Finches Close

Alexander Finch was quite possibly not the first to farm what was, for centuries, known as Finches Farm, Elburton, and certainly the Finch family were not the longest residents there, but it it his name that was linked to it for the rest of its working life - and beyond.

Quite when he arrived on the scene is unclear, but he was definately there by 1628 and was still there when he died in 1641. His wife, Maria, thereafter ran the farm, until her own death in 1659, but it is the name Clarke, not Finch that we find associated with the place.

In the centuries that followed a succession of families ran the farm, until finally, after almost sixty years of having been tenanted by the Parsons, its life as a working farm ended when John Parsons gave up the work.

Thereafter the old farmhouse was used for many yers as a dwelling house until it was "bulldozed, so making way for the present post office and shops, in Springfield Road, which were built in 1964" (Arthur Clamp - The Ten Farms of Elburton)

Finches Close, like Minses Close, is another comparatively recent development on the other side of Elburton Road.

EH 24 August 1999