Much of the land once belonging to Lawn Farm, on Drake Street, is now part of the Pippin Drive housing estate built a few years ago (see map).

In 1806 Richard Harris is recorded as the proprietor of a landholding paying £2 16s 11d in land tax. The farm name is not given but other records allow us to identify the land in question as Lawn Farm. The current house, brick with some timber framing, was probably already in existence at this time and part of the building may have 17th century origins. The house is Grade II listed. (See Historic England entry.)

Richard Harris married Sarah Solloway in 1798 at Coddington. After Richard’s death in 1829, Sarah continued to farm the land, appearing in the land tax records as Mrs Harris. She married again in 1836 and appears thereafter as Sarah Hooman or Homan. Intriguingly, her husband John Hooman did not appear in her household in the 1841 or 1851 census and her later will states that they were separated. In the 1851 census she is identified as a farmer of 40 acres, 82 years old. Sarah died in 1855.

By 1858 William Harris, a nephew of Richard Harris, was tenant, but the farm was owned by Edward Pace, whose connection to Welland is unknown at present. The 1861 census records William Harris and his family, farming 50 acres. Still the farm is only identified as ‘Farm house, Drake Street’. William died in 1874 and the John Harris who succeeded him was probably his son. It was during John Harris’s tenancy that we see the name ‘The Lawn Farm’ for the first time, in a newspaper advertisment of 15 September 1879 (Worcester Herald).

The advertisement announces an ‘important sale of fruit’ produced by several growers, to be held at The Pheasant in Welland. Heading the list is ‘Mr John Harris, The Lawn Farm’ with crops from Cherry Orchard, Hill Orchard, Stock Orchard, Bacon Hill and Westfield for sale (presumably apples, but this is not stated). There was also a ‘row of damsons’ in Pig Orchard and the fruit of a ‘large walnut tree at back of the house, very thick’.

By the time of the 1911 census Francis Wastie was the owner. He was born in 1867 at Eynsham, Oxfordshire, where the Wasties were a long established family. The 1939 National Register records him at Lawn Farm as a dairy farmer, with his wife Edith, daughters Gladys and Edith, and son Frederick, all engaged in farm work. Another son, Frank Wastie, was working at Church Farm. After his father’s death in 1954 Frank took over Lawn Farm and the family owned it until at least 1979.