‘The information below comes from Frederick Solley’s Daughter Joan Wakeham:
‘The Solley’s Famhouse’ became ‘The Brewery Farmhouse’ shortly after the First World War. The farm’s horses were requisitioned and shipped to France to support the War effort. The long building behind Brewery Farm House was used to stable the mules and house the gun carriages belonging to an artillery unit billeted in the village. The mules were temperamental beasts and the young conscripts couldn’t manage them. They smashed the gates, which certainly didn’t please Frederick Solley. Joan remembered the kitchen maids polishing up the brass buckles and buttons for the soldiers who were billeted in the village.
One day a Zeppelin flew over the village. Frederick Solley rushed downstairs to get a good view. In the rush he didn’t have time to put his trousers on. His wife threw a pair down to him but they ended up hanging over the telephone wires. An airship came down in a nearby field.
Joan remembers seeing her father stroking the noses of the horses when they returned to the farm after the war. They were battle scarred and one was deaf. It was a solemn moment.’
Image & text courtesy of the Great Mongeham Society