ANTOFTS FARM [continued]
By 1873 Lord Feversham had made Antofts a Home Farm and was employing John Armitage as farm bailiff and that was still the situation in 1881 but by 1901 most of the farmland had become part of a deer park and George Maynard the park keeper was living at a dwelling on the site and his assistant James Dale was living at a new dwelling referred to as New Lodge and now known as High Lodge adjacent to the A170.
In recent years the house has been used as a retreat by members of Lord Feversham’s family and the land is farmed by different tenants of the Duncombe Park Estate.
BROXHILL
The name is derived from the hill of Brockesholes recorded in the grant mentioned on the previous page and it was the hilly land between Aldentoftes and Scaltun Crofte. The first identifiable tenant was George Hornby who had 42 acres known as Broxwell Pasture in 1694 together with a messuage at Broxwell Gill Head, a low hollow in the middle of Broxwell and 16 acres known as Broxwell Wood. The Hornby family were living in Scawton in 1653, it is possible that George was related to the Hornby family of Old Byland and his tenancy seems to have ended some time between 1708 and 1717 when Widow Hornby paid rent of 15s and two years later John Weetman paid rent for Hornby’s house which would have been the dwelling on the hill.
A William Hornby paid annual rent of £22 5s and two hens for a messuage in 1721, the major part of the land at Broxhill then became part of the tenancy of Scawton Croft and those living at the dwelling were left with about 12 acres. They included Elizabeth Sturdy who died there in 1785 and James Boyes a farm labourer who was there in 1851 and the last record of any occupiers was in 1881 when Hannah Paisley was farming 12 acres at Broxhill where she lived with her four children but the family had left the district by 1891 and the dwelling was left unoccupied, eventually became a ruin and nothing is left on the site except for a few stones. The land at Broxhill is now farmed by the Teasdale family who are tenants at Abbot Hagg Farm in Rievaulx.
RECTORY FARM
Although the name of the farm is derived from its association with the Old Rectory it was not given the name until the early 20th century but according to the map drawn in 1839 John York seems to have been living at the Old Rectory and this may have been because Thomas Worsley was an absentee Rector between the years 1828 and 1882 after which the new rectory was built just out of the village.
The 5 acres held by David’s ancestor William in 1694 was the beginning of the small farm that was given the name of Old Rectory Farm over 200 years later and William still had the farm in 1708, his widow had the tenancy in 1719 and their son John was at the farm from 1730 until 1750 to be followed by his son John who was the tenant from 1770 until the end of the 18th century. His son John born in 1762 had 12 acres in 1812 and was living at the Old Rectory in 1839 and his widow Jane and son David and daughter Elizabeth were living there in 1851 with the Reverend Thomas Simpson, Worsley’s curate as their lodger.
