Day 78. Locke's Farm

Locke's Farm, a timber-framed farmhouse built c.1600, crowns the village green and is one of the most prominent architectural features of Preston. It was once the home of the Locke family, an ancient farming family who have long since disappeared into history – with the exception of their family name.

The rise of the Locke or Lock family is fairly typical of yeoman (freehold) or husbandman (tenant) farming families of the 16^th-18^th centuries. The first mention of the family in Preston is on a court roll of May 1499, when one William Lock leased an area of land which had previously been held by his father. Henry VII was then on the throne, and England was at the start of her rise to national prosperity which was a hallmark of the Tudor period.

The next record is of Thomas Locke, a husbandman or tenant farmer and likely a descendant of William, who married  Isabel Wells in 1566. Thomas lived in the present Locke's Farm or an earlier house on the same site, the latter perhaps more likely, for at least the later part of his life. This was leased from the lord of the manor.

When Thomas died in 1602, his son Allen, now married and with a family of his own, continued to lease the farm, and purchased it a few years later. He may have rebuilt the house in its present state after the purchase. The lords of Preston manor were at this time in dire financial straits, and several farms and tracts of land had been sold off. These were snapped up by the more foresighted tenant farmers, who saw a golden opportunity to acquire status and wealth that would advance their families for generations.

 

Locke's Farm on a map drawn c.1760. The green is at the bottom; Church House to the left. Several farm buildings, now demolished, surround the farmyard to the rear of the house (see Day 74).

Allen died in 1625 and his son Thomas inherited the farm. He married wealthy farmer's daughter Katherine Smith, and his son, also called Thomas, was one of the wealthiest farmers in Preston by 1695. The family purchased land in neighbouring Wimpstone and leased a large house at Milcote.

The Locke family remained in Preston for two more generations. Thomas' grandson, another Thomas, inherited the farm from his father in 1735. He never married but remained at Locke's Farm until his death in 1781, aged 71. He was the last of his family. The farm passed to his married sister Elizabeth Timbrell and was then sold.

Thomas' grave still stands in Preston churchyard, and his parents'  memorial stone lies in the nave of the church. But the family's legacy lives on, in the house their forebears built.

 

                    Thomas Locke's grave.