Hill House was built between 1810 and 1830 although part of the outbuildings adjacent to the house predates this. It is believed to be the site of an old Viking settlement called Thirkelton. It was listed Grade II in the 1980s. Prior to the building of the present house there is evidence of a farmhouse in the farm buildings. During the Napoleonic War, when cereal prices quadrupled, the farmhouse was moved away from the farmyard environment to the present site.

Hill House was a tenant farm on the Berners Estate, Woolverstone Hall (now housing Ipswich High School for Girls) and the estate was divided into lots and split up in a sale in 1958. Hill House and the surrounding 350 acres - of which 80 are marshland - and four cottages were purchased by Richard’s grandfather, Donald. Hazel & Richard have lived here since 1975. During World War II vegetables were grown all over the southern part of the garden as part of the war effort.

An artist, Alan Walton laid out what is left of the formal gardens and employed a full time gardener Jack Gibbs. The large pots on the eastern side of the house by the mulberry tree were shipped in from Italy by Walton. Two of his paintings are to be found above the television in the sitting room.

Donald Wrinch (circa 1938)

The Wrinch family first arrived on the peninsula in the early 1800’s. Leonard Wrinch moved to Knights Farm Harkstead from across the Stour and the family became, over the next 100 years, main tenants to the Berners Estate at Woolverstone Hall. Walter Wrinch (1846 – 1915) started a maritime transport business with Thames barges and at one point owned 5 full and 2 half barges. The barges took produce from the farms to London and other east coast cities, returning with the horse manure from the London streets as fertilizer for the land. Coal was also traded from Newcastle into the peninsula.

Walter had eight children, amongst them were Sydney Walter (1879 -1963) and Donald James (1885 -1970) (Richard's grandfather). The youngest son, Stanley was killed at Ypres in 1915 and is amongst those listed on the Menin Gate. The picture on the left of the dining room door is of Stanley (Richard’s father’s uncle) who has a stained glass window in his memory in Erwarton Church.

Brothers Donald and Sydney Wrinch farmed together in partnership, but soon after the Great War, they decided to go their separate ways and Donald farmed at Shotley Hall & Red House farm, Hill House Farm and Charity Farm - as D J Wrinch - whilst Sydney farmed at Erwarton and Harkstead.

Baling with the New Holland on the field called Crows Nest (June 1965)

The farm was largely labour intensive (horse based) right through until after the Second World War .The first tractors did not appear until the late 1930’s and we bought our first combine harvester in 1965. In this period there were over 40 men and 30 horses on the home farms (Red House, Shotley Hall, Hill House, Charity Farm). By the late 1960’s there were only 20 men and the last horse used for arable work left the farm in 1968. A stockman who would not drive a tractor had one until 1974! Richard came back from college in 1971. There were 17 men and with reorganisation, retirements etc, we quickly got down to 11 men.

It was a typical mixed farm growing cereals, cabbages and sugar beet. The cabbages were cut by hand and sent to Spitalfields market. There were sheep on the farm until the mid 1970’s and a pig herd had always been present. These were Essex Saddlebacks, which slowly increased to 70 sows before we changed to producing breeding stock for Cotswold Pigs in the 1980’s. We returned to a commercial herd of 270 sows but have just closed this due to environmental constraints on our present site. A beef herd was established in 1971 and usually contained 50-60 beef cows but we sold this in 2000.

Cabbages are no longer grown. The main crops are Winter Barley, Spring Barley, Winter Wheat, Sugar Beet and Potatoes. Today (with the help of modern machinery) we manage with one part time arable person, a part-time maintenance person and ourselves!