Mayridge Farm and Bostock

 

Mayridge Farm (to give it its modern spelling) is dealt with in more detail elsewhere and lay in the parish of Sulhamstead until relatively recently. Despite that, it is covered in Ballard's survey where the fields are shown as already enclosed more or less as in the Sulhamstead enclosure map of 1811.

 

Buildings are shown on the site in 1762 as in 1811. In 1844, Stephen Hart was the tenant of "Mearidge" Farm as well as Goff's Farm, though then the house was not in the same place as the current one.  It was sited where the farm buildings are today, with the road following a slightly different course.

 

The 1861 census shows a new house (the present one) occupied by the land agent but the old farmhouse is still in existence. The new house became the farmhouse by 1881 when the new Agency was built in the Englefield Road and the old house was demolished by the end of the century.

 

A little down the road leading from the farm to the Bath Road, just before the sharp bend shown on the map, Mayridge Farm Cottages  were built in the 1860s.

 

The map of 1811 shows a building along Bostock Lane towards the Bath Road and from the census returns of 1851 onwards this appears to be a block of three houses. These remained inhabited in 1891, but by 1901 they were empty and were known to Miss Winchcomb as "Bostock Castle" and a place to be dreaded at night.

 

Bostock Lodges at the junction of the Bath Road and Bostock Lane were built squarely across the line of the old turnpike shown here and this must have been as soon as that road was closed for they appear on the map in 1829.