MEM22869 - Withycombe Farmstead, Winsford (Building)

The farmstead is shown on the 1839 Tithe Map for Winsford, including the still extant farmhouse at SS 88749 35158 . The latter appears to have extended further to the south than it does currently. The buildings are depicted within small enclosures labelled 579, 580 and 581, which are collectively described in the accompanying Apportionment under Great Withycombe as "House…Barton etc", owned by Sir Thomas Dyke Acland and occupied by John Pring. [1,2] The 1st and 2nd Edition Ordnance Survey maps show the farmstead with several water management features running around it. The farmhouse had lost its southern end by this time. [3,4] A survey of the farmstead in 1997 noted that the farmhouse is of a three room plan and has a lateral stack. It appeared to have been reroofed and had a new front added to face the south. The stable block was thought to be early 19th Century in date and built of stone rubble with an asbestos roof. A previously water powered bank barn (see MSO11682) is also of rubble construction. The report noted that the site is thought to be one farm of a vanished hamlet, which presumably included Withycombe Cottage (MSO10779). [5] GIS mapping is based on historic mapping and does not include the group of buildings, including Withycombe Cottage, to south. [6] Withycombe Farmstead was part of the Acland Estate. It had been farmed by the Pring family for several generations but by the early 1930s the farm had been acquired by John Vellacott and his wife Emily. They were initially tenants of the Acland Estate but had bought the freehold before the outbreak of World War Two. John Vellacott was approaching retirement age in the mid 1950s and split the farm between his son Robert Vellacott and his wife Mavis (nee Aubrey, of Ashway Farm), who built Brimclose and took the eastern part of the farm, and his daughter Brenda (married to Gilbert Stanbury), who took Withycombe Farm and the remaining land. Withycombe Cottage was part of the farmstead by the early 20th Century but was sold in the early 1960s. The Vellacotts moved to Withycombe Farm in 1930 from Sparhanger Farm, Barbrook, Lynton. At this time, Withycombe was 403 acres and the annual rent was £245. All work on the land was done by horses and manual labour, with the farm getting its first tractor in 1943. The farm undertook Winsford's milk round in the 1940s. [7]