Bradshaw farm, Ladymeadows and Fairies.

On the outskirts of the town of Leek in the Staffordshire Moorlands, located on the Leek to Ashbourne road can be found a lane known as Bradshaw lane, this leads to a farm known as Bradshaw farm and a place called Ladymeadows can also be found in this area. These two locations have a connection to the Fairy folk which have been recorded in the old and rare book titled “The Tale of Ipstones”, and is as follows:

A belief in fairies is almost as old as the human race. Fairies are supposed to be a vey small race of human beings who inhabited crevices in rocks, underground passages and thick undergrowth of dense forests. The ancients divided fairies into several classes the principal of which were real fairies and a lower kind called Hopthrusts. The higher kind were supposed never to do any work and the lower kind to be very useful to housewives, especially of farmers.

Many were the fairies in the Moorlands but the wickedness of these times has driven them away. In olden times for a bit of cake left on the table they churned the butter and did various jobs of housework whilst the people were asleep. If, however, no cake was left they often became thieves and got into the pantry by the keyhole and helped themselves. The tale goes that one of the tenants of one of the farms in the Ladymeadows had broken his plough and was at a great loss as to how to get it repaired as he was very poor. His wife, however, as well as her Mother, had always been good to the fairies and seldom went to bed without leaving some dainty bit of cake on the kitchen table. Consequently some days after the accident when the plough was broken, the farmer went to look at the broken plough and found that it had been repaired and put in thorough working order, which was said to be the work of the fairies.

Another story goes that a woman who lived at Bradshaw’s Farm had a baby that was remarkably small. When a few weeks old she took the baby into the hayfield and laid it on a pile of hay, placing an umbrella over it to keep off the sun, whilst she went to help the haymakers. After a while she returned and discovered that her baby had been taken away and a fairy had been left in its stead. She took the fairy baby home and treated it with as much kindness as she would her own. She was greatly disappointed, however, to find it was a Hopthrust. She was well repaid, however, for whenever she needed money she had only to wish and large sums were found in various parts of the house.

The fairy child was unable to talk but made a strange guttural sound and when a few years old died, the money contributions immediately stopping.

Bradshaw Farm. photo by Gary Tacagni.