A Grade II listed building, 28th October 1986
Upper Ridgeway is a medieval timber-framed hall house. The earliest mention of the place is in a tax assessment of 1331 and the first specific reference to the farm itself can be found in the records of the Bishop of Winchester in 1522. The property was held from the Manor of Farnham, which was one of the bishop’s many manors, and the ownership of the farm can be traced from the fourteenth to the twentieth centuries.
More detailed information survives about of some of the owners and occupiers that give an insight into the way they lived at the farm. The will and the inventory drawn up after Henry Boxfold's death in 1573 lists his belongings, details his farming interests and reveals that he had been living in what was, by then, his son’s house. During the nineteenth century, Upper Ridgeway was the home of John Keen who came to the farm in 1828. He worked the farm all his adult life and died there in 1893 aged 95 years. His account book survives that shows how he was running his business during his early years at the farm. From https://www.house-history-research.co.uk/past-commissions.html
These two articles on Upper Ridgeway Farm were written by Jackie Rickenberg and appeared in the Parish Magazine in March and April 2023
A Farmhouse in Surrey (Upper Ridgeway Farm)
There are a couple of building projects currently underway or about to start in the village, so this piece struck a chord with me. It appeared in The Farmers Weekly Magazine on April 13th, 1951 and was written by Irene Gorringe.
“I sometimes think I must be one of the most fortunate of women in that I have a house which is everything I could wish a house to be. Though it was first built nearly six centuries ago, it combines the character and dignity of age with an interior that is light and spacious, large enough to put up a few guests in comfort, yet small enough to manage easily without extra help.
It was not always like this and it is Jess, my husband, who made it such a comfortable place to live in. Never shall I forget the first time I saw it – a cold, dull day in December, 1938, some months before we were married. Jess and I had been looking for a suitable place for a long time at a price we could afford, and so it was with high hopes that he took me to see this farm, which he thought would be just the place for pig breeding and not too large – just 35 acres.
The windows were few and small and nearly all had several broken panes of glass, stuffed up with old sacking and bits of cardboard. The steps leading up to the back door were rough and broken, and tangled blackberry bushes were actually sprouting from the walls. Above it, the tiled roof sagged in many places and there were a lot of missing tiles.
Gigantic Task
We went inside the house and my heart sank. Just by the kitchen door, beneath the only window, stood a shallow, cracked, stone sink, and in the black gaping cavern which was the fireplace was a small, rusty kitchen stove (my only cooking experience was with a Regulo!). There was a large built-in bread oven at the side of this. The floor was part stone, part brick, all broken and uneven, and the big beams stretching across the ceiling were greyish looking and dripping with moisture.
Adjoining the kitchen was a large well-house containing two old coppers and a huge wooden wheel above the well. This well is dug through 110ft. of Bargate stone, and it would appear that this is the stone used for very many of the older buildings in this district.
We went through into two other rooms, each about 20ft by 9ft. Again, they were dark and had heavily beamed ceilings. In one was a huge inglenook fireplace, a great sooty hole, with oak seats on both sides and a small recess at the back in which many a tankard of ale had probably stood.
The rickety staircase led directly out of this room up onto a dark landing. There were three bedrooms, all on different levels, each about 20ft by 10ft, and between two of them rose the massive chimney stack. All the ceilings sagged right down in the middle and lumps of plaster were hanging from them. Large pieces had fallen from the walls, too, revealing the old wattle and daub of which all the upstairs, interior walls were constructed.
We came downstairs again feeling pretty depressed. Truly it looked too big a task for human hands to make anything liveable out of that derelict place, but the land, though terribly neglected , was just right for our pigs – high and dry, with light, sandy soil – and as all good farmers’ wives know, the farmhouse has to take second place to the land.
There was just one other good feature – the views in every direction are superb. The south side bounded by Hindhead and the Devil’s Punch Bowl, a well-known beauty spot; to the west a copse of larch and pine trees, and to the north and east stretch miles and miles of undulating heather-clad hills and valleys.
The “Shed”
We made our plans. The farmhouse would obviously take some months to put right, but Jess was anxious to get going with his pigs, so he decided to put up a shed which he could use for meals and to sleep in occasionally, whilst he travelled to and fro daily from his home, which was about eight miles away. It didn’t take him long to discover that a farmer’s wife has a place on even the smallest of farms, and the following August I came – a new bride, with no farming experience whatsoever – to live at Upper Ridgeway Farm.
The ”Shed”, 20ft by 12ft wide, was given a lining of plasterboard and divided into a living room and a bedroom. A tiny kitchenette, about 6ft by 4ft, led onto the living room even entertaining a food cupboard, sink and draining board, and an airing cupboard with hot water tank installed inside. The hot water was supplied by a very efficient stove on which we cooked.
