Steam power on the Farm

Edward Hayes, one of Wolverton and Stony Stratford's steam pioneers found an early associate was a farmer from Little Woolstone, William Smith. Smith came from a well-established farming family in that area and was born at Church Farm in 1814. His father, like many successful 18th century farmers, had expanded his faming interests to include farms at Woughton and Great Linford and young William cut his farming teeth on these farms before returning to Church farm on his father's death in 1837.

Smith was a man of financial as well as intellectual resources and began to experiment with steam power for agricultural applications and before long he found a fellow traveller in Edward Hayes, who was then working at Wolverton. The problem for Smith and all steam pioneers in the agricultural area was the excessive weight of steam traction engines which quickly bogged them down in the soil while they were in use. Smith's eventual solution was to design a stationary engine which could haul ploughs and cultivators through the fields through a system of ropes and pulleys.

He had some success with these monstrous machines in the mid century and by 1862 was reported to have 200 customers on his books. Sir Frank Markham describes the efforts of a day's harvesting in July where a field of wheat was harvested at Linford, threshed by another machine and taken to Little Woolstone Mill to be ground into flour. The effort of days or a week was dramatically cut.

This was not without its social impact. In 1851 his farm at Little Woolstone employed 21 men. By 1861 this number was down to 7 men and 6 boys. By 1877 trade union organisers were speaking at Little Woolstone and finding a ready ear amongst workers who saw their jobs disappearing and their wages stagnating. Smith was not accustomed to this method of dealing with his workers and appears to have been unable to make the adjustment. His response was to cease farming and building machinery. The fields were  left to grass and pasture and he put all his machinery in a barn and bricked up the walls. The machinery was discovered in 1958 and restored. I am not sure where they are to be found today.

William Smith, although married twice, had no children. His first wife, Susannah Williamson, was 14 years older than he and probably about 40 when they married. Likewise his second wife Louisa was in her 50s. So the fact that he had no children to take over the family business may in part have led to his uncompromising position.

The steam engine had a relatively short history on the farm. Once lighter, more maneuverable oil powered engines appeared the steam engine quickly vanished from the farm. Thomas Hardy describes the impact of the steam engine  in his 1891 book, Tess of the Durbervilles.

Close under the eaves of the stack, and as yet barely visible was the red tyrant that the women had come to serve – a timber- framed construction, with straps and wheels appertaining – the threshing-machine, which, whilst it was going, kept up a despotic demand upon the endurance of their muscles and nerves.

The "red tyrant" works remorselessly and agricultural workers in Dorset were now experiencing the domination of the machine, much as their industrial cousins earlier in the century. The natural rhythms of working in the countryside, once governed by daylight and the weather, were now under the rule of an unseen clock.

William Smith's minor legacy was to be an early adopter of the industrialization of agriculture.

Edward Hayes and the Watling Works

One of the more remarkable men to come to Wolverton in those early railway years was Edward Hayes. He was born in Manchester in 1818 where he did an apprenticeship. Then he found work at the new Engine Repair shop at Wolverton, probably in 1839. We know a little about those years because he was a room mate of Hugh Stowell Brown, who later wrote about him in his own autobiography. They were both serious young men, eager to make their mark in the world and keen on self improvement.

Four of us, Edward Hayes, William Harvey, William Mickle, and myself, drew together. They were journey men, but young, the oldest not more than twenty-five years. We agreed to lodge together with a peasant named Cox at Old Wolverton. Hayes was a little man, a clever, skilful workman ; he came from Manchester, and was great in phrenology, and in Combe’s ‘Constitution of Man.’ Harvey was a Derbyshire man, one of the best workmen in the place, and gifted with a dry and pleasant humour. Mickle was a Scotchman, brought up in London; a boisterous but kindly fellow, whom Hayes pronounced to be a man in whom combativeness and self-esteem were abnormally developed. The four of us slept in two beds placed in one small room. We had our meals in the lower room of the cottage, which was the kitchen, and there was a small room, about eight feet square, which we converted into a study, and in which we tried in the evenings to improve our minds, which, sooth to say, sorely needed improvement. On Sundays, Hayes generally went out into the fields to meditate; Harvey went to the Methodist Chapel at Stratford; Mickle wandered from one place of worship to another; and I went to church somewhere in the neighbourhood, generally to Stratford, because there was an organ there, which, however, was very execrably played. Our studies were various. Hayes went in for philosophy; Harvey for theology; Mickle for mechanics ; I for mathematics. I don’t think we read a novel all the time we were together, and our whole stock of books was not worth £5.

A few years later Edward Hayes found a sponsor, William Smith, a Woolstone farmer, and set up his works at the Wolverton End of Stratford. At first he made agricultural machinery, for which there was a demand in the 19th century. He then used the knowledge he had acquired at Wolverton to develop steam engines to power agricultural machinery. These were successful.

In the late 1860s, when the Watling Works were well established and thriving, he turned his hand to boat building. Apparently he had some knowledge of this from his apprenticeship in Manchester. Boatbuilding in the middle of he country did not strike people at the time and since as a natural fit, nevertheless, Hayes' energy, engineering know-how and product quality made sure of success and orders came in from many parts of the world. At one time they were building vessels up to 80 feet long.

