Highfield Farmhouse, Highfield Road
Highfield Farmhouse at 23 Highfield Avenue is a well-kept secret. It can only just be seen from the road, and the best view is probably from the Valentia Road recreation ground when the trees are not in leaf. It stands at an odd angle to the pavement because it predates the road by about 225 years.
The farmhouse dates from around 1700, when it was the only building between the windmill of Windmill Road and the settlement at the top of Headington Hill. In the detail from an 1820 painting of Headington, the farmhouse can be seen at the top right, to the north-west of the windmill in Windmill Road.
Highfield Farm lay between London Road and Old Road, to the west of New High Street. It was originally known as Headington Hill Farm and later as Rookery Farm, but is also sometimes described by the name of the current owner, e.g. Knowles' Farm, Parker’s Farm. It occupied four portions of land awarded to the Finch family of the Rookery under the Headington Enclosure Award of 1804, which came to about 113 acres; but the Finches must have purchased additional land in Highfield, as the Headington Rate Book of 1850 shows that Richard Finch then let out over 150 acres of land "below the Britannia" to Thomas Knowles.
The censuses of 1851 and 1861 census shows Thomas Knowles living in Highfield Farmhouse, and he is described in the latter census as a farmer of 161 acres employing eight men, four women, and two boys. The farmlands stretched from New High Street in the east to Gipsy Lane in the west, and to the north as far as London Road. To the south, it extended beyond Old Road into the Warneford Fields. At the time of the 1871 census the farmhouse was occupied by two agricultural labourers described as temporary lodgers.
The farmland began to get eroded in the 1880s, after the Revd Augustus Taylor, the then owner of the Rookery, sold off the land of Highfield Farm. First of all, a large villa was built on the north edge of the farmland (Ellerslie, now Dorset House) and a large house to the south (Highfield Cottage, now 61 Old Road). Then came Brookside (now Headington Junior School) and a whole new street (most of the present Lime Walk) to the east. In the 1890s and early 1900s the other roads of the present Highfield area crept relentlessly westwards towards the farmhouse.
At the time of the 1881 census, the farmhouse was occupied by a farm bailiff, Percival Stockford, and his wife and five children; the farmer at that time was probably John Kingston, listed for certain as farmer there in 1883. In 1887 Abraham Parker was a faggot dealer there, but the 1891 census shows that he lived in Woodman’s Villa in New High Street, and "Parker’s Farm" is listed as uninhabited. The advertisement on the write from Valter’s Directory of 1887 shows that J. Hathaway was also running a horse-slaughtering business at the farm.
The next farmer, on a much smaller farm, was Mrs Sarah Debron. The 1901 census shows her living in the farmhouse with her son, three daughters, and a 14-year-old servant-girl. A widow of 54, born in Oxford, she is described as a butcher, with her 24-year-old son Henry her employee. She continued until 1913, and local people still call the slope in Old Road "Debron’s Hill".
Mrs King then farmed for three years until 1916, when Highfield Farmhouse became a private house and its remaining lands (the site of the present Gipsy Lane estate) were used as nursery gardens.
The farm was destined to be demolished when Highfield Avenue was laid out in the early 1930s, but mercifully it was saved at the last minute.
Listed Building reference: 1485/732
