History

Whyns Farm was a real working farm at Thorp Arch near Wetherby in Yorkshire. The Hornshaw family operated Whyns Farm for over 200 years until March 1940 when the trust farm comprising a farm house, out buildings and 15 fields covering 74 acres, was bought under a compulsory purchase order by the Ministry of Defence.

Thirty acres of the farmland had already been sown for oats and roots and another ten and a half acres of winter wheat were green in the fields. There was a great objection to the MoD buying out Whyns Farm, including objections from farming groups and the local council, but to no avail. Farmer Herbert Potts, husband of Rachael Hornshaw the farm tenant was pictured in the Yorkshire Evening News, along with another farm worker, holding eight of the farm cats. A further article featured in the Yorkshire Post.

The branch of the Hornshaw family who ran Whyns Farm at this time eventually went to live as guests of their former farm manager, Richard Hodgson, on another farm. However they had lost their livelihood, their animals and their family home of Whyns Farm.

The farm animals and farm machinery were put in to a sale at the farm by Messrs Matthew Tomlinson and Son on April 9, 1940. There were 26 cows, a short-horn bull, three working horses, Daisy, Tom and Gilbert, a pony and a governess cart, five large white pigs, 20 head of poultry and three ducks. The farm implements that were sold included two carts, some drills, a Massey-Harris binder, a reaper, harrows, rakes, dairy equipment and a roller.

The farm house and site buildings were subsequently demolished to make way for a factory known as Royal Ordnance Factory No.8 during the Second World War after which it became a storage depot for the Ministry of Supply. Today, the land that once belonged to Whyns Farm is now covered by Thorp Arch Trading Estate and the British Science Lending Library.