Agricultural History Review, Volume 52 Part 2 (2004), p. 219

The small estate village of Beeley lies a mile or two to the south of Chatsworth. Older members of the Society may remember a visit there during the Matlock conference in 1973. William Hodkin was in his mid-30s when he kept this diary, which has been edited by his great-grandson and illustrated with contemporary photographs and extracts from local newspapers. When he died in 1899 at Edensor, the main village on the Chatsworth estate, he was described in his obituary as ‘a farmer and miller in an extensive way of business’, who was active in public affairs as a parish councillor, poor law guardian and churchwarden.

The main value of the diary is in detailing the day-to-day work on the farm, as the seasons advanced. The varied tasks were performed by William himself, his father-in-law and his labourer, John. We read about rolling and harrowing in the fallow, the spreading of lime, harrowing the potato ground, ploughing the turnip fallow, cutting thistles, mowing bracken, leading oats all day in the waggon, spreading manure, harvest-ing oats, gathering apples, shearing sheep, ringing pigs, cleaning out the pigeon cote and the hen roost, repair-ing walls, catching rabbits, killing pigs, and an endless succession of other jobs. We also see how a farmer such as Hodkin was prepared to earn extra money from small local industries. He worked a coal pit on Beeley Moor and carted slag from an old lead mine to the nearest railway station at Rowsley.

Bakewell market was his main outlet for the sale of livestock, but he was prepared to cross the moors with his horse and cart to Chesterfield to sell hay seeds and to buy clover seeds, trefoil and rye grass. He sometimes sent sacks of flour as far as Newark. He often mentioned other Peak District villages, whose feasts he attended, particularly if he had relations there, and like all countryfolk he was prepared to walk long distances. He surprises us in August 1864 by recording a railway journey to Manchester and Liverpool and a sea crossing to the Isle of Man and by a second visit with his wife to Liverpool, where he saw ‘a very great market, I should think many thousands of sheep and cattle’. Another link with the outside world is revealed by his sending a cheque to the Paraffin Light Company in Birmingham.

He rarely caught sight of the Duke of Devonshire, but in June 1865 he was present at the great volunteer and yeomanry review in Chatsworth Park. Instead, he dealt with the agent, Mr Cottingham, and gave as good as he got in a dispute about land that he had ploughed adjoining Beeley Plantation (thus interfering with the game) and about his complaint that his farm was overrun with rabbits. After threatening to turn him out, the agent eventually relented. Life in an estate village was perhaps not so feudal after all.