Chapter 16 Marholm Village and Buildings
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Chapter 16 Marholm Village and Buildings History of the Village Marholm village lies approximately four miles West of Peterborough and one mile from the seat of the Fitzwilliam family at Milton Hall. The parish covers some fourteen hundred acres, with the village positioned roughly in the centre. Today it remains a peaceful, largely agricultural community of some two hundred people. Although during the past fifty years the domination of agriculture has diminished, the village retains a rural feel, and in many ways is unchanged from its earlier history, despite the modern development, and proximity to a burgeoning city. To a large extent, this tranquillity has been preserved by the protection derived from Milton Estate, which has retained ownership of much of the property in the village. In addition, the Estate has curtailed further encroachment from the city beyond Mucklands Wood to the East, which delineates the border of Milton’s sales, in the 1960s, of land to the Peterborough Development Corporation for the expansion of the city. The name of the village most probably derives from ‘mere’, meaning pool, and ‘ham’, or settlement, and may refer to the pools by the Manor House. During the Middle Ages, the name was alternatively Marham, Marreham, Marrenham, Mareham, Morham and Marhome. By the 18th century it was commonly referred to as Marham and later known by the present spelling, Marholm [1]. Early History The early history of the village is obscure, with few known archaeological sites. Not surprisingly, however, in view of its proximity to the flourishing Roman settlement in Castor, there is some evidence of their presence in the area now embraced by Marholm. The Royal Commission for Historic Monuments (RCHM) survey of 1969 recorded enclosure and linear features South-east of Burmer Wood, notably a small sub-rectangular enclosure of two acres. No interior features are visible, but there is a gap entrance near the middle of the South-eastern side leading to a track-way some 28m wide, bounded by ditches. In 1958, during ploughing some 350m North-west of the Manor House, the whole area was found to be covered with pottery, mainly Nene Valley ware. There were also large blocks of stone, some dressed. Similarly, traces of a Roman settlement, with pottery and a pillar were revealed some 150m East of Marholm Farm. This pottery is now in Peterborough Museum. In the Saxon records of 664, the ‘vill’ of Marholm appears to have been confirmed to the Abbot of Peterborough by Wulfhere, although part of the land there was held before the Conquest by the Abbot of Ramsey. Marholm was famous for its quarries, reputedly supplying stone towards the building of Ramsey Abbey [2]. In about 1053, Ramsey exchanged with Peterborough his entitlement to ‘certain land in Marham ——- situated in the midst of beautiful woods’ for land in Loddington [3]. Curiously, the village is not mentioned in the Domesday Book, nor does there appear to be a satisfactory explanation for this omission. Perhaps at the time Marholm was simply part of Milton (which does appear) with Marholm Church as Chapel-of-ease to Castor. The village is mentioned in 1145, in a Papal Bull of Eugenius III listing the possessions of the abbey. [4] The advowson has always belonged to the Lord of the Manor, and has consequently passed through the families of Waterville during the 12th and 13th centuries, and then Thorpe. In 1384, William of Thorpe acquired through tortuous descent the whole manor, and on his death in 1391, he left to his kinsman, John Wittlebury, the manors of Longthorp, Milton and Marholm, thus uniting Marholm with Milton. From this date the descent of the manor followed that of Milton in Castor, with ownership passed to the Fitzwilliam family through purchase from the Wittlebury family in 1502 [5], where it continues to this day. Although Milton is in the parish of Castor, the family has invariably worshipped at St. Mary the Virgin, Marholm, which accounts for the many beautiful monuments to the Fitzwilliams in the church. The last Earl Fitzwilliam, the tenth in line, died in September 1979. He is buried in the churchyard, as is his Countess, who died in 1995. The present representative of the family living at Milton Hall is Sir Philip Naylor-Leyland, Bt. Occupations and Growth of the Village Since records began, the predominant occupation in Marholm has been farming, and this remains true today, albeit with a much smaller work force. Within the parish today are the ancient woodlands of Mucklands Wood, Pocock’s Wood 157 and Burmer Wood, largely semi-natural woodland dominated by