Burton Joyce & Bulcote Local History Society recently visited Bulcote Farm for a tour of the farm buildings that were built in 1902.
After the construction of the Stoke Farm sewage works in 1880 the area of land for the disposal of Nottingham’s sewage was not great enough and the City’s Corporation purchased additional land at Bulcote in 1902 and built a model farm to house the equipment, animals, and workforce to deal with sewage piped from the works at Stoke Bardolph.
The buildings comprised stables, granaries, pigsties, calving pens, cowsheds, and a dairy, along with a house for the manager and accommodation for workmen. Along with Stoke Farm there were around 140 horses and over a hundred workmen working the two farms. By the end of the 20th century the dairy herd had grown to over 600 beasts, but in 2008 the herd was sold as it had become uneconomic. What was once 2000 acres of grazing land and sewage beds now produces ‘energy crops’, mainly maize, which is delivered to a digester at Stoke works. The ensuing methane is either burnt to produce electricity or delivered into the main gas grid. Together with the wind turbine at Stoke enough electricity is produced to power the works and homes at Stoke and surrounding areas.
The old farm buildings at Bulcote, which are Grade 2 listed, are now no longer suitable for modern farming techniques. Planning permission has been granted for their conversion to apartments, along with ‘new build’ on some of the surrounding ‘brown field’ areas, and work is planned to commence on the conversion before the end of the year. Members of the Society had the opportunity to view many of the building and structures to get a glimpse of how the farm was run over the last hundred years, and were privileged to be guided around the site by the Manager, Mr. John Jackson, the last cattle and dairy supervisor, Mr. Mick Estrop, and the chairman of the Society, Mr. Steve Wright.
Written by Steve Wright, chairman of the Burton Joyce & Bulcote Local History Society
Photo 1 The main yard. From left – office, stables and dairy.
Note, the rails in foreground are the remains of an old tub track. Cattle feed was pushed along here from the granary (behind), through the milking shed (now demolished), and full milk churns to the dairy.
Photo 2: More stables with hay loft and granaries above. Far left, on the ground floor were workshops, on the top floor milling and mixing machines for cattle feed.