Back to Boonie Homesteads

To cut to the chase – after our years of research, we know that the Boonie Wilcocksons had two main homesteads in Biggin.

The most important was at the western end of Hoonwell Lane, today known as Home Farm Cottage and Springwell.

Attached in the middle at a slight angle, a dwelling-house (Home Farm Cottage) on the right and a large barn on the left (now converted and named Springwell), these two buildings once comprised the main Boonie homestead, inherited by eldest sons down the generations. Listed Building details suggest they were built in the late 17^th and 18^th centuries but it’s certain they replaced earlier premises.

The secondary homestead was next door but one, eastwards a little down the Lane, known today as Home Farm. It also probably dates from the early 18^th century, on the site of previous dwellings. This homestead was once held by an early Wilcockson widow, a couple of times by younger sons (and briefly even by daughters). For centuries, it was routinely described in these terms: “another messuage/house in Biggin with barn, garden, orchard and Fold Yard”. It was often named as Nether House.

Here’s a reminder of their locations on the 1920 map detail:

And here are present-day photos:

So, how do we know these were Boonie homesteads?

The answer is: detective work, a fabulous supply of manorial records with a few Boonie Wills and an 1887 sales catalogue thrown in.

For those who like to know the details, you’ll find here the Abstracts of all the evidence found so far for Boonie homesteads from 1607 to 1887.

In that year, Rev William Rylance Melville sold the Boonie homestead (Home Farm Cottage/Springwell) and the ancestral fields that his late wife Susannah Wilcockson James had inherited. The sale ended the Boonie Wilcockson presence in Biggin after 400 years (and possibly centuries longer).

But the key bit of proof that told us which Boonie homestead was which was this:

5 Sep 1833 Duffield Fee Small Court – BIGGING: George WILCOCKSON farmer of Biggin has died [otherwise known to us as “Young George” or Miller George I]. He held the dwelling house in Biggin formerly called the Nether House with garden & 2 small crofts of 1 acre, formerly in possession of John WARD, then his widow, bounded on the south by land & property of John BLACKWALL Esq, towards the north & east by property of Miss Sarah WILCOCKSON & towards the west by property of James Northage JAMES Esq. The court finds that George’s grandson, Miller George WILCOCKSON II of Biggin is heir to this holding and he is admitted tenant. At the same court, Miller George II and his wife Mary (Hoon) sold this holding for £105 to Emma BLACKWALL of Blackwall in the parish of Kirk Ireton, who was admitted tenant for her life and heirs.

The name of the dwelling as Nether House and the clear locations of its immediate neighbours – which we were able to check on the 1840s Tithe Maps and Schedules for Biggin and Kirk Ireton – proved that the ‘Nether House’ repeatedly mentioned in centuries of manor court entries was the property and plot now known as Home Farm.

We were left with only one candidate for the other, primary Boonie homestead – that known today as Home Farm Cottage/Springwell. To tie that off for us, the current Listed Building details for those premises say they once possessed a door lintel marked with the name and date of John Wilcockson 1749. The present owner of Springwell confirmed that the lintel had been above one of the pre-conversion barn doors. The only John Wilcockson available in 1749 was “Young John” [older brother of “Young George” mentioned in the 1833 entry above]. “Young John” came into possession of the primary family holdings at age 21 in 1746, the eldest son of his father Biggin-John and mother Hannah Bunting (John’s 2^nd wife).

These Boonie direct line holders of the Biggin homesteads, from 1610 John down to Susannah Wilcockson (James) Melville are shown here:

Susannah (“the last Wilcockson”) married Rev William Rylance Melville, Rector of Matlock St Giles

And as for the Biggin fields…

Remember this Tithe Map of 1841 marked up with the pale green fields that were anciently Wilcockson holdings and sold by Rev Melville in 1887:

Those field names are recorded in manor court entries, a few Wilcockson Wills, the 1840s Tithe Appropriation and the final 1887 Sales Catalogue – that is, from 1607 through to 1887, over 280 years.

See this spreadsheet for a full display of the field names recorded in each piece of evidence discovered so far. Grey highlighting indicates those names that carried through from start to finish.

