Wednesday 1st October 2014
A cast iron post in the corner of a field of Middleton Farm, Norton Bavant (now incorporated into Bishopstrow Farm). The post is near Middleton Railway Bridge, Bishopstrow.
This post is now redundant, as the fields of Middleton Farm and Bishopstrow Farm are mostly unfenced and growing cereal crops (wheat and barley) or fodder crops (hay and maize) as opposed to grazing livestock. Portable electric fencing is used when sheep are occasionally grazed today on the downland in the area.
This post and a few others like it, which survive here and there on Bishopstrow Farm and Middleton Farm are the only real reminders of the time when George Gauntlett kept sheep and dairy cattle in the fields in this neighbourhood.
By 1915 George Gauntlett was farming Middleton Farm and North Farm, Norton Bavant, and also Bishopstrow Farm. He later added Bishopstrow Dairy to his holdings. He spent his entire life as a farmer and became one of the best known agriculturalists in the district, not only running four dairies but also specialising in the breeding of sheep. George Gauntlett died in 1946.
Photographs taken by Danny Howell on Wednesday 1st October 2014.