Garden Wall With Bee Boles At Southwood House Farm

A garden wall with eleven bee boles, dating to approximately 1820, stands on the boundary of Southwood House Farm. The wall itself is constructed of coursed sandstone blocks with an ashlar coping, and forms part of the north-eastern corner of the boundary, approximately 70 metres north-east of the farmhouse. The bee boles are lined with brick on their sides, with sandstone bases and flat lintels. The wall has a curved section at the corner containing the bee boles, while the other corners are square, suggesting that the curve is linked to the bee boles’ construction and that both wall and boles are contemporary. Each bee bole is a rectangular recess measuring roughly 40cm high, 43cm wide, and 40cm deep, positioned 50cm above the base of the wall.

The Southwood estate was inherited by Robert Burdett in 1773 and later transferred to the Calke Abbey estate in 1821. William Woodward was the tenant farmer at the time the wall and bee boles were built, and a brick receipt dated circa 1820 and a plan from the same year confirm this timeframe. The wall, including the bee boles, originally formed the southern boundary of an orchard and was near a former wildflower garden. The group value context stems from the bee boles' integral relationship to the other buildings at Southwood House Farm. The bee boles are notable due to the relatively precise dating, which is a rare occurrence, as well as the unusual number of eleven in a set.