Author Colin Needham
From the time of the Southrepps Tithe map of 1839 when 88.5% of land including farmhouses and cottages was owned by absentee (non-farming) landlords. The largest was Lord Suffield of Gunton Hall and the second largest was Robert Greg of Manchester. Land and farms were also owned by the church including the Cromer Glebe and the Rector of Southrepps. Some fields were specifically gifted in past times to provide income for the Southrepps Townlands Charity
In 1860s even before the railways, rich incomers were buying up land in Cromer, Overstrand, Northrepps and Southrepps for summer retreats and as shooting estates. These were mainly banking families, Gurneys, Buxtons and Hoares. The land and existing tenancies were sold ,for example Lodge Farm was sold in 1856 to Sir Samuel Hoare of Sidestrand Hall. Church Farm, Wellspring Farm and Limekiln Farm were bought in 1860 by Fowell Buxton of Northrepps Hall.
Changing economic circumstances and war in early 20th century forced the breakup of many of these estates. In 1913 there was a major sale of Gunton land and many of the tenant farmers were able to buy their farms, for example William Tyler bought Hall Farm: Charles Learner bought Hill House Farm and Manor Farm.
After WW1, yet more land was disposed of from Gunton and other estates. William Bartram bought Church Farm from Thomas Buxton and his son Robert bought Wellspring Farm from the same estate. William Land bought Pond Farm from Gunton estate and the Knights Family bought Garden House Farm (actually allotments) from the Gunton estate.
In the early part of the 20th century, individual farmers lived in the farmhouses and farmed the land.
The next major change of land ownership came in 1937 when East Anglian Real Property Company (EARPC) started to buy up land, principally to grow sugar beet. They first bought Hill House, Manor and Lime Kiln farms from Charles Learner in 1937 and Church Farm from Bartrams in 1975 and then Gables Farm from Pike family. EARPC’s farming methods included widespread destruction to trees and hedgerows to create much larger fields changing the centuries long established landscape of Southrepps In 1990 all this land was bought by Peter Sladden who commissioned tree and hedge planting to create the maturing wooded landscape we have today.
Click or touch on a picture to see an enlarged version of it, from which you can browse to others by clicking on the right or left arrows, or by swiping on your phone or tablet, With an enlarged image displayed, the i inside a circle in the bottom right corner will provide more information about the photograph, including, where present, the names of people in the picture. The square icon will display any published comments made about the picture, and here you can also send us your own comments.
All these images were taken by Colin Needham.
