Carpenders Park Farm - "Little Carpenders"

Carpenders Park Farm – Oxhey Lane

Carpenders Park Farm was formerly home for many years to “Braziers Dairy” the property is now disused and in 2016 the whole property was put up for sale.  Part of the land has been purchased by Hertfordshire County Council for a possible site for a new Secondary School in the future.

“Little Carpenders”

This house dates from around the 1860’s and may have been the Estate Agents house for the “Carpenders Estate”  The full  house has recently become visible from the main road after trees and surrounding hedges have been removed. The house is uninhabitable  at the moment and is set within an orchard and a large garden and is situated to the right of the main drive of the farm.

This page was added on 09/03/2017.

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  • I was born in South Oxhey on 1950 …lived in Benton Road. My dad was a milkman for Braziers and we used to get up at 3.30ish on a Saturday morning …walk up to farm and I’d be ‘milk girl’ for the day …hard slogging work at 11. I also went through the 62/63 winter helping in the round whenever possible…loading metal crates with 20? glass bottles onto those green electric vehicles …after unplugging them from mains power. Driving around to farm shop…loading eggs …cream…biscuits …tea …sugar , just a few item people needed. Then out of yard by 4.30ish. Our route was Bushey and Aldenham and outlying district …cold in winter with no doors on vehicle ….but dad would have me running from house to house and I remember even at 11 I could carry 3 bottles between fingers of each hand if necessary. Great days ….they’d call it child abuse these days….but I learnt most of my life lessons on that van with my dad!, it’s left it’s legacy of a few worn out discs in back BUT I’d still not swap those days for the boring/safe /coddled life kids have now!
    I did that until I was about 13/14 and my dad retired through ill health. Was pleased when I got a bike for Xmas so we could both ride to work. Also remember collecting milk bill money on a Friday night ….when we had a car ! Would go round and collect the money to stop having to knock on doors if the early customers on Friday or Saturday paydays! 😂….very happy memories of South Oxhey and Braziers Farm

    By Sheila Chappell (03/04/2023)
  • As there seems to be no updates on this for a while I thought I would. Braziers dairies is indeed demolished and the site has been redeveloped as a care home, interesting to Google maps street view they marked the road coming up the hill for a right turn, it was pretty hair raising to turn right in to the dairy in a three wheeled milk float especially on Saturdays when all but the last dregs of power was left.
    And a note to Kieth Riley, we lived in South Oxhey for many years but as we grew up no less than two brothers a sister and my parents coincidentally moved not only to Milton Keynes but also to Loughton, all in the same street at one point.

    By Russell Edwards (23/01/2023)
  • We live in a house in Bushey Heath in which one of the two Brazier brothers lived. The couple sold the house to us nearly 50 years ago and moved to a Spanish style bungalow at Loudwater

    By kate (28/05/2021)
  • I have never seen this page , but reading all your comments have made me cry with happiness . My Grandfather , Roy Brazier was an amazing man and I miss him still like it was yesterday . He was such a loved , strong and daring man who was loved by everyone he met . Thank you to everyone for your kind words

    By Charlotte Brazier-Pascoe (05/01/2019)
  • reading the comments memories come flooding back. Those electric milk floats. Many a time they would run out of juice normally the furthest point from the dairy towards the end of the round. My round went out as far as Croxley Green and Rickmansworth. No fun sat out there in the winter waiting to be towed in.
    The heating was great as there was none no doors either not like the Express Dairies who had modern rear door or the co-op who had proper.. petrol/diesel engines with heaters.
    They were not the fastest, asked any lorry driver reving their engines behind trying to overtake and when they did just hope there was no surface water on the road as you would get soaked when they passed.
    There was a notice inside warning you that you should not do over that you should not do over 15mph no chance straight out the dairy either direction was down hill 700 pints of milk on they used go like a rocket.
    They were wide if a car pulled up behind you could not see it many a time I reversed only to hear a horn sounding then a bang when I got out saw an irate driver.
    They had to be charged the charger was free standing directly behind the back of the float which made reversing upto it tricky. My brother helped me in those days amongst loads of others, he would direct me back and always waited until I hit the charger and then shout stop.
    Don’t forget to unplug before moving off as they they could be driven with it still plugged in resulting in dragging the charger across the yard. Done the a couple of times rushing about having overslept.
    Worked for Mick Steward even babysitted for him and Rhona.

