Housedean Farm

Over the years I have somehow collected a number of old photos taken on and around Housedean Farm, including a number of oxen working the fields.

As a bit of background I thought I would give a bit of history of Housedean Farm. My grandfather, Frank Saunders, took over the tenancy in 1937 as a tenant of the Pelham family and then of Brighton Corporation as it was then. Before my grandfather began farming here it was farmed by the Lade family, I believe in the early 1900’s and then by the Holman family. Interestingly, the railway bridge opposite Housedean Farm has a modern identification sign on it describing it as Lades Crossing.

The Holmans (and possibly the Lades) had a dairy herd here and I well remember finding a milk bottle with their name printed on it. Frank Saunders never had a dairy herd but had a multitude of enterprises on the farm including Brassicas, Blackcurrants, Sugar Beet, Potatoes, barley and wheat as well as pigs and beef cattle. In those days there were 13 people employed on the farm.

My father, Peter Taylor, was born in Brighton, the son of a stockbroker and and he always wanted to be a farmer. He met Tita Saunders in the Young Farmers club and they married in 1951. In 1954 he joined his father in law , Frank, on the farm and ultimately took over the tenancy in 1964.

I came back to the farm ad joined my father in 1974 and took over the tenancy in 1990. My son Nick joined me on the farm in 2013 and succeeded to the tenancy in 2017. The farm also became larger in 2017 by the addition of part of Court Farm, Falmer.

Today the farm is about 1000 acres and is farmed by me and Nick with the help of one full time employee, John Barrow, who has been with us since 1978. We grow a much fewer number of crops with only Wheat, Barley and Oilseed Rape. We still have a beef cattle enterprise but have also diversified into the leisure industry with a campsite and holiday let, and office let as well as various other small scale diversifications.
Farming has changed hugely over my farming career and will undoubtedly continue to do so during Nick’s career.