"Sacha" wrote in message
.. .
mich31/12/03 3:58

It seems to me very important for you that you get this dealt with - if
you
don't, you'll allow it to grow into a much bigger problem for your mind to
deal with and you'll find yourself avoiding that area, altogether.
And as a final suggestion, have you tried talking to your neighbours about
this - longer term residents, I mean?

Thanks to everyone for suggestions I am trying to follow some of them up. I
had already tried to look into the history.

I haven't mentioned it to anyone local. There are very few long term
residents in the village , although my next door neighbour is a village
"lad" ( hes 70!)

I have asked questions about what was there but not said why.

I have a smallholding. My deeds tell me the land was part of a much larger
estate farm up until 1915 when it was sold off in lots. It remained farmland
until 1952 and the area I am talking about may have been a sheep
pen/lambing pen then.
The filed that now constitutes my home was sold as
a smallholding to a lady , and presumably her husband , but I only have the
womans name on my deeds.

She had the bungalow built in 1958.

The garden was a market garden from 1952 -1980 growing strawberries,
tomatoes, cucumber and various such crops.
There were a large number of greenhouses on the property, including on the
section I am concerned about.

The property changed hands once I think between 1952 and 1980 possibly
because of the death of the original market gardener. In 1980 the bungalow
was renovated/updated and sold as a private dwelling and the market garden
ceased. The greenhouses were
pulled down and all the back stretch of ground I am talking about seems to
have been the dumping ground for the rubble from the greenhouses. Apparently
it was a greenhouse originally, one of about six extending from there back
onto the field.

This I can verify because I have reclaimed large amounts of concrete block
from
the ground and used it! The ground is also covered in shards of glass and
when I arrived I cleared out a load of window frames from the hedge in my
first tidy up campaign.

There have been two owners since 1980. The first lost her husband and moved
in with her daughter on a farm close by. She by all accounts loved the house
but found living alone too much ( she is actually a little doolaly if you
get my drift). She started the garden area from the smallholding - which was
just a couple of fields - which amounts currently to a third of an acre at
the back, planted a few trees.

The next owners were my predecessors. They extended the garden to
basically what I inherited. Oddly enough neither owners did anything with
this back strip I am talking about. The garden beds/ bushes etc. literally
end in front of the strip. By all accounts the previous owner also seems to
have loved the house and garden . I am told from locals it was a prize
garden until last owner couldnt cultivate it. Sale was due to him going into
sheltered accommodation.


I had originally taken no notice of the sudden garden end and when I
started clearing thought it
was because the area was filled with rubble and couldnt be dug. It was only
when I started working there I felt the problem.I have hard landscaped it
with the intent to of putting up a shed and a greenhouse here myself, but I
dont know what to do now.

Beyond it I have a meadow and and an orchard area which isn't under any
cultivation at present.