    By MARTIN HAMMOND (29/08/2018)
  • I used to live in South Oxhey and remember Braziers dairy delivering milk in the area for many years. I now live in Loughton, Milton Keynes and my wife used to be a mobile hairdresser and used to cut Roy Braziers hair in Loughton, is this the same Roy Braizier? His wife was called Phyliss.

    By Keith Riley (18/08/2018)
  • I was a rounds men at the dairy from 1973 to 1977 and before then a milk boy. Great times early cold mornings very hot summers seven days a week upto six months without a day off, Roy shouting his off at you for not collecting his outstanding balances. Great times a good laugh. very sad to see it all go.

    By MARTIN HAMMOND (07/08/2018)
  • I’m Sally’s sister June – when we moved to Carpenders Park Farm (travelling in the back of the removal van) I was inspired to write this poem, which was published in “Robin” magazine – it’s not exactly Wordsworth but I was only 6! As you can see I had a very modern approach to rhyming…

    On the hill there is a farm
    With horses and cows and a hay barn
    There are three cottages standing there
    With fields where everyone can play
    Where I pick flowers, daisies small
    And everything is beautiful.

    By June Hall (19/04/2018)
  • I’m Nick’s mum, and I was really sad to hear that our old cottage (no2 ) and the rest of Brazier’s Dairies has been demolished. My family moved there from London in 1960 and I spent all my teenage years living there. For my sister and I it was such a contrast to living in London; living on the farm was wonderful. We used to walk across the ‘five fields’ to King George’s Rec in Bushey to use the outside swimming pool in the summer holidays. There were cows on the farm, also horses belonging to Suzanne’s riding school. There was a threepenny- bit shaped barn at the back where a man used to keep his blue sports car. My sister and I used to play in the porch of the old house, and my dad had a bit of an allotment in the garden of the old house for a time. We used to go to the shop to buy penguin bars from the hatch- they used to be sold singly then! Across the road was the American base. There used to be Halloween celebrations there long before it became fashionable in Britain.
    Very happy memories!

    By Sally Gillings (06/04/2018)
  • Hi Neil , she lived at Number Two.
    Such a shame it’s all gone , they don’t hang around !

    By NICk GILLINGS (06/04/2018)
  • Does anyone know when the council will start building here and if the two cottages will remain ?
    My mum wants to go back and visit where she lived and old family haunts around Watford – need to visit before it goes !

    By NICk GILLINGS (06/04/2018)
  • My grandad was a milkman and latterly a foreman at Braziers up until his passing away in 1987 . His name was Ken Odhams . Ken , my Nan Irene , Mum and Aunt lived on the farm in one of the cottages for many many years from the early 60’s – I used to love visiting the farm in the 70’s and v early 80’s , my grandparents still lived in the cottage then . Watching the big articulated lorry squeeze into the dairy entrance ! My grandad would let us go up and sit on the milk floats in the garage there .

    By NICk GILLINGS (06/04/2018)
  • Unfortunately the whole farm, including barns, and cottages has been demolished. The old farm buildings were the first to go, followed by cottage no 3 at the rear of the site, then the two remaining cottages. Little Carpenders, the derelict house at the front of the site was the last building to go. Contractors are now just tidying the site ready for development. Which cottage did your family live in?

    By Neil Hamilton (06/04/2018)
  • Apparently I heard a bus company had purchased this land to use as a bus garage. Does anyone know anything about this ?

