Personal Stories (Part 1)

The Changes and Modernisation of Nocton

The old Ten Row houses were altered over the years to make them larger. This was done by making two houses into one. In 1983, the row was bought by Simons builders, stripped and modernised. When they were finished the houses were sold off and are as you see them today. After modernisation, they sold for around £24,000 each, in 1989.

Hall's Yard originally consisted of a farmhouse and a large barn, used in the past for fertiliser storage. Later it was used as a chitting house for seed potatoes. More recently the barn has been converted into a house. There were five garages used by the estate foremen for their vehicles, these have now been made into a bungalow.

At the other end of the yard was a large open waggon oval. This has been converted into a garage for Mr J Watt who has also built a house in the yard. In the opposite corner of the yard is a bungalow, which was made out of some old stables and the crewyard. This was done in the 50's to accommodate some poultry girls.

There were two other areas facing south which used to be stables and crewyards, one next to the manor house garden has been converted into a bungalow; the other one, which a few years ago was a shed for large tractors, is now part of the gardens and garage of the converted barn.

Wray's yard buildings consisted of the large buildings on the right hand side. In the 40's, these were a partly open crewyard for horses and bullocks, with stables at the rear. Later the fronts were bricked up and the large parts were used for chitting seed potatoes, after that they were used as tractor sheds. Now they are two lovely bungalows.

As you walk into the yard, looking straight ahead is the old barn, this was used for storing fertiliser and then later made into a seed potato chitting house. In the rear of the yard were further crewyards for bullocks and pigs. Some fine houses have now been built here.

The manor yard had a large dairy herd when I was a lad at Nocton school. It was quite an impressive farmyard at that time. There was a T.T. tested dairy herd and during the 50's some new bull pens were built, but on 11th May 1961 the last of the herd was sold.

After this date the crewyards were used for fattening bullocks and, for many years, all the lambing was done there. It has now been sold off to a developer to build ten houses. One or more of the old buildings were to be kept and made into houses in order to keep a little bit of the old character, but something went wrong and the whole site was demolished and cleared.

Source: this extract is taken from:

A Lincolnshire Lad Looks Back - Nocton Estate - The Home of Smith's Crisps

By Len Woodhead

Japonica Press £9.99

www.classic-tractors.co.uk

ISBN 095402229-7