Englefield History

Chantry Farm

 

Chantry Farm (also Chauntry or Chantrey) has certainly some connection with the source of revenue for the Englefield Chantry prior to its dissolution in 1535 and there are in existence several leases to various people dating back to 1598.  There is land allocated to “Chantry” in the Englefield Meadow on both the 1690 and 1762 plans, despite all chantries having been dissolved by law in 1547 so this must refer to Chantry Farm rather than the chantry itself.  In 1779 the joint owners were William Toovey and Richard Carter and a map of February that year shows the extent of the lands at the time, five years after the reallocation of the holdings in the Great Field and before the enclosure of the Englefield Meadow.

 

The farm house was clearly Cranemoor House (here “Cranemore”).  The approximate location of this is shown on the map (below) by the red circle.  The main farmyard with two fields seems to have been where the estate yard now is.  This yard was separated from the main block of land by a short distance and the two were connected by a lane that is now called Chantry Lane, so this is probably the origin of the name of that thoroughfare.

A further block of land was let to a Mr Simmons as tenant.  This is in two separate parts, amounting to seven acres in all, with a small single enclosure immediately to the north west of Englefield House at the junction of the Bradfield Road and Beenham Lane, now part of Daintylands, and the remainder further along Beenham Lane with two cottages on it.

 

The other lands making up the 1779 farm were shown in 1762 as belonging to “the two Mrs Powels”, and “the widow Powel, now Carter and Toovey”.  The large field to the east of Cranemoor Lake was the land allocated to the widow Powell in 1774 when the Great Field was reorganised so Elizabeth Powell had clearly passed on her inheritance to her sons-in-law.

 

Chantry Farm had disappeared by the time of the final parliamentary enclosures but the field to the north of the timber yard called Long Ground on the 1779 map was called Chantry Field at that time.

 

The map alongside is not fully to scale and has been transposed onto a more modern map below.

 

 

The 1779 map of
Chantry Farm lands

(Courtesy of Berkshire
Records Office)

© 2021 Richard J Smith

Englefield History
Englefield History
Englefield History
Englefield History