Stocken Farm with Dick & Hilda West
From Lacey Green History
continued from 1934-1948 Stocken Farm with landlord Ernest Smith and tenants Dick& Hilda West
click Stocken Farm with R M West & Son for the next set of records.
Stocken Farm was bought by Dick & Hilda West in 1948.
They were encouraged to buy, by Harry Floyd, who was the grandson of William Saunders and been brought up in the house. He had his own Floyds Farm but had been lodging with Dick and Hilda. He lent them money, telling them it was an opportunity they must not miss
Dick, who had never borrowed in his life, bolstered by terrific faith from wife and Harry, took courage and set out to make 190 acres their own. As in 1934 every penny had to be made to count.
TO BUY OR NOT TO BUY? In 1948 Dick and Hilda West had the opportunity to buy Stocken Farm. Dick, now 37, who had never borrowed in his life, bolstered by terrific faith from his wife and insistent advice from a friend, took courage, took a mortgage from the friend, and set out to make the 190 acres of Stocken Farm their own. As in 1934, every penny had to be made to count.
Mr. West’s Wessex sow still rears ten each litter
Mr. R. M. West’s run of successes in Bucks litter competitions—he has won the Dewar Cup four times—can be directly traced to an in-pig Wessex sow he purchased five years ago.
This sow, Hardwick Alice 24th, was bred by Mr. J. F. Florey, Witney, and sold as an in-pig gilt to Messrs. A. & W. Smith of the Kingsgrove herd at Wantage. Entered by them at a Reading collective sale at four years of age, she was a bargain for Mr. West at 30gns.
Five days later she farrowed at Mr. West’s Stocken Farm, Lacey Green, with a litter of 21, went down with milk fever but still managed to rear ten good pigs.
Alice 24th has now had 182 pigs in her last ten litters and has reared 111 of them herself.
All the gilts at Stocken farm are descended from her. 2nd in the recent competition the average number of pigs weaned was 10.23 with a weight at 56 days of 36.79lbs.
The stock boar is from Mr. Tom Gollin’s Moulsoe herd at Newport Pagnell and a youngster for the gilts was recently bought from the Chalfont Colony’s Skippings herd.
Mr. Dick West told our correspondent that he had, at first, intended to go in for pigs in a commercial way, but Alice 24th’s outstanding performance made him decide to register them (prefix Enstock).
From selling weaners at eight weeks old he has turned to the in-pig gilt market, with gilts selling at Messrs Thimbleby and Shorland’s breeding sales to an average of 44gns.
Milk and Mutton
Pigs are only part of the picture at Stocken Farm. Mr. West, of Wiltshire farming stock, took over the tenancy of 160 acres in 1934, and today owns 249 acres. The farm carries a mixeu dairy herd of 80 head, which are being graded-up by using Ayrshire bulls, with some of the Shorthorns being put to Hereford bulls.
The store sheep trade is also catered for with a flock of 63 Scotch Halfbreds, including a few Mashams, crossed with a Suffolk ram. This year’s crop was 100 lambs.
Hardwick Alice 24th has been in Mr. R. M. West’s Enstock herd at Lacey Green, Bucks, for five years. During that time she has reared 111 pigs with the tenth litter she has had at Stocken Farm. This litter of ten was 390lbs. when weighed, under the Bucks Pig Litter Recording rules, at eight weeks of age on May 21.
In 1954, their son John had tossed up between Chemistry and Farming, and decided on farming, much to his parents’ relief. After a year’s ‘practical’ at home, he enrolled at Harper Adams Agricultural Collage, in Shropshire, coming back to the farm in1957, having been awarded the medal for the second best student for that intake. He had been given a grant to go there, which helped with the finance. Very few students had a car, certainly not John and it was usual for him to hitch lifts to travel. They sat final exams in Leeds. Shropshire was good way from home to hitch, Leeds even further.
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1955. John West was friendly with a number of girls in his teens. There was one he recognised but hadn’t really met when he came across her by the pig pens at High Wycombe Agricultural Show in 1955. She was waiting for her father, whose pig pens she was leaning up against. He engaged her in a friendly ‘chat’!
He was on holiday from college eighteen months later, when she turned up at Princes Risborough Young Farmers’ Club. It has a reputation as a marriage bureau! John West married Joan Gillingwater in 1961.
Back home in 1957 it was not long before his parents made him a partner with them in the farm business, and “R M West & Son” was born. Partners: Richard Montague West, Hilda Elsie West, & John Richard West.
By 1957 Dick had increased the cows to 26, his sheep to about 60 and had established a good name for commercial breeding pigs, which he sold at Reading market. They prepared a few cockerels and turkeys for Christmas and had more hens. The horses had been replaced by two tractors, their first combine harvester was recently purchased and they owned the farm, the mortgage had been cleared.
Now, students were coming from the collages with more professional knowledge. Machines became more specialised, but were expensive. Crop and stock breeding advanced, everything became easier and yet more difficult. Old style farming had to change – or else !
1957 PROGRESS to DATE. By 1957 Dick had increased the cows to 26, his sheep to about 60 and had established a good name for commercial breeding pigs, which he sold at Reading market. They prepared a few cockerels and turkeys for Christmas and had more hens. The horses had been replaced by two tractors, their first combine harvester was recently purchased and they owned the farm, the mortgage paid off.