THE PHEASANTRY
As this building was not shown on the Ordnance Survey map of 1856 but was recorded as being uninhabited in 1881 it seems likely that it was built in the intervening period and as the Worsleys seem to have been losing interest in the estate during that period the first owner may have been Robert Tennant who purchased the estate from the Worsleys in 1866.
Henry Foster a gamekeeper from Appleton le Moor was at the dwelling in 1901 and he was still listed as a gamekeeper in 1913 and seems to have been employed by E G Tew who was tenant of 15 acres and had shooting rights in 1909. George and Ida gamble were at the Pheasantry in 1927 and were still there in 1939 when it was purchased by John Richardson who was living at Rievaulx Terrace. His granddaughter Mary married George Ford and they lived at the dwelling whose other occupants have included Annie Dixon, Anthony Fraser, Walter Anthony Craven, David Dalton Sleight and William and Ruth McIntyre who only purchased the property as the lannd had previous been bought by Kenneth Garbut of Manor Farm who has since sold it to Diane Whiteley of Pond Farm. The owners of the Pheasantry in 2004 are the internationally known wildlife artists Judi Kent Pyrah and Alan Hunt.
PROSPECT FARM
The first identifiable tenant of the land that was to become Prospect Farm was William Thompson who held it in 1770 and was followed in 1790 by George Fisher who had in 1812 had 70 acres which was held by his son Luke in 1822. The 1839 map showed the position of Luke Fisher’s dwelling in the village and the farm’s 76 acres consisted of fields that ran behind the dwelling on the south side of the village. In 1825 Luke Fisher married Ann Lumley and Rebecca Fisher married William Lumley in the same year and in 1851 their son Peter was living with Luke and Ann at what was to become Prospect Farm.
Thirty years later Elizabeth Lumley, Peter’s widow was at the farm tenant living with her two daughters and two sons one of whom John was the tenant in 1901 and the family had left by 1909 when George Walker Parker was the tenant and ten years later Robert Wood had moved to the farm from Hagget Mouth where his son Thomas Herbert was born in 1912 and his daughter Shirley, granddaughter of Robert remembers her father telling her that he was carried from Hagget Mouth to the new farm.
As no farm name was recorded on the transfer of tenancy documents it seems likely that it was Robert Wood who gave the farm its new name and although his son Thomas Herbert was named as the occupant when the farm of 89 acres was bought by Frederick and Florence Annie Ingham Robert Wood did not die until 1944 at the age of 71. The owner of Prospect House in 2004 is Shirley Cornforth nee Wood who is the great granddaughter of Robert Wood who was born in Scawton 160 years ago in 1844.
