Coming Soon

LHF Conservation Ltd
A development of period cottages set around a courtyard
located adjacent to an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty at
Potten End in Hertfordshire

If you have an interest in finding out more, please call 07768 390681 Some of the cottages have been reserved by prospective purchasers.

Little Heath Farm is set in the Green Belt on the edge of a National Trust Area of National Beauty. It is situated at Potten End, near Berkhampsted, Hertfordshire. The village of Potten End with its local shop, pubs and Primary School is a thriving community with the village having been voted as one of the four most desired places to live in Hertfordshire.

Little Heath Farm was purchased in 1970 and the Brownlow barns that were built around 1860 were converted to cottages and let out. Now they are undergoing a ground-up full renovation to give them a long sustainable life to protect the lovely natural setting of Little Heath Farm and its buildings. The adjoining garden Nursery and Tearoom will continue being on the far side of the residential part.

The renovation work focuses on creating homes with efficient insulation and low running costs with a standard of fit out that keeps selling prices affordable for many with good quality but not expensive high specification. Buyers are welcome to specify what they would prefer.

The cottages are a mix of one bedroom and two bedroom ranging from 450 sq ft floor space to 1,100 sq ft

The cottages have their own parking. Some have small gardens, others have an adjoining communal garden area. For those who like growing their own food, allotment areas can be provided. In accordance with current requirements, car charging points are provided.

Some of the cottages are already reserved or under a process of reservation.

 

History

Little Heath Farm Nursery, the Brownlow family, and the Battle of Berkhamsted

Little Heath Farm Nursery is on the site of Little Heath Farm with the main Farmhouse Grade II listed together with The Barn at the Nursery entrance. The farm was one of several created by the Brownlow family c.1830, and is part of larger land holdings contained by Berkhamsted Common (as 150 years ago) with other similar farm buildings around the Potten End and Ashridge region. It was once part of the royal estate of Ashridge where Elizabeth I spent time in her formative years.

When that estate sold in 1604, records showed over 2,000 people claimed common right of use for grazing, fuel for fires, animal bedding material and chalk extraction. By 1864 the Brownlow family had gained ownership. It was the practice then that various Lords of the Manor owning common use lands, would allow their local villagers to exercise these rights.

By 1865 ancient common rights for commoners had fallen into disuse. Parliament proposed that the common rights be transferred by legislation to the public. This shocked a number Lords, who led by the 24 year old Lord Brownlow, opposed this before it was legislated and in August 1865 he barred many acres of Berkhamsted Common from the villagers by various means.

Opposing this was Liberal reforming MP George Shaw-Lefevre and other radicals including Thomas Huxley who jointly formed the Commons Preservation Society in 1865 (20 years later, Sir Robert Hunter, solicitor to the Society, went on to form the National Trust, alongside housing reformer Octavia Hill and Lake District clergyman Canon Hardwicke Rawnsley).

There was outrage from the villagers and many others. Brownlow’s solicitors responded, arguing, ‘The public has no more right to pass over the common than a stranger has to pass through a private garden.’

Radical MP Augustus Smith, born at Ashlyns in Berkhamsted, tried to dissuade Brownlow but in February 1866 a 5ft iron fence was erected around 434 acres of Berkhamsted Common. With no gates nor access points, it cut off all paths and bridleways.

To test legality, Smith and Shaw-Lefevre hired 120 Irish navvies bringing them by a special train, with copious supplies of alcohol, to Tring Station on March 6, 1866 at 1.30am. Fencing was neatly taken down and stacked without damage.

The act of this gained great public support enraging Lord Brownlow who sued Smith for trespass and criminal damage. The court case dragged on until 1870. Brownlow dying in 1867, did not live to see Lord Justice Romilly rule in a landmark case that ‘that pulling down a fence was no more violent an act than erecting one’ thus ruling in favour of Smith – a decision that stands behind the rights we enjoy today to freely enjoy use of commons and established rights of way over land.

In March 2016 there was an exhibition marking the 150th anniversary of the Battle of Berkhamsted Common at the National Trust visitor centre on Ashridge estate.

Some of the historical details are taken from an article in The Great British Life by Michael Long (www.greatbritishlife.co.uk/herts-history-the-battle-of-berkhamsted-7182072)