A
short history of Pippinhall Farm
Pippinhall
Farm, Bexley Road SE9, is an amazing relic of agricultural land. It is a
network of small meadows and ancient hedgerows on Eocene strata; a river
terrace of Blackheath Gravels overlying a spring line on Woolwich & Reading
Beds.
The first specific written record is in 1290
when King Edward 2nd negotiated hay from John de Henley, the owner,
to feed the royal deer at Eltham Palace during a very cold winter.
Pippinhall
Farm lies in a valley drained by one of the headwater streams feeding the River
Shuttle
The first
evidence of human utilisation of the Pippinhall Valley is a Mesolithic concave
scraper dropped by a hunter gatherer sometime around 7000 BC and discovered by
a “Young Friend of Avery Hill Park” while hedge planting.
Since then
the Bronze Age and Celtic, Eltham farmers have cleared the wet woodland and
planted hedges around their fields. The oldest dateable hedges at Pippinhall
are from 1370. There is a small relic of medieval “ridge and furrow” in the south
east corner of the farm. This most probably dates from before the Black Death
decimated the local population; when maximum arable land was needed to feed the
locals and the Kings entourage at nearby Eltham Palace.
At present
the ridge and furrow, an amazing piece of Eltham’s agricultural history, is
being engulfed by Blackthorn scrub. The wet pastureland, presumably protected
by the borough, is invaded by over 1200 square metres of Japanese Knotweed and
large areas of blackberry thicket.
The present
tenants are unable to keep pace with the encroaching scrub simply grazing their
ponies in these precious meadows.
Royal
Greenwich Parks and Open Spaces hope to commence clearing the knotweed with
stem injection.
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