These vessels, once finished, were transported up the High Street to the canal wharf at Old Stratford. There they were slid into the water and comfortably delivered by canal to their destination. Even though this was one of England's major trunk roads it was still possible for a slow moving wide load to take up the road without traffic hold-ups.

Edward Hayes died in 1877 and his son (also Edward) took over the firm. Boat building was now the mainstay of the business. The firm continued to thrive into the first quarter of the 20th century but then seemd to lose the drive and energy of its founder. edward Hayes junior died in 1917 and his son only lived to 1920. After this the firm continued to 1925 when it closed down.

Hayes' commitment was not simply to making money (which he did) but also to spreading his engineering knowledge. In this sense he was also remarkable and quite early he took on apprentices, which he managed to attract from across the country. Sir Frank Markham notes three who went on to distinguished careers after learning the ropes at Hayes: Osborne Reynolds, Professor of Engineering at Manchester University, Sir Frederick Rebbeck, Chairman of Harland and Wolff, who had a hand in the design of the Titanic, and B J Fisher, who became Chief Engineer of the London and South Western Railway.

One of the last boats to be built was acquired by the Milton Keynes Development Museum in 2004. It can be seen at the entrance to the museum.

Bletchley in 1839 from the Railway.

In 1838 James Drake, a Birmingham printer, published his first "Road Book" of the Grand Junction Railway, which connected Birmingham to the Liverpool-Manchester Railway. The book was a great success and quickly went into a second printing. Thus emboldened, Drake produced a similar volume for the London and Birmingham Railway in the following year.


Travel guides were not new, but the speed and relative cheapness of railway travel quickly opened up a new demand.  George Bradshaw, the Manchester cartographer, had a similar idea at this time and his guides and timetables became more famous.


Drake's technique is to describe the scenery and the outlying villages as he journeys from London to Birmingham and throw in a few interesting facts. It is still a rural world he sees. Bletchley is almost non-existent and Water Eaton, Newton Longville and Fenny Stratford appear to be more significant.
One interesting little nugget is his reported description of the Denbigh Hall Inn as a "Tom and Jerry shop". Today we associate Tom and Jerry with the Hanna-Barbera cartoons but in Victorian England the phrase came from two characters in a once popular novel and the phrase slipped into common use for a period at least.He makes assumptions about his readership that could not be made today. There are several allusions in the text that assume a classical education and a knowledge about history, literature and religion. I have provided footnotes to explain where I can.

Drake’s Description of Bletchley

            In taking a survey of the outstanding scenery from this station, Bletchley appears close to the line on the left. On the extreme left, Drayton Parslow can be distinguished, and a little in advance of it is the village of Newton Longville. More distant is Whaddon Chace and Hall, in which Queen Elizabeth was enter­tained by Arthur Lord Grey; and in which Spencer, the poet,[1] who was secretary to that nobleman, fre­quently resided. The village of Whaddon contains 889 inhabitants, and is celebrated as having been the birth-place of Richard Cox, one of the principal com­posers of our English Liturgy, and also as having given to ViIliers, the celebrated favourite of James I. and Charles I., his first title, namely, that of Baron.

            On the right of the station, and standing on a gentle eminence, at a distance of rather more than a mile, is the little market town of Fenny Stratford. This place takes its distinguishing appellation from the nature of the ground by which it is surrounded. In 1665, it was almost depopulated by a plague, and it has not yet recovered from its effects. It at present contains 635 inhabitants, who are chiefly supported by travellers and lace making.

            Continuing our survey from the Bletchley station, the village of Water Eaton is seen on the right, in the fore­ground; and on the richly wooded hills which rise be­yond, the three Brickhills are still discernible. In the beautiful vale beyond these hills, and, of course, invisible from the railway, stands the healthy town of Woburn. This town is about six miles from the sta­tion, and occupies a gentle eminence on the main road from London to Leeds. It is surrounded with planta­tions of evergreen, and consists of four broad and handsome streets, which intersect each other at right angles, In the centre of the town is a noble market house, erected by the Duke of Bedford, in the Tudor style of architecture. The church was erected by the last abbott of Woburn, and being nearly covered with ivy, has a remarkably beautiful appearance. In the immediate vicinity of the town is Woburn Abbey, the seat of his grace the Duke of Bedford. It occupies the site of an ancient Cistercian Abbey, and is sur­rounded by a noble and extensive park; but to attempt to describe all the splendid adornments of this magnificent seat, - the statues, paintings, galleries, and columns, - the noble Ionic entrance, the artificial lake, the miniature temple, and all the other valuable works of art, which unbounded wealth and refined taste have collected together, - would be very incon­sistent with the brevity required in a Road Book. We will, therefore, here conclude our survey, and suppose ourselves again bounding with the fleetness of the mountain roe along our iron pathway.