Two weeks after we moved in war was declared. All private building stopped and our plans for restoring the old farmhouse receded into a doubtful future. The little shed modestly took over duty as farmhouse for the next eight and a half years. From here I learned to salt my first pig, make butter, milk cows, feed and clean out pigs and chickens, harrow and roll a field behind Peggy, our old mare, and help as best I could with the hundred-and-one jobs that were new to both of us then.
Here also arrived, in 1942, our son Paul, and nearly two years later, his sister, Diana. The little shed housed, at different times, land girls, land boys, evacuees, a Belgian refugee, Canadian soldiers, who gave us some valuable help (some of them had to sleep out) – in short, there were Uncle Tom Cobleigh and all!
Kindly and tactful relations usually referred to the shed as “The Bungalow”, other kindly, but less tactful, callers as “the chicken house” and I myself, in moments of near despair in those struggling, early days, was tempted to nail up “Beggars Roost” above the door”.
Upper Ridgeway Farm- Part 2
Continuing Irene Gorringe’s article “A Farmhouse in Surrey” first published in The Farmers Weekly, April 13, 1951, almost exactly 72 years ago! It seems planners and tradesmen have not changed much!
A Start
When at last the war ended, my husband got busy on his plans for restoring the old farmhouse. His earlier building experience proved a godsend, although he had never tackled an old place before. At last the local council passed the plans, a bricklayer was, after much effort, pressed into service, and the work commenced. In all it took nearly two and a half years.
From time to time it had to be left for weeks, and even months, when the needs of the farm were more urgent. Help was spasmodic, and Jess had to do a great deal of the work himself. We did, however, towards the end, enlist the help of a plasterer, a plumber and an electrician, as all these jobs really need a specialist.
The first thing was to provide good drainage and new footings with a damp course all round; then the huge chimney stack was dismantled, brick by brick, as it was in an unsafe condition. Here we made an interesting discovery. As each brick was carefully cleaned, we found the date 1370 scratched deeply into one of them, and although we have no proof that this was the date the house was first built, we have good reason to believe that this is so. The chimney stack was rebuilt, making room upstairs for a bathroom 8ft. by 6ft., and a w.c. where the bacon loft had been before.
The next big job was to strip the roof, replace the battens with new ones (the rafters were sound) and re-tile. Then we made another discovery. When the tiles were being cleaned of the moss which had given the roof such a green appearance on our first visit, we found one which was deeply scratched with the words “J Brown mad this tile Thursley Surry 180_” the last figure being broken off. This points to the fact that the roof was last re-tiled nearly 150 years ago and the tiles were made locally. It is our regret that we have so far not been able to find out more about the history of our house, though there is another farmer in Thursley village whose mother was born here exactly 100 years ago.
Walls and Floors
The walls were attended to next, the weak places in the stonework strengthened or reconstructed. Next the floors were levelled and re-laid. We were able to get some lovely little red tiles for the kitchen and hall floors. The two sitting rooms were turned into one big lounge, nearly 20ft. square, and some good oak boards from the bedroom floors were turned and laid over a hollow floor. Several good big windows were added, with leaded lights, as we do like a place light and airy.
The beams in this room were carefully cleaned, and now they are truly magnificent. Indeed, the mass of lovely, old oak beams we uncovered, both upstairs and down, some under peeling green paint, are in a wonderful state of preservation, hard as iron, as Jess found to his cost when he had to saw through some. Every beam, after cleaning, was treated with button polish, which does not give a shiny-looking surface, but prevents the dust from clinging. The inglenook fireplace, too, with its bricks cleaned and glowing red and its huge oak beam exposed above, is quite lovely to look at.
With a View
The kitchen is now roughly 18 ft. square and L-shaped. It has one large and two small windows, one of the latter set above the new stainless-steel sink and draining boards, so that I can see the beautiful view across miles of heather-clad hills. Beside the sink is the washing machine - my pride and joy – and to the left a roomy pantry, facing north.
The old well-house, with the well part bricked off, and a French window put in for light on the garden side, has made a very nice hall. The staircase had to be renewed and upstairs we now have four good bedrooms. With their oak beams, cream walls, and lovely large diamond -paned dormer windows, they are most attractive. They all lead off a good landing on which there is also a large airing cupboard. Next to this comes the bathroom, which is distempered primrose to go with the pretty apple-green bath and basin.
All I should like now is enough money for some nice period furniture. Ours is a mixture of the modern stuff we brought down from the “Shed” and a few old, second-hand pieces we have added from time to time, but some of the modern pieces were wedding presents and I would not part with them for anything.
Anyway, I think I have what matters more to a house than any furniture – a good husband and two happy children to bring the place to life and make the house into a home.
If you have any history of your house that you would like to share, please do get in touch at jackierickenberg@gmail.com.
Upper Ridgeway Farm in 1997