Hi Andrew & Margaret,

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The farms you mentioned are actually situated in ‘Thorpe in Balne’, my family lived at ‘Spring Acre Farm’ from 1966 until around the mid 70’s,

but we shortened the name of the property from ‘Springfields Farm’ to ‘Springfields’, current maps show the land to have been shortened somewhat, but when my family owned it, the land stretched all the way to the railway embankment, which was by then disused and repurposed as a ‘walk’,

Sickle Cross Farm were our neighbours, (Nicholson family?),

Prior to ‘Springfields Farm’, my parents were in the process of purchasing a property in either Braithwaite or Kirk Bramwith but the purchase fell through and Springfields Farm was purchased instead, unfortunately I can’t remember the name or exact location of the property although I can still see it in my ‘mind’s eye’,
The whole area was a farming community and largely, if you didn’t own one, you were either related to the family or employed by one,

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‘Springfields Farm’ was actually a bungalow with no outbuildings other than a dilapidated wooden garage, but we erected a large enclosed barn plus large chicken sheds, the property was recorded as a smallholding and my father ran a mobile shop serving the area, which included many farms until the family moved a short distance to a property in the hamlet of ‘Holme’, this was another smallholding but with a farming covenant, which my Father bought and made Freehold,

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I would say it wouldn’t be easy to get to Braithwaite or Kirk Bramwith from Thorpe in Balne because of the River Don and canal crossings necessary via Kirk Bramwith or Barnby Dunn, they were a pain in the 1960’s but maybe less so now just serving recreational barge traffic rather than commercial, the crossings were manual swing bridges when I lived there, so probably the same in the 1700’s,
Many modern properties have sprung up in the general area since the 60’s which is now very much altered, I should think many have been built ?on old farmsteads or their land, but during my time there it was a very charming rural ‘olde worlde’ collection of farming hamlets, I used to spend hours as a teen tootling around them enjoying the peace and the scenery, but until I passed my driving test, I used to walk from Thorpe in Balne to Barnby Dunn and back for the bus to work, public transport was non-existent in rural areas,
The roads were, and probably still are, very narrow and winding and often covered in mud from farm traffic, not a problem when cars were narrow like the Morris 1000 were typically in use, but today’s huge monsters, cars as well as tractors, I have no doubt will be causing issues, there were, and probably still are, many deep drainage dykes with steep sides on roadsides and none with any safety barriers, I lost acquaintances to one when the driver missed a bend and overturned their MBG into a full dyke, the sides of the dyke jammed the doors closed and trapped the occupants under water, they weren’t found until morning when a friend reported them missing, I almost met the same fate when the driver of the Bedford CA van I was travelling in started messing around and almost lost control, we hit the grass verge, but luckily for us didn’t skid into the dyke, we got away with it but the driver was well chastened and calmed down, we were all around 18 yoa at the time, but even nearly 60 years on, I remember that couple and treat roads with dykes with the greatest respect, so if you visit the area, please do take care, any dykes are very likely to be full at this time of year, and they’re deep!.

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Apologies to any who feel this is a bit of a ramble, but hopefully this will be of some use to you, if only for a bit of ‘ flesh on the bones’ of local knowledge, I left the area around 40 years ago and I now live on the East coast, but still have very fond memories of living in the area,

I do have one or two photo’s of ‘Springfields Farm’ I could scan if they mean anything to you.

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Kind regards,

John Woolsey

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