Higher Farm 2025

Higher Farm Barns 2025.jpg --- Higher Farm Tall Barn.jpg ---

Old Photos

At the top of Daymer Lane, at the junction with Worthy Hill, this view is looking along the road to Polzeath

Higher Farm 1950/60 - chimneys left background

1938 Higher Farm Horses

1972 Old Caravan belonging to Basil and Edna Male

1930 - By this time there were only five working farms based in Trebetherick, out of the six recorded in earlier times. These were Higher Farm, at the top of the hill, Lower Farm on the lane down to the beach, and Trenain Farm on the way to Trewint, Restharrow Farm and Trewiston Farm

2020 - By 2020 there now only exist two working farms, Restharrow and Trewiston Farm. All other farmhouses andbarns have been converted into holiday or residential properties.

Higher Farm 1930-2023

Harry Male was originally a builder by trade, but demand for building at the turn of the century was low, and in 1902 Harry went to South Africa for a few years, attached to the local Police force, to help with the reconstruction of therailways damaged during the Boer War. On his return he built Linkside and St Enodoc View. His son Basil recalledthat the bricks used for building these houses were landed from barges on Daymer beach, on a temporary platformconstructed for the purpose.

Harry married Caroline Mably in 1910. Later on, he decided to become a farmer and bought 180 acre Higher Farm atauction. However, the 1929 sale did not include the original farmhouse, leased since 1918 to Colonel Cotton, whosubsequently bought it and changed its name to Old Farm so Harry could build himself a new farmhouse for HigherFarm, it was completed in 1930; the date is still visible on its outer wall. Basil Male, Harry’s son born in 1915 at ManorCottage in Rock, took over Higher Farm after his father’s death in 1968. He described the system of four-year croprotation, now long gone, which included ryegrass and clover for cattle feed. The farm made the family self-sufficient.

1939 - By the time the Second World War broke out in 1939 Basil had been married to Edna for two years. Farming was a reserved occupation and so Basil did not have to join up, but many of his friends did, including Geoffrey Buse, killed in service with the RAF. Edna came from Bristol; she and Basil met in the early 1930s when she came to Polzeath with the Wills family to help with the household while they were on holiday. In Edna’s kitchen at Higher Farm there was always a large and ready supply of clotted cream in the fridge, and more in the making on the back of the stove. When Basil and Edna retired they built a bungalow next to Higher Farm’s ancient stone barns. They named it Trenoweth, Cornish for ‘new house’. Basil and Edna had two children, Judith Elizabeth Caroline (Midge) and Martyn; Martyn took over the farm from his father. Midge trained as a nurse, and then a midwife. She married Harry Hardcastle at St Minver in 1966. They had two children, Sarah and Andrew. Harry’s passion was always aviation; he joined the RAF in 1954. His parents had moved from Leeds to Trebetherick in 1946 when he was a boy to take over the Daymer Bay Hotel, built originally as No 1 and No 2 The Terrace but then joined together, and now semidetached houses again, Bar’s House and Honeybourne. Midge died in 2013, only a year after her father Basil, and Harry in 2015. Higher Farmhouse was sold for redevelopment in 2014 Most of the fields were sold piecemeal during Martyn Male’s tenure. Sarah continued the family farming tradition by keeping rare breed sheep on the only land remaining surrounding Trenoweth and using the old slate barn till 2023 when the last of the old barns were sold for sympathetic redevelopment.