2016 Subsoils revealed by resident moles. Note different grass colour despite similar lighting conditions (EFW)

The land did have the advantage of a high-water table, bounded as it was by a lode and the river Lark. The soil was surprisingly easy to plough but areas of arable had been poisoned by large dressings of peat. Huge quantities of dung were trained-in from London. Fertility was improved by the addition of artificial fertilisers followed by a regular programme of manure spreading.

Transport Links

There was no satisfactory access to the railway. The few farm outbuildings were all in a poor state of repair. Before acquisition, the farms could only be accessed by unsealed drove roads which were impassable in the winter.

Labour

There were only thirteen labourers’ cottages – mostly small wooden bungalows. Local labour was scarce – it was a three hour walk from Lakenheath, and the Burnt Fen settlement was tiny. In 1909 the estate supported twenty-nine employees. By 1922 two hundred men and women were employed.

Three hundred seasonal workers could be housed in purpose-built dormitories.

Accommodation and Community Amenities

Work began immediately to upgrade the estate. A camp for 100 builders was erected early in 1910. It consisted of an electricity power plant, dormitories, a kitchen, a mess hall, and a laundry. The estate was divided into 10 farms all with new farmhouses linked by telephone. The timber, mostly one storey, cottages were upgraded and by 1922 a further 42 brick-built houses on piles (total 55 homes) were constructed together with modern large barns and covered yards for stock.

A factory was built with sidings linking it to Shippea Hill Station. Here large quantities of herbs and chicory were dried and peppermint oil refined. Closed by 1950

Shippea Hill/Burnt Fen Station survives as a request stop. It was the least used UK station in 2015/16 with only 12 requests recorded.

The drove roads were surfaced using faggot (bundles of sturdy sticks) foundations topped with clinker (waste from coal fired boilers). At that time the factory and farms were linked by 9 miles of narrow gauge (30cm) light rail track appropriate to the geological conditions.

When Chivers’ representative Cyril Box accepted an order for 3 tons of dried sage, he was upset to have to report to his customer that despite a second sage harvest they were unable to complete the order.

“When I saw the first delivery arrive, 20 hundred weight bags (about a metric ton), I was not surprised. I had not appreciated the size of a one hundred weight bag of sage.”

2016 The remains of the factory

The community benefitted from a small Education Authority school for 5 to 11-year-olds, the use of the laundry, a Co-operative Store with sections for estate produced meat, dairy, vegetables, and groceries (subsidised) and, of course, a chapel.

The farmhouses, blacksmith/engineering/carpentry workshops as well as community amenities benefitted from electrical lighting during the working day/evening hours, but other housing used paraffin for lighting (and cooking) until 1953. By 1953 all properties had mains water and bathrooms installed but May Tiplady, who grew up at Shippea Hill, remembers that Lakenheath Lode was their main source of water. This explains why all properties were equipped with septic tanks.

2016 The Chapel

2016 No pigs but the farm outbuildings remain

Post-WWII it gained a Post Office, the one at Burnt Fen having closed. There were two public houses along Mildenhall Road, which bounded the estate but the Sedge Sheaf, in the centre of the estate, was closed and began a new life as Sheaf Farm.

Pre-1914 the property was planted with new soft and orchard fruit gardens. A large apiary was set up to ensure good pollination. Lincoln Red and Pedigree Shorthorn cattle (bred for dairy and meat), Large White pigs in 1915 (ham and bacon), Suffolk sheep, and chickens were introduced. The most fertile areas were left as arable. Whatever had been John Chivers’ plans, the Great War intervened, and farmers were required to feed the nation as attacks on merchant shipping by German U-boats limited food imports. In 1916 a Middle White (meat) pig herd was established by Jack Topper.

In 1970 Mr A Horne wrote a memoir for the Contact magazine describing conditions at Shippea Hill during WWI. As a young boy he started to work at Shippea Hill in 1915. Normal working hours were from 7 am to 5.30 pm weekdays finishing at 4.00 pm on Saturdays. During the summer they started work at 4 am (and he lived an hour’s walk away at Lakenheath) but finished at 2.30 pm.

“There were 15 or 16 boys of my age, and we were under a ganger, who was pretty strict with us … We did all sorts of jobs. All the strawberries and fruit bushes had to be hand dug in the winter ... It was a busy time … during the Summertime, especially when the strawberries were ready to straw and then pick. I have seen over 300 pickers in one field ... during WWI orders were given to destroy quite a lot of the orchards … a great shame ... they looked so beautiful in springtime ... and wonderful fruit was grown … I remember one field being destroyed and summer cabbage set in its place. We never saw anything like it, how those cabbages grew! (All that London dung?) We had to cut the smallest first and put them in nets and bags, and the big ones, some weighing 8 and 10 lbs each, were sent away loose in trucks.”

At the end of WWI, John Chivers ceded his responsibility for the Company’s farms to his eldest son J Stanley, who went on to guide the development of Shippea Hill for the next 34 years. In 1953 the now 1700-acre estate was divided into lots and sold at auction.

With thanks to the late May Tiplady who was born and bred at Shippea Hill

Compiled for H&IVSoc for the 2023 exhibition celebrating 150 years since Chivers family’s first commercial jam boil.