            After rapidly sweeping through a cutting, we cross the London road by a stupendous iron bridge, which has a most noble appearance from below, and come to what was formerly known as the Denbigh Hall station. Here, for several months after the first opening of the railway, the trains were accustomed to stop, and the traveller had to adopt the ancient methods of convey­ance, for the performance of the next thirty-eight miles of his journey. To describe in all its serio­comic reality the scene which this now secluded spot was wont then to present, would require the pen of a Washington Irving. Luggage lost, tickets missing, coaches overfilled, and a thousand other disastrous occurrences, altogether formed a spectacle which we would defy the most sorrowful disciple of Heraclitus[2] to view without a smile. All the busy multitudes however, that so lately thronged this spot, and rendered it a scene of intense animation, have now vanished, like the fabric of Mirza's vision[3]; and as we rapidly sweep by, and look in vain for some tokens of anima­tion, we are reminded of the feelings which travellers have had while sitting on the ruins of some ancient city. The building called Denbigh Hall, respecting which it is very probable our reader may have formed the same conception as ourselves, and imagined it to be the august mansion of some illustrious grandee, is nothing but a paltry public house, or “Tom and Jerry shop,"[4] as we heard an indignant fellow-traveller con­temptuously style it, which has taken the liberty of assuming this magnificent appellation. Tradition ascribes the origin of the name to the circumstance of Lord Denbigh having been compelled to tarry here for a night, through an accident happening to his car­riage; and also informs us that his lordship left some property to his host in return for the kindness with which he had been entertained; but whether this story is deserving of credit, or has merely been in­vented for the amusement of the visitors at this Denbigh Hall, we pretend not to say. After leaving this ci-divant [5]station, and passing through a cutting three quarters of a mile in length, we perceive on he left the church of Loughton, and also that of Shenstone, which is a very good specimen of the Norman style of architecture. Close to the line on the right is the village of Bradwell, where was formerly a priory of Black Canons[6], founded in the reign of Stephen, and of which the abbey, transformed into a farm house, may still be seen standing on the left of the line. A short cutting, which is crossed by a bridge handsomely faced in a rustic style, brings us to Wolverton station.

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[1] Edmund Spenser (1552- 1599) best known as author of The Faerie Queen.

[2] Heraclitus was an ancient Greek philospher, circa 500 BC. He held a low opinion of humankind’s ability to organize it own affairs.

[3] A reference to the Persian poet Iraz Mirza, a contemporary of Omar Khayyam.

[4] The phrase first makes its appearance in a novel by Pierce Egan's Life in London (1821) and describes a hot drink made of rum and brandy or whiskey, beaten eggs, sugar, water or milk, and nutmeg, after two characters in the story. The context here is disparaging.

[5] Should be spelled ci-devant, a French phrase meaning an office holder of former glory. In other words Denbigh Hall station had former importance which has now passed.

[6] Black Canons were Benedictine Monks.

The Loughton Manors

The old boundaries of Loughton are defined by the Watling Street from Two Mile Ash to near Bleak Hall and forming boundaries with Simpson, Woolstone and Bradwell. There were approximately 1500 acres; under the Saxon system this was 10 hides. Whaddon Brook divides Loughton and this naturally led to two manors: Great Loughton to the north of the brook, including all the high pasture, and Little Loughton to the south.

The name probably derives from one Luha (Lucca). The "gh" in the word would indicate that it was at one time sounded and in the 13th century we have documents where the name is written phonetically - Geoffrey de Lucton. So it may have been named for Luha ing tun - Luha's farm enclosure.

In 1066 Great Loughton was split between five thanes and Little Loughton was in the hands of Aelfric, a Thane of King Edward. Obviously they were dispossessed and we can only speculate about these men and their families. Presumably they continued to work the land with diminished status.

The Domesday Book of 1086 records Great Loughton in the hands of one Ivo, who holds in in service to Walter Giffard, one of the magnates of William's reign. Little Loughton was part of the territory of Maigno, the Baron of Wolverton, who has given it to two unnamed men-at-arms for their service.

The overlordship of Loughton was vested in Walter Giffard and in his descendants, variously the Clares and Valences and subsequently in the late 13th and 14th century in the lords of Buckingham and in the 16th century the Bishop of Peterborough.

Not that this mattered much to the peasants working the land; one overlord was much the same as another. The lord of the manor probably did matter as he was the one who led the management of the estate. Without getting into too much detail the manor does seem to have passed from Ivo to his descendants until 1313 when it was acquired by one Henry Spigurnel. We don't know how. It could have been through marriage. There was similar continuity on the Manor on the other side of the brook until the 14th century when both manors came under the control of one Thomas de Loughton.

While there were two manors there were two churches, at least until 1409 when the two parishes were amalgamated. All Saints, the surviving church, dates back to at least 1219 but has been much modified and enlarged over the centuries.

The Manor Farm house dates to the 16th century and was probably the site of the farm house for the Little Loughton Manor before amalgamation. There were three other farms in the 19th and 20th century: Old Farm, Rectory Farm and Loughton Lodge Farm on the Bradwell Road. I suggest that Old Farm, even in the 20th century quite isolated east of the railway, may relate to Grteat Loughton Manor. Rectory Farm, on Common Lane, may have been established when some land was given to the Rectory in the 19th century. Loughton Lodge Farm may also have been a 19th century creation, although I can find little about it.