    By Ricky Bullworth (14/12/2017)
  • This would relate to the land in Little Oxhey Lane, which is now used by a bus company. Planning application has been granted for a 78 bed Care Home to be built on Carpenders Park Farm in Oxhey Lane.

    By Susan Waller (13/01/2018)
  • I am Roy Braziers grandson but what can you do, people die and others won’t take the reins.

    By James brazier (24/08/2017)
  • I keep returning to this page, as it keeps reminding me of the past. The centre photo, ‘Entrance to Carpenders Park Farm 2017’ The small building attached to the house, was originally the bottling part of the dairy, bottles were washed, cleaned, refilled with milk, and then placed into cold storage. At the rear of the dairy was a boiler house, which produced steam, which was used steam clean the milk churns. At the side of the house which is now painted white, was a shelter where you would wait and queue, while waiting to be served at the serving hatches situated in the hallway just inside of the doorway.
    It will be very interesting, if any readers have photos of my description of this part of the dairy, which is dated from the 1940’s

    By Arthur Hall (19/07/2017)
  • I enjoyed reading Neil’s comments about the decaying interior of the house, especially about the shop. I would be interested to know if the 2 Serving Hatches were visible, as they looked out into a passageway where the customers waited, waiting there turn to be served .
    The picture of the house in the poster is how I remembered it. Mrs Brazier’s father used the conservatory like a Greenhouse. the garden was stocked with soft fruit Blackcurrants, Raspberries, Gooseberries, Strawberries etc., which he tended, at the back of the garden was an orchard, in which included Pigsties. The house in the poster, roused my memory to remember happier times.

    By Arthur Hall (04/05/2017)
  • I used to know Roy Brazier and after years of nagging he finally let me have the keys to Little Carpenders in he late 90’s. It was pitch black inside but I still managed to get some decent flash pictures. The roof had been leaking badly for many tears and the interior was in a bit of a state but intact with many original Victorian features still intact though the fire places had all been stolen. Opening the back door revealed a drop straight down into the cellar so the gap had to be straddled in order to gain access. The old shop was intact and the old shop sign was still inside. A wide stained staircase led upstairs – I made it halfway up but didnt trust it any further – likewise for the narrow servants staircase just inside the back door. I have an old wooden mortice lock found inside which Roy let me have The building was used mainly by that timefor storage by an engineers firm at the back of the farm. The Braziers hadnt lived in there since a night time Robbery back in the 1950’s Its nice to have an unobstructed view of the house now. It will be a shame to see the place flattened which it no doubt will be and that will be the end of another piece of Carpenders Park history

    By Neil Hamilton (18/04/2017)
  • These pictures remind me how time has changed surroundings. Carpenders Park Farm, and ‘Little Carpenders’ were separated by a wall, ‘Little Carpenders’ & Braziers Dairy was one separate unit Called S.A.Brazier’s Dairy, and was owned by Sid Brazier, and its entrance was as shown in picture, as Entrance to Carpenders Park Farm. Brazier’s was a dairy, which bottled milk supplied in churns from the then Independent Milk Company, and then delivered to the local areas of the St Meryls Estate and Hatch End, by horse drawn milk carts.
    Carpenders Park Farm, together with Highfields Farm, was owned by Mr Absalom, and entry was by the side of Carpenders Park Cottages, which was occupied by Land Girls during the early 1940’s. Carpenders Park farm was both dairy and arable, Mr Absalom kept Friesian Cows for Milk production, and arable was used according to government instructions, wheat, barley, corn, potatoes etc.,
    Carpenders Park Farm was sold to Mr Brazier in the 1950’s, and made into one unit, as can now be seen in the pictures shown. I lived in Carpenders Avenue, and was able to help the Land Girls on the farm, & Roy Brazier with his milk round during school holidays, I was eight and it was 1940.

    By Arthur Hall (13/04/2017)