From Spicers to Spy Lane
The surrounding land is recorded as Spicers in a deed of 1584 and as Spye Lands in a settlement deed of 1635. By the early nineteenth century the surrounding ground was known as Spy Common, and the draft Ordnance Survey map of 1806-07 names Spye Farm.
Before Spy Lane was laid out, tracks crossed the common between the scattered farms and fields. Archive mapping traces a route from the Alfold Bars direction through the Loxwood House estate to Pigbush Farm, across the ridge towards Songhurst and past Spy Farm to the Rudgwick road.
The turnpike road had already altered the wider road system. In 1775 the turnpike route was taken through this part of Loxwood along the line of the present Guildford Road, while Spy Farm remained away from it.
Spy Lane does not appear on an 1820 map. The 1830 enclosure map records a “New Road from Pawlies to Pancake Lane” along the line later known as Spy Lane.
A farmhouse built around 1530
The oldest part of Spy Farm House was examined by the Domestic Buildings Research Group (Surrey) in November 2007. The group dated the building to about 1530, late in the reign of Henry VIII, and identified a small timber-framed structure of two bays and about one and a half storeys. Later brick walls and extensions now conceal much of that early frame from outside.
The northern bay was originally an open hall. In a house of this type there was no upper floor over the hall and heat came from an open hearth. Smoke rose into the roof space before escaping through the roof, leaving soot on the timbers. The survey found smoke-blackened rafters and evidence for the original partitions, together with carpenter’s marks cut into the frame when the timbers were first assembled.
The report placed the original front of the house on the west side facing the lane, with a back door opposite. The hearth probably stood in the hall behind a screen. The southern bay served as a separate room, and the report suggests that access to its upper chamber may have been by a ladder stair.
Later in the sixteenth century smoke control was inserted and the open hall was floored over to make another upstairs room. During the eighteenth century an external chimney was added, parts of the outside walls were rebuilt in brick, another bay was added at the southern end and a staircase was inserted. The 2007 survey also recorded wattle and daub at the old gable and roof timbers belonging to the earlier house.
The building recorded in 2007 was small for a complete farmstead. The survey considered two possibilities: it may have been a modest farmhouse in its own right, or a separate cottage or kitchen serving a larger farmhouse within the same farmyard.
Spye Farm on the nineteenth-century maps
The 1830 enclosure map records General Onslow as the owner of Spy Farm. Twelve years later the tithe map names Denzil Onslow as owner and William Churchman as occupier. Churchman also occupied other farms, while the census returns record the families living at Spy Farm itself.
The 1842 tithe survey measured the holding at 25 acres, 3 roods and 25 perches. A rood was a quarter of an acre and a perch was one fortieth of a rood. Its field names describe a working farm rather than a single house plot: Common Piece, Garden Field, Common Field, Barnfield, Two Acres, Kits Field and Spy Lag, together with the house and outbuilding yard. Barnfield was pasture; several of the other fields were arable. The tithe survey recorded payments attached to the land, including £1 2s 9d to the vicar and £3 2s 6d to the Ecclesiastical Commissioners.
Barnfield was the largest named piece at 5 acres, 3 roods and 30 perches. Kits Field contained 4 acres, 3 roods and 26 perches, while Common Piece and Garden Field each contained a little over three acres. Spy Lag was a smaller pasture of 1 acre, 12 perches. The house and yard occupied only a small part of the twenty-five-acre holding.
The Woods and Cheesman families
The first national census to name the household was taken in 1841. Samuel Woods, aged forty-six, lived at Spy Farm with his wife Mary, aged forty-four, and their children Thomas, Catherine, Harriott and Samuel. Samuel Woods was an agricultural labourer, meaning that he worked for wages rather than farming the holding in his own name.
The Woods family was still there in 1851. Samuel was then recorded as fifty-four and Mary as fifty-two, with their fourteen-year-old son Samuel at home. By 1861 Joseph Cheesman, a thirty-five-year-old agricultural labourer, occupied Spy Farm with his wife Elizabeth and children Sarah, William and Charles. Ten years later Joseph and Elizabeth remained there with Charles, James, George and three-year-old Felix.
A thirty-acre farm in 1881
The 1881 census gives a different description of the head of the household. James Puttock, aged sixty-six, was entered as a farmer of thirty acres. His wife Mary was fifty-eight, and their children Jane, Margaret, Alice and Peter were living at home. Peter, aged fifteen, was already working as an agricultural labourer.
In 1890 Spy Farm was included with Songhurst and Brick Kiln in a much larger sale of Pallinghurst Estate property. The combined lot covered 517 acres, 2 roods and 7 perches and was offered by Daniel Watney & Sons on 12 June 1890.
The Ovingtons and the Francis family
By the 1891 census Joseph Ovington, aged thirty-seven, was the farm bailiff at Spy Farm. A farm bailiff managed the daily work of a farm for its owner or tenant. Joseph lived there with his wife Fanny, their sons Joseph and James, and six-year-old visitor Agnes E. Leal. Fifteen-year-old Joseph was already an agricultural labourer, while nine-year-old James was at school.
In 1901 the household was headed by George Francis, an eighty-two-year-old agricultural labourer. His wife Harriet was fifty-eight. Their adult children Mary, Mark and Michael also lived at Spy Farm; Mary was receiving parish relief and Michael, aged thirty, worked as a brickmaker.
Two estate sales
On 17 July 1905 King & Chasemore offered the Loxwood House Estate for sale. Spy Farm was Lot 11 and the particulars described an ‘old fashioned farmhouse, homestead, meadow and arable land’. In property sales, the homestead meant the farmhouse with its immediate farm buildings and yard. Spy Farm then measured 29 acres, 3 roods and 23 perches, almost the same acreage entered beside James Puttock in 1881.
The telephone reaches Spye House
A small newspaper notice from 1928 records a very different change. The West Sussex County Times published a list of new telephone subscribers on 17 March. A. E. Whowell of ‘Spye House, Loxwood’ received the number Loxwood 26.
The 1939 Register, compiled shortly after the outbreak of the Second World War, records ‘Spye Farm House’ and ‘Spye Farm’ as separate addresses. William J. R. Hall headed the household at Spye Farm House. At Spye Farm, Frank R. Chase was recorded as a dairy farmer.
