Orange Hill and Goldbeaters Farm

Orange Hill

Orange Hill Road is named after a house which was built around 1818 and which stood on Abbots Road. The house was rebuilt in 1912 and became the home of the famous aviator Claude Grahame-White, before becoming a Roman Catholic School, St. Roses Convent (Orange Hill House), in 1930.

The land directly to the east of Orange Hill Road, including parts of Watling Park, was called Shevesfield, a series of what were called common fields.

Common fields were fields divided into strips and rented out to a number of different tenants. These fields existed from medieval times right into the 1860s, with 33 acres divided between 46 different tenants, a bit like allotments.

Goldbeaters Farm

Roughly where the top end of Goldbeaters Grove is today was Goldbeaters farm. Goldbeaters existed in the 14th century, and it was probably named after a John the Goldbeater. In 1828 it was 312 acres. In the 1860s the farmer, James Marshall, would only allow the Midland Railway Company to lay tracks through the farm if he could stop trains at his own discretion, a right which he never exercised. The farm was demolished to make way for the Watling Estate.