Tidenham is a large rural parish and in the censuses of the 19th century the most common occupation for a male was ‘ag lab’ or agricultural labourer; the other main occupations were quarrying and those associated with the river: fishing, customs officers, pilots and ferrymen.
The majority of the farms on which these agricultural labourers were employed were owned by large landowners such as the Duke of Beaufort and were occupied by tenant farmers many of whom came from across the Severn such as the Rymers, Joyce family and the Williams family.
At Beachley the Jenkins family owned Beachley Farm where the tenant was Thomas Peachey Williams who was born in Clifton in 1810.
The 1843 owners of land shows that at Tidenham Chase Henry Churchyard was the owner of Chase Farm and Lady Susan Wilson owned Stroat Farm and Mary Webb High Hall Farm.
The Ormerod’s owned Sedbury Park and farm, Pennsylvania and also Badham’s Court, whilst the Duke of Beaufort owned Sedbury Farm, Pill House, Day House and Bishton Farm among others.
Some of these farms have now disappeared such as Beachley Farm which was swallowed up by the War Office in 1917 when they requisitioned Beachley peninsular beyond Offa’s Dyke, the farmhouse was retained by the M.O.D. until the closure of the Army Apprentices College who used it as the Commandant’s House, it is now in private hands and is known as Beachley House. Sedbury Park is now a nursing home while Pennsylvania is also a private dwelling and the barns converted.
Good evening, I am the new owner of Springfield Court beside Pensylvania Farm.
I would love to know any information available about our converted barn – we were told it was a cider press but this could be fable.