GLEBE FARM
This series of photographs, which were taken by Mark Gamble in 1983,
show various aspects of Glebe Farm, a property that had been home to
the Winterton family, who were farmers in Thurmaston for several generations.
Melville & Company's Directory and Gazetteer of Leicestershire,
published in 1854, records the names of several farming families in
Thurmaston. Amongst their number were Thomas Allen, John Preston Genevay,
Samuel Bishop, and David Bates; farmers and graziers. The latter was
also the victualler of the Harrow public house. Two of Thurmaston's
other public houses were also kept by agriculturalists, local grazier
William Dalby kept the Unicorn and Star, whilst the Roebuck
was kept by John Tebbs. There were others too, the Lane family, William
Lander, and also one Henry Winterton.
Henry Winterton was the son of Daniel Winterton, who had farmed in
Thurmaston from at least the 1840's. Daniel had been born during the
reign of George III, in around 1774, in the parish of Barrow-upon-Soar.
This was also the birthplace of his son Henry, who was born in 1816.
Henry Winterton married Elizabeth Tebbs in 1844, and his son Daniel,
named after his grandfather, was born in Thurmaston three years' later,
in 1847. By the 1850's Henry Winterton was farming 130 acres of land
and employing four labourers. In 1861 he employed three men and two
boys; whilst the Winterton household included 3 farm servants, a carter,
a cow man, and a dairy maid.
By 1881 Henry's son, Daniel Winterton, had taken over the lion's share
of the family's farming activities within the parish. Henry Winterton
farmed 45 acres of land, whilst son Daniel farmed 80 acres, the upkeep
of which employed three men and two boys. In 1882, with the death of
his father, Daniel Winterton took over the farming of his father's acreage;
Daniel was also married that same year. Like those who had farmed in
the parish before him, Daniel Winterton also had other interests. In
1891 the 44 years' old farmer was also working as the surveyor to Thurmaston's
parish board. The board, run by twelve men, was responsible for governing
the affairs of the parish, as it had been from 1851, the year it was
established. Daniel Winterton's work as a surveyor was probably bound
up in the fact that farmers were invariably skilled at carrying out
field surveys, conducted by the use of measuring chains.
In 1891 Glebe Farm was not just the home of Daniel Winterton; it was
also the abode of his wife, Alice, and the couple's three daughters,
their son and a domestic servant. Daniel Winterton and his wife would
have two more sons, the youngest of whom, Philip Dan Winterton, who
was born in 1900, would farm at Glebe Farm. Philip Winterton, who had
served in the Royal Navy during the Great War, died in 1978, and by
1983 the Winterton family were making arrangements to sell their farm.
The farm house still stands, but all the outbuildings shown in the photographs
were demolished.
The outbuildings housed an interesting array of farming implements,
horse tackle, and the paraphernalia of a bygone age.