Duffield Fee Manor Court Books

Without a doubt, the Duffield Fee Manor Court Books held at Derbyshire Record Office (dating from 1595 to the 20^th century) should be awarded our gold star for Wilcockson research. They enabled us to create as solid a line of descent for the Boonie Wilcocksons, the homesteads they occupied and the fields they farmed, as any researchers could hope for.

These manor records will be more fully Unwrapped in fresh blogposts when I return to the task in the autumn.

Where is Biggin?

For the assistance of Boonie Wilcockson descendants who are unfamiliar with Biggin or Derbyshire, I hope these maps will help.

First, eyes right to see Biggin’s place in Great Britain as a whole (pretty central):

And within Derbyshire, Biggin (coloured red) was in the large Wirksworth St Mary parish (coloured yellow). Again pretty central. You can see that Biggin was a bit of a tail tagged on to the parish, and some distance from the parish church. No surprise that Wilcocksons often used the nearer Kirk Ireton and Atlow churches instead.
Map copyright of Derbyshire County Council, reproduced with permission of Derbyshire Record Office.

In 1843, a Tithe Map of Biggin was created. In the one you can see below, all the fields known for certain to have been held by Wilcocksons at that and earlier dates have been coloured in. There’s a key to the colours at the top of the map. Billie Wilcocksons (whose fields are coloured orangey-pink) also had significant holdings in Kirk Ireton, north of their part of Biggin. Boonies had just one or two small holdings in Kirk Ireton, and also in Hulland to the south. Over on the east is another Boonie holding, acquired in 1757 – Biggin Mill (coloured green).

*1843 Tithe Map of Biggin by Hulland, ref D*2360/3/169a reproduced by permission of Derbyshire Record Office
https://www.derbyshire.gov.uk/leisure/record-office/derbyshire-record-office.aspx

The numbers shown on the Tithe Map refer to a written Tithe Schedule of 1841 giving details of homesteads and field names, their owners and tenants. More details in future blogs about the immeasurable value of the Tithe Map & Schedule to Biggin Wilcockson research.

Below is a close-up of Biggin (from a 1920 map) showing the string of Wilcockson homesteads from east to west. On the far west, Home Farm Cottage is now two properties: Springwell (a conversion of the old barn) is on the left and Home Farm Cottage to its right – the two are joined at a slight angle to each other. Over at the eastern end, you can see a small property tucked in beside Old Farm, today known as Old Farm Cottage. Both premises were once held by the ‘Billie’ Wilcocksons.

Homes and fields

The Unwrapped spotlight is turning next to where the Biggin Wilcocksons lived and farmed. For many centuries. From medieval times until 1877.

Out of all the family lines I’ve researched, this one is unique. Not only did the families live for 500 years or more in the same small hamlet but they seem to have always had their dwellings on the same plots, even if new homes replaced old ones along the way.

They held the same fields in the hamlet too, split between two or three branches (Billie, Boonie and Edward) from the time when the undetermined common ancestor shared them out that way, most likely in the early 16^th century. After that, they sometimes added a few fields or sold some but, once the Edward line (tanners and glovers) departed to Brampton near Chesterfield, Billies and Boonies each held on to a solid group of fields until their lines in Biggin died out.

I’ll now endeavour to show which homes and which fields the Boonies held until the 19^th century – and how we know about it, the many sources and records we have available.

Because these are the other remarkable facts about Biggin: the hamlet’s fields (small ones with hedges around called ‘closes’) have remained almost identical since they were first carved out of the old royal hunting forest called Duffield Frith (‘frith’ is an old word for forest) – and because of the plentiful manor records that exist, we can follow the field names throughout the centuries, up to the 1840s tithe schedules and beyond.

Most rural locations in England went through ‘Enclosure’ at some point, usually in the 18^th and 19^th centuries, when large communal fields were carved up into smaller closes, changing the layout and field names of each community for ever. But Biggin was ‘enclosed’ from its birth out of Duffield Frith before the 12th century (when it was called ‘Newbigging’). So its field names have lived on to the present day.

The next blogpost will include maps to show where the Boonie homes and fields were located in Biggin.

If Wilcocksons settled in Newbigging when it first formed (though without a fixed surname for a few centuries) they were there for around 800 years. Even if they moved in after their surname was established, that would be 500-600 years of settlement in Biggin.