1919 Estate Families

The following names appear as tenants in the 1919 Somerton Estate sale particulars, providing a record of village families at that time:

Mr Charles Brown - Village Farm (475 acres, principal tenant)

Mr T. E. Emberlin - Manor Farm; also cottages throughout the village

Mrs Godwin - Troy Farm (633 acres)

Mrs M. A. Walton - The Railway Inn, Wharf and Pastures

Mrs J. Baldwin - The Post Office, Dwelling House and Shop

Mrs Plumb - Two stone-built cottages

Mrs Walton, J. Bletsoe, S. Danbury - Small Holding above Railway Station

H. Mitchell, C. Brown - Cottages at the Paddock

T. Green, S. Danbury - Middle Cottages

G. Andrews, A. Plumb - Cottages at the Paddock

T. Moore - Dwelling House and Butcher's Shop, Fritwell Road

Mrs Walton, Mrs E. Taylor, W. Cross - Thatched Cottages near the Rectory

W. Andrews, T. Walton - Cottages opposite the church

J. Walton, Mrs Godwin - Modern cottages opposite the church

Mrs J. Bayliss, Mr J. Bletsoe - Cottages adjoining

Miss Nash - Thatched Cottage adjoining the church

Mrs Cato, Mrs Gibbard, T. E. Emberlin - Cottages opposite the Post Office

Mrs G. Golder, J. Andrews - Cottages in Sandpit Ground

W. Cross, H. Stevens, T. Walton - Allotment gardens

Source: Sale particulars, Ferris & Puckridge, auctioneers, June 1919

The auction and what the farms fetched

The estate was auctioned on behalf of the Earl of Jersey at the Red Lion Hotel in Banbury, at 2.30pm on 19 June 1919. The five lots with substantial land had a sale plan of their own. In her centenary article for the Valley News in 2019, Alice Bowmaker set out what happened to each:

Lot	What it included	Result
Village Farm (now Dovecote Farm)	Farmhouse, outbuildings and stables, dairy buildings, barns and six cottages	Bought by its tenant, Charles Brown, for £10,600
Manor Farm (now Jersey Manor Farm)	Farmhouse, three sets of farm buildings and five cottages	Bought by its tenant, Thomas Emberlin, for £12,900
Troy Farm, the largest in acreage	House, barns and stables and four cottages	The tenant did not want to buy, and it was sold to a Mr Joslin for £8,500
Mill Farm	House, a four-storey watermill, outbuildings, a canal wharf, meadowland and two cottages	Reserve of £4,500, apparently not reached: withdrawn
The Railway Tavern	House, tavern, outbuildings and dairy barn, 40 acres of pasture, and Somerton Wharf with Wharf House	Bought by its tenant, Mrs Walton, for £3,200

The cottages in the village went for between £190 and £500 each. A very few tenants were able to buy the homes they rented. Some cottages did not sell, perhaps because the tenants could not afford them, and others were bought by the new farm owners to house their workers.

The article also notes that several houses in the village today were once pairs of cottages: Fermor House, The Croft, Dormer House, Yew Tree Cottage, 3 The Paddocks, The Old Cottage, Church End, McIvers, Village Farm and Mudginwell. Old School Cottage and Orchard Cottage were a row of three, and Adam's Cottages was a barn. Hilbre House, the "new" rectory, was built in 1926.

Source: Alice Bowmaker, "Sale of the Somerton Estate", Valley News, August 2019, p.15. The original sale catalogue and the auctioneers' marked-up copy, which would confirm the prices, are at the Oxfordshire History Centre (J. VIIIa/65 and J. VIIIe/29).