Journal entry – John Grey – 14 Dec 1833

Saturday 14th December 



I had this morning a meeting with Dodd the tenant of Thornbrough Limestone Quarry & Farm.  His present rent is £233.  He offers only £170. I valued the land at £110.  He reckons it only worth £100 & the Kiln worth £70.  Finding that the offers when he took it excepting his own, ranged from £182 to £150.  I conclude that his present offer is not very deficient, & if he will give £180, think he ought to have it.  



Rode to Hexhamshire to value the farms there, which occupied me till dark, without having any time to make up my calculations, or treat with the tenants, who have each engaged to give me a meeting on Tuesday.  Returned in the dark through the gloomiest country & the most bottomless roads I ever encountered, pretty much worn out with a week of great fatigue by days, & of nights chiefly passed in writing & calculation. Hexhamshire is a difficult district to value in.  The land is wet, cold and unproductive, and the climate most unfavourable.  In some seasons, the Corn does not ripen at all. I shall try to come as near the value as possible, to be prepared to meet the tenants on Tuesday.  I shall be anxious if possible to let Aydonshields & Mirehouse together to Mr Dixon of the former place, both for the sake of uniting them under a respectable tenant, & because old Thorburn, besides his great arrear, has conferred on us the benefit of leaving Mirehouse in such condition that no man could occupy it alone, though he had it for four years rent free, without losing by it, every acre is under the plough that can be ploughed, it is all overrun with couch grass & every description of weed that indicates poverty & bad management, & not a particle of grass seeds of any kind has been sown upon it.  Very unlike to this in condition is the small farm of Turfhouse, occupied by Maugham & three Sons, as industrious people as I ever knew.  The state of their tillage land, though of very poor quality, would do credit to a better situation.  They have been sadly mistaken in its value, for the hardest work & poorest living, will not make land pay 20s an Acre which is only worth 12/-s.  It is not timely that they should extricate themselves from the debt to the Hospital, but it is not a place likely to attract a tenant of capital sufficient to take a better farm, & they do such justice to the land & are so very laborious, that I think it hard that they should not have a trial of it for a time at a lower rent. Any agreement that I may come to with them, however, must be dependent upon the consent of the Commissrs. The small farm of Staples has the best soil of any in that district, but it is too small (only 59 Acres) to be occupied to advantage, & there is no other property of the Hospital adjoining it. It has been taken too with great want of judgement, the rent being £135 whereas it should be £85.



I am informed by the owner of my present house, that I cannot be allowed to occupy it after next May, as he has a chance of selling it. So that I shall have another lodging to seek from that time till the proposed House may be fit to occupy, another proof, in my opinion, of having a fixed and independent residence in the estates, as well as a cause of regret, that nothing should yet be done in putting forward and making preparations for the new one, of which Mr Hay has not returned the Plans.