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Summary

Historic farmstead possibly of 17th century origins and still partly present in the early 21st century

Associated Legal Designations or Protected Status

• Listed Building (II*) 1290696: FALKLAND GARTH

Monument Type(s):

• FARMSTEAD (17th century to Late 19th century - 1601 AD? to 1880 AD)

Full Description

Falkland Farm on Wash Common is shown but not named on the First Edition Ordnance Survey mapping of 1880-81 <1> and was not noted during a 2005 survey of West Berkshire's historic farmsteads <2>. It lies 200m to the west of the Falkland Memorial erected in 1878, within the area of the First Battle of Newbury. The yard is called Falkland Farm in 1899 <3> but it should be noted that there was another Falkland Farm mapped by the OS in the late 19th century <1>, 1750m to the south and just over the county boundary in Hampshire at Wash Water (centred at SU 4557 6329). The two farms' name derives from the 2nd Viscount Falkland, Lucius Cary, a Royalist whose death during the Civil War battle stood out as particularly tragic to contemporaries; possibly both the Falkland Farms were renamed during the Victorian resurgence of interest in the soldier's story.

The Wash Common farmhouse is held to be the location where Falkland's body was taken after being discovered on the battlefield; this association appears to have been first documented by historian Walter Money <4><5>, who also mentions that Falkland Farm was traditionally pointed out as a place where a party of Royalist officers caroused on the night before the battle in September 1643 <6>. He is dismissive however of the links between the Hampshire farm and Lord Falkland <4>. The Grade II* listed farmhouse, later called Falkland Garth, <7> is described as 17th century in date; Money repeated that it and another called Yew Tree Cottage were said to have been the only buildings on the Wash at the time of the encounter between the Royalists and Parliamentarians <4>.

The buildings of Falkland Farm may be schematically drawn on Rocque's 1761 map <8> on the north edge of 'The Wash'. They are more clearly delineated on the Tithe map <9>, with a large barn in a yard to the west of the farmhouse and further buildings more irregularly placed to the east. These two clusters are given separate parcel numbers in 1842 <9> and 1880-81 <1>. By 1936 the western barn had been lost and only two smaller sheds or barns remained to the east <7>, though open countryside still lay to the north. However by 1969 <10>, housing estates had been built around the former farm, with the farmhouse sub-divided and the name Falkland Garth given to the cul de sac to the north. A probably converted farm building bears the name Little Garth.

The Berkshire Record Office holds various deeds of Falkland Farm, presumed to be the one closest to Newbury although its holdings are described as 9 acres of arable land bounded on the south by the Woodhay Road and on the east by the Wash Road, 15 acres of arable and woodland adjoining the same, on the Wash Road, and 5 acres of arable land adjoining the latter and the Wash Road <11>.

Sources and further reading

Related Monuments

Associated Excavations and Fieldwork

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