Church Farm is over 300 years old, and the farmhouse is one of several buildings in the village that have been given special status: they are known as Listed Buildings, because they are on a national list of buildings with special historical and architectural interest. There used to be several farms here, along Seagry Road. They included Church Farm on the far side of the road, and Hazelwood Farm on this side of the road.

Church Farm was known as ‘Bond’s Farm’ throughout the 1800s and early 1900s, after the family who were the tenants for about 100 years. The bridge across the brook, on the outskirts of the village to the north of Church Farm, was known as ‘Bond’s Bridge’.

Edward Bond was the farmer from before 1839 to the 1860s, and he was succeeded by his son James Bond, who was the farmer until the late 1890s. His son Edward Bond was then the farmer from about 1900 until at least 1920. The first year that the farm appears in the records as ‘Church Farm’ was 1911.

Many of the houses on The Park were built on Hazelwood Farm’s land. The farmhouse for Hazelwood Farm is opposite La Flambé, and the name of the farm lives on in the Hazelwood Salon, which was built where the farm’s stables used to be.

Two hundred years ago the houses at Brook Cottages used to be a farmhouse. The photo shows the Perris family in front of their house at Brook Cottages in 1905, shortly before Albert (second from left) emigrated to New Zealand.

With thanks to Jill Clarke for a copy of the photograph.