig rearing, and commercial pigs from the Southrepps farm were prize winners at county and national Shows.
During Peter Tyler’s tenure , Hill Farm at Roughton was added to the estate . Hill Farm was a fruit farm with an extensive acreage of mainly apple trees. Peter built a new house called The Cedars for his family in the farm yard of what is now the Groveland Farm Shop.
Peter Tyler was an active member of the community in Southrepps and he was an energetic supporter of village events. He was a prime mover and Chairman of the fund raising committee for the new village hall.
His untimely death in 1981, before the completion of the hall, was a great shock locally and to the wider farming community.
Peter and his wife Rosalind are buried in Southrepps churchyard.
On the death of Peter Tyler, Southrepps Hall Farm was managed for a few years by his wife and son-in-law Mark Webster . The land around the Hall was subsequently acquired by Peter Sladden re-uniting the house with its lands. Hill Farm at Roughton was acquired by EW Filby of Grove Farm Felbrigg . They started the Groveland Farm Shop.