The History of Blackers Hill Farm

The farmhouse is reached by means of a lengthy driveway off the south side of Coal Lane and is named after the Blacker families who lived there in the lates 1500's. The house is situated adjacent to the ramparts of Blacker's Hill Camp, the prehistoric/ Iron Age earthworks that must also have served to guard the Fosse Way from the west. These ramparts are now scheduled for preservation as an Ancient Monument. 

This farmhouse, which must vie with the Manor House as being the oldest in the parish, was built in a lofty position 700 feet above sea level yet it seems to nestle in its own little combe just out of reach of the cold north and east winds and, although served by several footpaths, its quiet isolation gives one the feeling of being in a different world.

When the Blackers left, John 'Selwaie" came to live there and at that time the house was of unknown shape and size. It was altered in the 17th century to form a unit house fro two families, the larger being a three-room and cross passage house and the smaller a two-room dwelling. The middle portion of the house was the oldest and in one bedroom there is a fine depressed four-centred fireplace which has incised spandrels in which are carved black shields and a moulding which consists of an ogee and a reserved chamfer, a type not commonly found on windows in  Somerset and rare on fireplaces, and this suggests that someone of armigerous stock had lived there. It could be that they came from the Chilcompton Stocker family who were extremely well-to-do in the 1600's; in fact William Stocker owned Blacker's Hill at that time, and when he dies he left the farm to his son, John.

By 1822 the farm was leasehold, with William James living there, farming 91 acres. Presumably he was still the same farmer in 1849, when he was stated as being the owner. In 1886 and 1912 William James and his wife Mary were farming there, and their daughters Annie and Emma continued later. When they eventually left in the 1940's, it marked the end of centuries of occupation by the James families, but since then the old house has only been spasmodically occupied, and it fell into near ruin until the fairly recently, when my old friend Gordon Patch bought the house and splendidly renovated and restored it. The house is still within the Patch family and Gordon's daughter Stephanie and her husband Nick now own the house and surrounding outbuildings. 

A few points of interest regarding the estate are as follows: up to the early 1900s the house had a thatched roof.  Until they were filled in during recent years, there were situated near the farmhouse several unusual large crevasses, which were locally named 'Fairy Slats'. One was over 87 feet in length.