Lily Farm

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click Farming pre 1823 for this era

Research by Joan West

Lily Farm is in Lily Bottom Lane.

Gos and Diana Home purchased Lily Farm in the mid 1900's

The Black Hedge.  By Gos Home of Lily Farm.  (Letter to the Editor of Hallmark). click The Black Hedge for more details.

The Black Hedge which runs along the north eastern border of our home, Lily Farm, Pink Lane, past both its garden and our two fields bordering Monkton Wood.  We have always understood that the word “Black” explains that it was originally a blackthorn hedge.    Very little blackthorn is left because the beech trees of Hampden Estate have subsequently overawed it.

Anglow Saxon Record

My late father, Gordon Home FSA.Scot, artist and topographical author, states in his book, illustrated by his own line drawings. “Through the Chilterns to the Fens”, J.M.Dent 1925, that the Black Hedge was the original parish boundary separating the parishes of Princes and Monks Risborough and that it was recorded in the Anglo Saxon Charter in about AD 975.   This would make it one of the earliest recorded hedges in England.

Still Evident

Today the mound on which the blackthorns were planted and the ditch from which the soil was extracted is still in evidence all along the footpath that runs from Iron Beech Cottage, on the edge of Grymsdyke, to the boundary of Speen.    It is remarkable that the mound and ditch are still so well preserved.