The earliest named tenant of Langley Lodge Farm is John Cartwright Senior, in 1713, followed by John Cartwright junior in 1715 – also at Balls Pond Farm. From the 1740s until 1763, the King family of Kings Langley Mill were the tenants of Langley Lodge. 

Mr Hatley took the farm over, paying rates of £6-15. In 1839 there were 528 acres. The family (Mr Hatley, his wife, 2 female servants and 4 male servants) remained at this farm until 1841. By the 1851 Census, James Cheynell is the tenant along with his wife, 3 children and a house servant and he was farming 509 acres. 

James Cox was the farm bailiff in 1871, living in one of the farmhouses with his wife and seven children. A mine owner lived at Langley Lodge House (built in the 1850s) and his gardener, Mr Chalk lived in a cottage. His grandson became a County Council foreman on the estate. From around 1890 to 1913, Mr Thomas Baxenden lived at Langley Lodge with  Mr Doggett the farm bailiff in charge of the farm.  

The Lodge 

The Lodge was at the bottom of Langley Lodge Lane. The Hayward family had already moved to the Lodge from their employment at Micklefield Hall, Sarratt when the County Council took ownership of the land. They lived at the Lodge and nearby Clapgate, the farm cottage the County Council had built just up the lane. Michael Hayward later farmed at Langley Lodge.  

Major building projects were set up in Baldock and Kings Langley, which led to a traditional style of rendered or weather boarded cottages with outbuildings and a substantial strip of land to be worked  as smallholdings. 

By the 1930s and 1940s some of these cottages were still occupied by farm labourers, or men like Mr Smith who was delivering eggs and sausages in the village and Alick Hayward who had 6 cows and delivered milk in Watford and Hunton Bridge. Mr Simmons sold River Gade watercress around the village from a pram.  

The arrival of the Ovaltine factory in 1913 encouraged the development of dairy herds which were fed on malt grains from the factory.

After WWII, Ron Surridge had a herd of cows and ran a successful business in and around Kings Langley.  

Charli Wray now farms 150 acres and has a milking herd of 80 cows, The Gaddesden Jersey Herd. Some are grazed across the main road on the Moat Farm

 The first recorded tenants of this farm are the Cartwright family in 1713. William Bean was the tenant in 1721. His son Thomas was the farmer by 1786. Thomas’s daughter Jenny had an illegitimate son, Jacob Hatley Bean, by the son of Newman Hatley of Langley Lodge Farm. The couple were married in Kings Langley Church in 1787. 

In 1839 the farm had 464 acres. The Beans remained at the farm until we find John Betts, a farmer of 370 acres  in the 1841, 1851 and 1871 census employing 20 labourers. John Bett’s land included the old priory ruins, the foundations of which made ploughing very difficult. As he removed these, he made a plan of the ruins and this is the only surviving evidence of the extent of the priory church. 

In the 1901 census, John Arnott Betts and his wife Jesse Rose are at the farm and in a 1913 survey the acreage was 343. 

From 1954 to 1960, the Bigg family were at Balls Pond Farm. They had a small dairy herd of Fresians, a flock of hens and a mature cherry orchard which gave a good cash crop in season. The house was divided at that time. The other tenants were Mr and Mrs Cartwright. There were two 50 acre holdings.  

Mr Hugo Fisher was farming here in 1961, when the Lines family arrived at Balls Pond Farm and he continued to do so for some time. There were three council holdings at that time, two farmed from the divided farmhouse and the other from the lodge. The Lines had a mixed farm with dairy cows, chickens and horses. In 1995, following the death of Jim Lines, the family left the house. A herd of sheep grazes the land now. 

  Langley Hill Farm is part of the original Desmene farm, that is a farm owned by the Lord of the Manor, who in this village was for 400 years, the King. Villeins would have worked this land as part of their duty to the Lord. We know from a survey that by 1556 it was held along with the Manor and the Priory by John, Lord Russell, Earl of Bedford. In the 1619 survey, John and Francis King held much the same fields as described in the 1591 survey as belonging to Desmene farm. The present house bears the date 1772.  

