Borrowfield Farm, aka Clock Farm, Stoney Lane

we, as children, were fortunate to experience Clock Farm as a farm as we played in the fields and around the buildings. there were no houses on the prefab estate or on the council house estate, the filds and woods stretched from nottingham road north to the bypass, which was an open dirt track for the most part, and bordered by Mr Simms farm towards Borrowash and to the brool at the bottom of borrowfield rd and the ressed Nottingham road just east of the Anglers Arms.
around 1950 a Mr Martin from Borroweash, the last house on the right going to Hopwell on the A52, rented the Farm and Mrs Tunnicliffe ran a riding school out of there. Jimmy, her son recently deceased, also helped us learn to harness and tackle up the group of horses. Dingo, was brocken to saddle and harness so we had many happy hours with the trap around the village, there was, Kitty, Lady Grey, Shawn ( Mrs Tunnies horse), Dolly, Dingo and a no name donkey. donkeys don't need names, they are not going to listen anyway. Bruce was the golden retriever. the famous rides were to the golden gates at elvaston, stoney lane to dale road. we spent many happy hours cleaning stalls , learning to prepare and clean tackle, gooming, feeding, avoiding hooves! there were proper horse stalls on the west side of the buildings and cow sheds on the east side with loose boxes and the loft behind the clock on the northe side; behind that was a dutch barn and the the west a tractor shed facing the house. the trip to breadsall smithy was a really great outing; took a while too. climbing up to the clock at the farm was tricky, especially for me , the smallest, climbing on the pigsy slate roof was a neat trick too. there were two tractors in the barn, an old Fordson about 1930, and a more modern Ferguson, about 1945 or so.
funny to remember brooks, woods and fields where now there are roads and houses. every generation has the same problem though i guess.
the horses moved to the farm at the Catholic house farm around 1952 or 3 i think and Lady Grey stayed on there with new owner Mr Reg Slaney and Mrs Tunny went off to the area under the wires in the council house estate. preior to that move though we had many happy times on the Catholic farm lands, swimming horses in the cut, catching them down the tow path to spondon when they got out. racing aound th fields there and especially over the canal bridge that still stands.