Hill Farm House, Little Staughton

This page was partly written by Brenda Foster and Jeanette Atkinson 

Image supplied courtesy of H. M. Hopperton. 

A. Mawer & F.M. Stenton, in Bedfordshire Place-Names, note that in 1247 there was a farm to the west of the church (probably Hill Farm) named Churchehulle. The current Hill Farm House was built much later and is now a residential house. Much of the land surrounding the farm house has been sold and developed.

In 1927, when properties in Little Staughton were valued under the Ratings and Valuation Act of 1925, Hill Farm was described as a ‘nice holding’ although the surrounding land was wet and liable to flooding in winter [DV1/H53/12]. The house had four bedrooms, two reception rooms and a kitchen. There was a pump in the yard, an outside coal house, nag stable and barn. The buildings had a rateable value of £17 per annum and were owned and occupied by an H. Banks. The Banks family seem to have occupied the farm since at least the time of the 1893 Electoral Register [RE1893N]. It was bought by Henry C. Banks from Edward Welstead of Kimbolton in 1912 [WG2069]. 

The current farmhouse at the top of Spring Hill dates from about 1600 and is a timber framed building with a colour washed rough cast and old clay tiles. The building has two storeys with attics and the roadside door that once faced the church is now filled in. There is a cross-wing extension. The building was listed as Grade II Special Interest on 12 August 1983. It is not visible from the highway (Spring Hill) as houses have been built roadside on the site of the cattle barns and stock yards that once belonged to to the farm.

The following list gives some, but not all, of the records relating to Hill Farm held at Bedfordshire Archives: 

• QSR1898/3/5/5. Depositions of Henry Charles Banks and others in the case of Samuel Holmes, accused of stealing peas and beans belonging to Banks at Hill Farm 1898 
• WG2069. Conveyance of Hill Farm by Edward Welstead to Henry C. Banks 1912 
• BorBTP/92/0207/LB. Plans of proposed internal alterations and insertion of two windows at a Listed Building 1992
• Z449/2/12. Sale particulars 2008