Sitting a little way back from the western bank of Hooe Lake is the curiously named Amacre Drive a rare example of a local placename that is quite possibly unique to the area. Researching its origins, Robin Blythe-Lord, who lives there, is in no doubt that the name comes from “The Home Acre”, that is the “acre field closest to the Farm at the time of naming”. The farm in question is the ancient Hooe Barton Farm, a farm which stood, little changed over hundreds of years, until the late 1960s.
Robin has spent many, many, hours looking into the history of the farm and lake and among the many items he’s unearthed is the Parish Map of 1843 which names all the fields in the vicinity. Here we find that the field in which the houses of Amacre Drive were built some ninety years later, was known as Homer Hamacre, and the field behind that, where St John’s Church and school was to be built in the 1850s, was Higher Hamacre.
