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Very much on my own doorstep, at the back of New House Farm was an area of wetland, known as Sheriff Hutton Carr. Between Sheriff Hutton Carr and Sheriff Hutton Ings was, and still is, the six furlong flat training gallop. The Ings had been home to Cherry and Susan’s ponies in the 1960s.
Originally owned by Lord Halifax, the land had been turned over to the village and everyone in the village had an allotted area. Problem was it was bad land, wet, boggy, nothing grew, so nobody really wanted their allocation of land. I looked into the ownership and it turned out that the land had indeed many different owners. I very much wanted the land as I had plans and I knew it could be productive with the correct management, so Alice and I set about arranging a large number of individual purchases. Anyone who wanted to sell their land and make some money just had to come and knock on my door and they'd be dutifully paid.
The land still needed work, and a lot of work, so I set about building drains and serviced it with a small pumping station here and a lagoon behind. The drains lie two foot below the gutter and they're always under water. But then I found out that if you turn off the pumps the land still stayed dry. The water drains uphill. It sounds bunkum, as everyone knows that water flows downhill, but its pressure that does it, the pressure at the bottom pushes the water back up the pipes and into the drains. I tried various things with the land, and eventually found that it grew good wheat, and also good grass for sheep.
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