History of Tock How Farm
Since moving here we have found some information on the farm and its history from a book called Guardian of the lakes - a history of the National Trust in the Lakes from 1946. The following was wrote in the book about Tock how.
High and Low Tockhow Farms and Hole House were also bequeathed to the Trust by William Heelis after his death in 1947. Tockhow overlooks Blelham Tarn for which it has fishing rights. High Tockhow is one of the farmhouses rebuilt during the prosperous years of the nineteenth century, a new building on an older site. The Press Cupboard probably from the older house is dated 1686 with the initial IBS, those of members of the Benson family who had owned the farm since 1655 and possibly earlier.
It was bought in 1723 by John Satterthwaite of Cragg, a member of a large clan of Quaker Satterthwaites living close to the Colthouse meeting house. After the Satterthwaites left in 1747 the Stricklands were absentee landlords until 1824, when it was bought by George Strickland Levistone, who probably was responsible for the alterations. He sold in 1870 to Dr James Dawson of Wray Castle, and it then went with the Wray Castle estate until this was sold in 1929, when the Castle was bought by Sir Norton and Lady Barclay to give to the Trust and William Heelis bought the farm. The present house has a double pile plan withe the original fittings. All that remains of an adjacent farm called busk in included in the tenancy, as is the Low Tockhow land . The combined land amounts to 263 acres.
The former farmhouse for Low Tockhow is now two cottages (east and west). It was a seventeenth century house built sometime between 1680 and 1730.
Hole House nearby is now a cottage let with High Tockhow, but was originally a small farmhouse in its own right, It is a seventeenth century building of considerable architectural interest, with a spice cupboard and an early stone staircase. The barn is an eighteenth century bank barn. This is now a listed building.
The meaning of Tock How
Tock is a personal name and How means on the hill.