Smeaton's Farm, Austhorpe

[Happy Valley]

This is a photograph of John Smeaton’s workshop at Austhorpe Lodge.

http://www.leodis.net/display.aspx?reso ... SPLAY=FULL

As far as I can make out, the Lodge was demolished in the 1930s to make way for the Detroit Drive housing estate. I haven’t found out much about the farm itself really and I still have no idea when the farm itself was demolished or what is was actually called.

I have marked the location of both farms on this image from Google Earth, which is where I found the photograph of the old red bricked wall.



The Chapman family ran Austhorpe Hall farm from around 1940, and may be the current vendors of it today. Some of the buildings at this farm have also been demolished from the earlier photo I linked to on Leodis.

Despite several Leodis posters mentioning remembering Smeaton’s farm, I have no idea which family was in charge of running this farm.

[LupusAlatus]

Do you know if its related to Smeaton house farm in Swillington in any way? it seems very close. If it is i can help you i know the owners very well i've stayed there 100+ times its located here:

https://www.google.co.uk/maps/place/Swi ... bd6f9be76d

[LupusAlatus]

The Chapman family ran Austhorpe Hall farm from around 1940, and may be the current vendors of it today. Some of the buildings at this farm have also been demolished from the earlier photo I linked to on Leodis.

Funny thing it's the chapmans at Smeaton House Farm, the lads grandad bought them the farm and he has another farm near by, i'm not sure which but im very interested in this now

[Croggy1]

Austhorpe Hall and farm are to the north of the Smeaton's farm location, which is as Happy Valley shows behind the old wall. Smeaton's House is or rather was on the opposite side of Austhorpe Lane.

I know of a Chapman family in Swillington (I used to go to the riding shows at Astley) Is the farm you mention on Swillington Lane and not Wakefield Road as it looks to be on your link? I would guess there must be a family connection to have the same property name. Very interesting.

[Happy Valley]

Hi LupusAlatus, your post made me wonder if I had actually posted some really duff information in this thread about the Chapman family, so I’ve had a little look about again tonight, and come up with a few bits that link the Chapman family to both Austhorpe Hall and Austhorpe Hall Farm. From various posts I read on the internet last week, I do think you will find out when you speak to them, that it was possibly John Chapman that bought Smeaton House Farm for your friends.

Smeaton House (now called Smeaton House Farm) was actually owned by John Smeaton’s uncle, who was also called John Smeaton, he died at Smeaton House in 1743. School teacher William Lumb lived at Smeaton House from around 1770, and also died there in 1801.

http://archiver.rootsweb.ancestry.com/t ... 1010159600

William Chapman moved into Austhorpe Hall in 1939, and his son John Chapman and his wife Beryl eventually took over running Austhorpe Hall and Farm from William. The Chapman family sold Austhorpe Hall around 2012.
I found this planning application for Austhorpe Hall Farm made by John Chapman in 2014, so it does look like the farm is still owned by John Chapman today.

http://plandocs.leeds.gov.uk/WAM/doc/Re ... ageCount=1

Leodian mentioned earlier the Grinding Mill at Austhorpe Hall Farm in his post. According to the Wikipedia page below local archaeologists excavated in the grounds of Austhorpe Hall and found the remains of a prehistoric Round Barrow and indications of Roman defences on the site.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Austhorpe_Hall

I have also found this pdf which has far more information about the archaeology excavations carried out at Austhorpe Hall, which I’m sure will be of interest to anyone researching Austhorpe Hall.

http://plandocs.leeds.gov.uk/WAM/doc/Ba ... geCount=27

This is a photo of Austhorpe hall circa 1950. It has a comment from B Chapman, which I think will be John’s wife Beryl. Quite a few of the extended Chapman family have posted comments on the photo, which is where most of the information I am posting here about the Chapman family has come from.

http://www.leodis.net/display.aspx?reso ... SPLAY=FULL

I’m sure many of the posters online that do remember John Smeaton’s demolished farm, are getting it a bit mixed up with Smeaton House Farm, and this is why the Chapman family gets mentioned as running John Smeaton’s farm at Austhorpe. Perhaps it will turn out to be that the Chapman’s did actually run the old John Smeaton farm before it was demolished, but so far I can find nothing online that links the Chapman family to ever working John Smeaton’s old farm.

As far as I can tell from the comments in the photo above, the John Smeaton farm at Austhorpe was still being worked by somebody in 1962. Photos of the old farm did exist at one time, but seem likely to be lost now by one of the posters, who I think may possibly be the OP of this thread.

The old farm wall that I posted earlier might have been part of the old barn and could have some sort of preservation order on it. I haven’t looked into this myself, but it might explain why it hasn’t been demolished.

When Austhorpe Hall was for sale in 2010, Jan8 posted in this thread on Secret Leeds that it was her parents home.

http://www.secretleeds.com/viewtopic.ph ... 3&start=80

To be honest despite my posts, I had no real interest in this thread. I was just taking a break from my own research projects that I was having no luck with, and it passed a few hours during a sleepless night having a look for a photo of the demolished farm for Croggy1. I finally got tired after 4 hours or so looking, and I probably wouldn’t have bothered posting anything in the thread, if I hadn’t found the picture I thought liits was talking about.

Hopefully what bits and bobs I have added to the thread will be of some use to anyone doing research on Austhorpe Hall, the Chapman family and John Smeaton’s farm at Austhorpe, and explains the Smeaton family connection between Austhorpe Lodge and Smeaton House Farm, but I do think that finding a picture of the old John Smeaton farm online will be very slim, and that the photo Croggy1 mentioned finding on Facebook might just be the only one.

[tilly]

Hi Happy Valley thank you for the information, I like you did not have a lot of interest in this thread.But I must admit after reading your post I looked at it in a different light, thank you again for the effort you have put into this post.

[Peter Thorpe]

Re Smeaton Farm at Swillington. This was the home of John Smeaton the uncle of the engineer who lived at Austhorpe Lodge.