ash and oak. In wetter areas, sedges, tall herbs and grasses abound. As the village developed the woodlands gave way to accommodate feudal farming. The soil is light and sandy, mixed with limestone, and suited to mixed farming. Very little evidence remains of feudal farming methods, and there appears to be no correlation with modern field systems as set out in a map of 1886 in Noel Darby’s possession. According to the RCHM study in 1969, nothing is known of the enclosure of the open fields of the parish, although extensive areas of ridge and furrow exist, as can be seen on aerial photographs around the village. These, quite unrelated to the existing fields, are arranged in end-on and interlocked furlongs, some with reversed-S curves, and have well-marked headlands up to 75cm high and some 14m wide [6]. The Farms at Marholm Marholm and Manor Farms The manor farm for the village is Marholm Farm - The Thatched House. The date 1633 is carved on a stone below the roof, but traces of the original building, particularly the deep recessed windows, suggest a much earlier origin. The farm has been occupied since 1912 by the Darby family, one of the oldest tenants on the Fitzwilliam estate, traceable on the Castor register for nearly 400 years. Thomas Rowe Darby, (1874- 1935) father of the present tenant Noel Darby, took on the tenancy from his father John Thomas in 1928, at a rent of one pound an acre! After his death the tenancy Fig 16a. Marholm Farm: date stone 1633. (Photo: T Blackmore) passed to his redoubtable wife Eleanor, who was Churchwarden for some fifty years, and died ten days after celebrating her centenary on Christmas Day 1995. Farming at Marholm and Manor Farms During Eleanor’s tenancy she was helped by Noel and his wife Joan, who moved to Manor Farm in 1969 and ran both farms as one mixed farm. The Darbys used to have a dairy herd which they gave up in 1968 because the land at Bretton was taken for development. The pigs went in 1960, and the hens in 1970; the poultry was run by Betty Andrews, who came to Marholm as a young Land Army volunteer during the Second War and never left! The farm is now entirely arable and whereas in the 1940s three hundred acres employed six men and a student, today on seven hundred acres, Noel Fig 16b. Manor Farm (Photo: A Bone) needs only two [7] . Until 1950, most of the work was still done by horses, as tractors were not easy to acquire during the war. They bought a Ford tractor in 1942, after which horses were used only for harrowing, pulling carts, muck- carting and rolling. By the end of the war they had four to six horses. It was a hard life for both man and beast. A single furrow was nine inches wide and six deep. It took three horses to pull a two-furrow plough, and two for a single. At one stage they hired steam ploughs, towed by a wire rope, from contractors who lived in caravans during the work. The biggest problem was carting the water and coal to the steam ploughs. Men sometimes had to carry sacks weighing two hundredweight for storage or transfer. Noel’s Fig 16c. Manor Farm: the brick built Tudor barn. father was six feet six inches tall and weighed eighteen (Photo: T Blackmore) 158 stones, and would take part in a race from Castor to Marholm carrying a sack of barley, or in the tug-of-war. Most of the produce from the farms was despatched by rail. Wagons pulled by horses carted the stuff to Helpston Station to be loaded up into trucks that had been ordered by telephone the previous day, and returned with fertilizers and coal. Home Farm Farming at Home Farm Home Farm was most probably originally run to meet the domestic needs of Milton, rather than primarily for income. For many years now it has been run first as a mixed Fig 16d. Thomas Rowe Darby. farm, including a dairy, by members of another Marholm dynasty, the Jarvis brothers, Toby, Stanley and Peter, and their wives, Mary, Fay and Vi [8]. As the brothers reached retirement during the 1990s, and with no family successors, dairy production finally ceased in 1998. This brought to a close a remarkable era that began just after the First Fig 16h. Home Farm. (Photo: T Blackmore) Fig 16e. Eleanor Darby. Fig 16f. Noel Darby. Fig 16i. Home Farm Barn: Stan Jarvis in the yard. (Photo: T Blackmore) World War, when the brothers’ grandfather, George Jarvis, took on the tenancy of the adjacent Belsize Farm, then later Home Farm and the Fruit Farm (now Milton woodyard). His son Arthur took over the tenancy of Home Farm in 1947 and farmed cereals, sugar beet, potatoes, sheep and chickens. The wheat was harvested before it was ripe, bound and built into stooks, and left in the field for about a fortnight before threshing in the stackyard.