Tag Archives: Cornel

Peter Smith: Thorley, Newclose Farm horses 1950s

Horse drawn binder 1913

Horse drawn binder 1913


Heal’s Farm (Newclose) cart horses Cornel and Warwick used to be kept in the field behind the Church. They were huge shire horses and would often come and look over the hedge at us as we went down Blacksmith’s Lane. The field there was several feet higher than the Lane so it made the horses seem even bigger. The horses were used for pulling carts around the farm and could often be seen with a two wheeled cart full of mangels that were being dropped in the fields for the cattle to eat. Peter Smith b 1946

Mary Henderson: Thorley, Newclose Farm horses, 1950s, 1940s

Picking up sheaves with working horses

Picking up sheaves with working horses

They had horses down at Newclose – Ernest Heal was the last one to have working horses.

They kept them next to the church and you’d walk up by, and they’d come thundering up. My Gran Hillier said when she lived at Newclose Cottages, she used to go with a bucket and dig up the old mole hill earth for the garden. She was down across by the stream, before the bungalows were built.

You never rattled the bucket, but this time she tripped and the bucket rattled, and these two cart horses came charging up because they thought she had the feed bucket. Instead of leaving the bucket, she just managed to dive over the stile into her garden and these two great heads appeared looking for food. Mary Henderson b 1954