Last updated on 26 June 2025
The History group were given a copy of the letter below when Frank Plowright had made a visit to his old house of Bassingfield Farm and we thought it might be of interest:
Lichfield July 5th, 1974
To: Mr and Mrs Mounsey
Dear Mr and Mrs,
Just a line or two to let you know how much I appreciated, or ought to say enjoyed, your kindness on Tuesday in conducting me over the ancient structure I have always called my home! Until 1919 I had never known any other home but Bassingfield Farm to which I believe my father moved from Ruddington about 1893 with a family of eight daughters and one son, i.e. my brother Henry. I was born in 1894. There was also an old Uncle whose gravestone still reads clearly at the side of Tollerton church. Two of my sisters died at Tollerton whom I never knew. I have also seen in the family Bible the names of two other boys who died in their infancy. I think my parents converted the old farming expression “Where there’s muck there’s money” into “Where there’s ‘Stock’ there’s money”. Singularly enough I agree with both expressions, nevertheless even I was somewhat moved when one of the labourers married a girl who already had five children. I also remember a chap named Pearl who lived up at the Glebe Farm before Holbrooks took it over had no less than 20 children at 40 years of age. I remember them as “Pearl and his string”. The labourer’s wage in those days from 15/- to 18/- a week. [£1.17 – £1.40] Funnily enough they looked healthy enough on bread and potatoes – however they couldn’t have been prosecuted for “streaking” and I remember my Mother occasionally handed them a worn out shirt.
Yes! Those were my early days in Tollerton – No! that is only the minutest fraction! And, still in those days everybody in a small country village knew everybody’s business. I must confine what I write to my original intentions mostly about the house only and its immediate surrounding. My father’s land actually ended at the Gamston Boundary and followed the same hedge (or fence) past one small Gamston field only where we came to a wicket gate through which a footpath led to Machins farm at Bassingfield so our boundary was actually the hedgerow which separated Tollerton and Bassingfield all the way over the Stream to the Aqueduct under the Gamston Canal with the second smaller Stream separating us entirely from the Cotgrave boundary. Obviously this is the reason for the name Bassingfield being attached to the old farm house. I mention this simply as a matter of interest in case you did not know. I am so pleased you have clung to ‘BASSINGFIELD’ and, as such an excellent private residence into which you have converted it – ‘FARM’ would hardly today be quite appropriate. In my day The Manor Farm house and ‘Wilds’ at the corner of Cotgrave Lane were the outstanding residences but with the introduction of sewerage – tap water and electricity – these two can no longer compete with the house you took me over last Tuesday. I have not yet got over my amazement. It was not until I arrived at the bottom of the old back staircase and up to your more modern back bathroom that I realised the lay-out. It was on the same landing on the right where we frequently had three farm boys living in, and which also included Wash Boiler, Soft water pump and Bakers Oven, that we carried our bath water at least once a week into the enamel bath which we again had to empty and carry downstairs. This bathroom as it was then, was also our Bacon room where the side Hams of two of our pigs were always hung and were sufficient to last the family, breakfasts only, and servants from year to year. The same place also was our Apple Storeroom, these also usually lasted the year round.
It was on the same floor that George Bradley (quite possibly your own milk supplier) slept for 7 years. He worked for my father from 1901 to about 1909 and when I joined the O.T.C. in 1915 he was handed the Milk Business which I refused. I have no doubt he is today much more wealthy than myself and Good Luck to George (he is 88). Bought Jubilee Wood (4 ½ acres) for less than £300. (Only 2 ¼ acres behind my small two bedroomed Bungalow then land sold for over £60,000 two years ago in Lichfield). The world has gone quite mad! However, as I have remarked on prices, (if my memory is accurate) I have always understood that when the Burnsides bought the Tollerton Estate they paid £10 an acre, £15,000 in all for Farms, Houses and Hall – the lot! In those days our Farm Rent was 25/ an acre and that was higher than some, and, since Tollerton Estate was only 1500 acres in all – Well! Well! Well! – even I could find enough to purchase the lot today at yesterday’s prices. How positively ridiculous this all has become – or is it only me that has sunk in value along with the £ and where is it all going to end? Strangely enough I don’t think the Bank of England can answer that one and I’m not worried. The great thing is the old village of Tollerton is still a beautiful place but I hope it is never completely spoiled by ‘progress’! Financially I always said this would actually happen because of its proximity to Nottingham – but not in my day – and I certainly do no think it will in yours. Even when I called – the interior of the old house was and is almost everything my Mother would have been so happy to get.
What with two sisters almost always permanently at home, a maid in the house and four or sometimes six men in the house the old kitchen stove and oven, to the left of what was the kitchen and yard door was everlasting cooking or boiling water for meals.
When I left school at 14 we had seven men who milked in the cow shed including myself at 5 a.m. – however, my father always called me at 4.30. Those were the days!!! I had to light and have a good roaring fire before 5 and then milk my seven cows before breakfast at six.
I am never likely to forget the front bedroom stairs. I slept above the room in which I was born and did not always respond immediately to my father’s calls at 4.30 and sometimes he actually had to come up one flight of stairs and pull me out of bed. Unfortunately, he had a habit when I was dressed, to meet me on the middle landing and of taking off his bedroom slippers with which he clouted me down to the ground floor. This amuses me today when I think of it. He was very religious in his way and his constant expression was “Bring up the child in the way it should go”: As I get older the more I think how right he was! With the abominable behaviour of so many children today I am sure a great multitude would be improved by his NOT TOO GENTLE hands. (Spare the rod and spoil the child).
I expect you know the Aerodrome was started by Albert Ball? I personally think it a terrible shame that such good agricultural land which was then the centre of our production now appears to have developed mainly into an amusement for Aeronauts.
My only brother was the last to farm the land. He was offered the rest of the farm including the building but chose to purchase part of two farms at Langar instead. I was in France at the time and missed the chance of his other farm where all the houses are now built between Tollerton Lane and Edwalton Turnpike. It is, however, a coincidence that his eldest son first rented and bought a farm in Keyworth from an Uncle of Gladys Holbrooks, a part of which I have since been told my nephew has since sold for building at a tremendous profit.
Sorry! I suppose in my old age I have already written more than can interest you. Trouble is my time has to be occupied and I never know when to stop. I could still fill pages but some day I hope to call again although obviously my own living time must be running out.
For so many years on a Sunday afternoon I had to turn a Cream separator which was attached to a thrawl of our large Dairy which was ‘lit’ up by the underground windows. One of our men carried the milk down the steps leading from the large kitchen and I turned the handle and looked after the cream. I also had to draw a pint of Ale from one of the two barrels in the lower Beer Cellar for the man.
It was in doing this I satisfied my own curiosity about the taste of Shipstones brew? – after which I kept well away from my father or he would have murdered me. We always had beer in this cellar for the men. I think this cellar is almost immediately under your delightful Veranda. I also wonder if the wine cellar and pantry is still under the front stairs? Unknown to my parents it was there I first sampled the whisky and I still have no excessive habits!
With apologies for this final sheet. Thank you once again.
Yours sincerely
(sgd) Frank J. Plowright.
