With thanks to Nesta Heath; see her Life and Herbing in Sutton Benger; Memories of a Wiltshire Village. See also Tim Couzens: Hand of Fate: The History of the Longs, Wellesleys and the Draycot Estate in Wiltshire.

A number of Lodges were built or refurbished around Draycot Park in the 1800s.

Plains Lodge is on the B4122, the road from the Draycot crossroads to the M4; it is on the right after the bridge. It was built around 1889, at a time when Draycot Park was being remodelled and several new houses were being built in and around Draycot Cerne.

Nesta Heath remembered life in Draycot Cerne and Sutton Benger as a child in the 1920s / 1930s. ‘Mr Archer lived (at Plains Lodge) with his wife and son, Freddie.’ (Nesta Heath, Life and Herbing, p. 18).

The 1839 Tithe map shows that there was one large field in the parkland between the road and Draycot House, north of the brook. The number '4' identifies that this area was known as 'Plain including Lawn' - giving its name to Plains Lodge, which was built close to the trees at number '33'.

With thanks to Nesta Heath; see her Life and Herbing in Sutton Benger; Memories of a Wiltshire Village. See also Tim Couzens: Hand of Fate: The History of the Longs, Wellesleys and the Draycot Estate in Wiltshire.

A number of Lodges were built or refurbished around Draycot Park in the 1800s.

Slates (or Sleights) Lodge is on the B4122, the road from the Draycot crossroads to the M4; it is on the right opposite the Auction Rooms. It was built in 1869, and is now known as Hunter’s Lodge Farm.

Nesta Heath remembered life in Draycot Cerne and Sutton Benger as a child in the 1920s / 1930s. *‘… further up the road [from Plains Lodge] was Sleights Lodge where my uncle and aunty, Mr and Mrs Ted Teagle, ran the laundry. I remember there used to be a pump in the year which had to be primed every time they wanted to draw water, so a jug always had to stand on the top, full up, or else you didn’t have any at all.

‘Sleight Cottages stood on the left hand side of the road (Mill Hill), and here another uncle and aunt of mine lived, Mr and Mrs Fred Brind. He was the estate carpenter. I remember they kept several ferrets in hutches in the back garden, and I was always told that they would bite my finger off if I put it through the wire.’* (Nesta Heath, Life and Herbing, p. 18).

The 1839 Tithe map shows that the large field (numbered 29) to the east of the Stanton Road was called 'Sheep Sleight'. In old Wiltshire dialect, according to the 1893 Glossary of Word used in the County of Wiltshire, the verb 'to Sleight, or to Slay' meant 'To pasture sheep on the downs.' The noun 'Sheep-sleight' therefore meant 'a sheep-down' or 'a pasture good for sheep'. This word was especially common in north west Wiltshire.

So Nesta Heath's use of 'Sleight' rather than 'Slate' was the correct spelling originally.

Note that the various circles numbered '30' are plantations of trees; Draycot Park was much more heavily wooded in the early 1800s than it is today.

The Home Farm was moved away from the House in the 1880s, and new farm buildings were built between Plains Lodge and Slates Lodge.

The extract from the 1920 Auction Catalogue shows jiust a fraction of the land and buildings included with Home Farm.