The first modern reference is in 1800 when a Mr Cooper was there until at least 1841. In 1851 a Mr Johnson and his wife, from Northchurch were farming and employing 14 labourers. They also appear in the1871 census. In 1881 John Yerby was the tenant,  along with his wife and four children. In 1900 the farm was owned as part of the Shendish Estate by Mr Arthur Longman and was farmed by Mr Butler who also farmed Rectory Farm. He was a hay and straw dealer, who sent wagons to London which returned with soot. He died worth £36,000. He was succeeded by William Banting. 

When the Shendish estate was sold in 1931, Mr Baldwin, the tenant, bought the farm. It has since been sold. 

This was also part of the Desmene farm and takes its name from Berner de Rouen who was there in the 13th Century. From the 14th century Court Rolls, “Alexander Carpenter, farmer of the manor called Le Bernes, bound to repair and must do so before the next court on pain of 6/8d”. Due to this farm being part of the manor farm there are very good records regarding it. By 1700 William Fowler, gent is there paying  rent of £2.10s. The Surry family farmed here throughout the 18th Century. Samuel Pocock was farming 200  acres and employing 10 labourers in the 1841 and 1851 census. Barnes was absorbed by the Shendish Estate and then sold in 1931. All the buildings are now converted and the land farmed from Bulstrode farm in Chipperfield. 

This farm has had various names in the past, Priory Farm, Parsonage Farm and Glebe Farm. It originally belonged to the Friars. In the 1556 survey, 20 years after the dissolution, it appears as “ the whole of the Rectory of Kings Langley lately of the monastery or priory of the Dominicans”. William Witbie was the tenant and he farmed about 80 acres of glebe land. 

In the 18th century it was farmed by the King family, who farmed all over the parish for several hundred years and had owned and run the flour mill nearby since the time of Elizabeth I 

In 1780 Thomas Toovey inherited the flour mill and the farm from the Surrey family, who were descendants of the Kings. In 1784 and 1785 William Turner is the tenant  of the farm. In 1880 F Butler established a milking herd at Rectory Farm. In 1881, Thomas Butler farmed 87 acres here. 

Mr TW Toovey, a descendant of Thomas Toovey developed a large poultry farm on Rectory Farm. In 1910 it covered 22 acres and the stock was 5,750 birds in 37 large poultry houses. Mr Toovey wrote a book on poultry farming, which is in the Kings Langley History Society collection. 

When the flour mill closed in 1978, the land which had been well fertilised by the poultry for so many years became a Pick Your Own fruit and veg farm. Turkeys were bred for their eggs which were transported to Italy. This has now gone and housing has taken its place. 

This has been farmed since before the Norman Conquest in 1066. During Mediaeval times the Chenduits, Parkers and Cheynes owned this land. By 1648 it was farmed by JohnLee, yeoman. He left £516 and was the wealthiest farmer in kings Langley. By 1684, Matthew Wright, husbandman, of Shendish left two hives of bees to his master, Zachary Lee. For 50 years up to 1770 the Kentish family farmed here. In the Tithe Assessment of 1839, there were 331 acres farmed by Henry Wells. He lived here with his wife Ann, their six children and 5 agricultural servants. Daniel Hill from Flamstead was the farmer in 1851, employing 12 labourers. In 1853 Charles Longman bought the estate and employed Ralph Patterson as his farm bailiff. By 1881 his son, Leonard Patterson was the farm steward for the whole Shendish estate, which had grown to include several other farms under the ownership of Mr. Longman. 

One of these was Porters Farm in Rucklers Lane. Alfred Porter started the farm at the turn of the 20th century and later the farm was purchased by the Porter family when the Longman estate was auctioned in 1931.