Tag Archives: till the cows come home

Friday Fields: The Letterbox

27th November 2020 by Lorna
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Only ivy fills the hole where the letterbox once sat.

Most fields on all farms have names, primarily to aid communication. It’s important everyone in the family and any workers know the names of the fields. There is less risk of going to the wrong field with the all important tea or machinery parts for a repair. There’s also less likelihood of communication breakdowns so that gates aren’t left open on the wrong fields, and livestock aren’t brought to the wrong field for grazing, although of course mistakes happen. I’d [...]

Friday Fields: Lynup’s Hill, Where my ashes will be spread

20th November 2020 by Lorna
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What is it about the possession of land that drives some people to murder?

We’re all familiar with Bull McCabe in the play (and film) The Field by John B Keane. And maybe there is a little bit of McCabe in all of us as people can be remarkably possessive about land they own or rent. At a recent auction near here, a man that had been renting a field for years stood up and told everyone not to buy [...]

Friday Fields: What secrets does Taylor’s Field hold?

6th November 2020 by Lorna
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Taylor's Field is just past that copse of trees

Taylor’s Field is quite unassuming: an almost perfect rectangle, fairly flat, no large humps and bumps to make it interesting. It has the advantage of good road frontage. No signs remain of the stone cottage that was there just over a century ago, the stones used by my great-grandfather for some project or other. At one end is a small copse of trees where I used to play. The trees created a perfect leafy glade where I could pretend I [...]

Friday Fields: High and Low Shores

30th October 2020 by Lorna
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Some fields are named after their draining abilities (e.g The Bog), or their size (e.g. The Long Meadow). Two of our fields, High Shores and Low Shores, are named after a previous owner. My great uncle Herbert Sixsmith bought about 80 acres at Garrendenny, and purchased these two fields sixteen years later (around 1925). They were owned by a farmer, John Shore, who also worked as a carman delivering coal by horse and cart. He lived nearby and he had right [...]

Friday Fields: Bakers Hill

23rd October 2020 by Lorna
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I love reading about field names. They provide so much information about the size and shape of the field; the type of soil; the surrounding vegetation; the people who were there before us. Books have been published detailing the names of fields (e.g. The Field Names of Country Meath) in some counties as researchers and publishers realised that as land is sold, this important part of our heritage is being lost.

Some of our fields are named after tenants, [...]