There is so much written about vernacular architecture, and farms on the Internet. But a lot of it is hidden away amongst commercial and other sites so the good stuff can be hard to find. A quick search recently revealed:
- Historic Farmsteads: Preliminary Character Statement – South East region
- Historic Farm Buildings Group
- Farmsteads Toolkit
From a quick read through of these I now know that the technical term for Newmarket Farm was an outfarm. They were typically associated with fields that became isolated from the main farm after a late enclosure. This is exactly what I suspect to have happened here. Kingston had outlying fields – broken down (unfenced but ploughed) on the top and SW slope of Newmarket Hill, as well as relatively fertile, warm valley bottoms suited to cattle but isolated from Kingston itself due to the steep hilltop of Kingston Ridge. With the huge level of expenditure associated with the physical enclosure of its arable fields at the foot of the downs, not to mention surveyors’ and legal fees, the building of an outfarm would be more easily affordable. As yet this circumstantial evidence is all we have, apart from that it first appears on an enclosure map dated 1831, is not shown on another estate map dated 1833, but is shown on all maps after this.
Newmarket Hill 