Croxley Green History Project
  • Home
  • Chronicle
    • John Caius
    • Latin Document
    • Suffragettes
    • Suffragettes Damage
    • Queen Victoria
    • Regional Planning Report 1927
    • Proteas
  • Manor of Croxley
  • A Village Grows
  • Estates & Roads
    • A Stroll Down New Road >
      • Introduction
      • Odd Numbers
      • Census Interlude
      • Even Numbers
      • Appendix 1
      • Appendix 2
      • Appendix 3
    • Byewaters Estate
    • Council Houses
    • Cassiobridge Estate
    • Kebbell Housing
    • Durrants Estate
    • Highfield and Windmill Estate
    • Mayfare Estate
    • Nuttfield Estate
    • Parrotts Estate
    • Prefabricated Housing
    • Street Names >
      • Street Names
  • World Wars
    • War Memorial WW1
    • First World War 1914-1918
    • WWI Soldiers from Croxley
    • WW1 Centenary >
      • Community Club 03-10-2018
      • Celebrations 100 years 1918 -2019
      • Remembrance Day 11-11-2018
      • Residents Photographs 11-11-18
      • All Saints Memorial Doors
      • All Saints Memorial Doors Booklet
      • Peace Picnic 14-07-2019
    • Dickinson Memorial Cross
    • War Memorial WW2
    • Second World War 1939-1945 >
      • Civil Defence
      • Celebrations
      • Rationing
      • Croxley Mill
      • All Saints Rededication
      • Second World War Memories >
        • WW2 Memories - Glenn Kinnear
        • WW2 Memories - Jill Butler
    • WW2 Forces and Croxley Residents
    • War Memorial (Cleaning)
    • WW2 50th Commemorations
    • WW2 Secrets of Croxley House
    • WW2 Secrets of Redheath House
  • Schooldays
    • Children at Play
    • Yorke Road School >
      • Yorke Road School History
      • William Scorer - Architect of Yorke Road School
      • Leukaemia Research
      • Paul O'Reilly Builders
      • Grand Opening
    • Yorke Road Infants School
    • Yorke Road Girls School
    • The Old Boys School Watford Road
    • Harvey Road School
    • Durrants School >
      • Durrants Memories
      • Croxley Song Book
      • Croxley Song Book
      • Physical Education
    • Malvern Way School
    • Little Green School >
      • Little Green School - Architects Journal
    • Rickmansworth School
    • Yorke Mead School
    • Oak House Private School
  • Institute / Guildhouse
  • Railway to Croxley Green
    • Memories of the Tube
  • Shops & Businesses
  • Celebrating
    • Golden Jubilee Queen Victoria 1887
    • Diamond Jubilee Queen Victoria 1897
    • Coronation Edward VII 1902
    • Coronation George V 1911
    • Silver Jubilee George V 1935
    • Coronation George VI 1937
    • Festival of Britain 1951
    • Coronation Elizabeth II 1953
    • Coronation Charles III and Camilla 2023
  • Churches
    • All Saints Church >
      • All Saints Consecrated
      • All Saints First Baptisms
      • All Saints First Wedding
      • Reverend Astley Roberts
      • Reverend Blois Bisshopp
      • Reverend C. E. H. Donnell
    • Baptist Church
    • Fuller Way
    • Gospel Hall
    • Little Chapel Chandlers Cross
    • Methodist Church New Road
    • St Bedes
    • St Oswald Church
    • Sarratt Graveyard
  • Public Houses
    • The Artichoke
    • The Coach and Horses
    • Duke of York
    • The Fox and Hounds
    • George and Dragon
    • Gladstone Arms
    • The Halfway House
    • The Plough
    • The Red House
    • The Rose
    • The Sportsman
    • The Two Bridges
  • Community Activities
    • Croxley Camera Club >
      • Croxley Camera Club - Early Days
      • Croxley Camera Club - Moving Forward
      • Croxley Camera Club - Reaching the Majority
      • Croxley Camera Club - Inflation & Deflation
      • Croxley Camera Club - A New Millennium
      • Croxley Camera Club - In Retrospect
      • Croxley Camera Club Calendar
      • Croxley Camera Club - Collaborations
    • Church Lads Boys Brigade
    • Croxley Green Society >
      • Croxley Festival 1951
    • Croxley Mummers
    • Croxley Week
    • Girls Brigade
    • The Revels >
      • Revels Chronicle
      • Revels Archives
    • Parish Council >
      • Croxley Green Parish Map
      • Croxley Green Main
      • CGPC Craft Fair
    • The Red Cross Centre - Croxley Green >
      • Red Cross Donations & 25th Anniversary
      • Red Cross Lease & Documents
      • 1970s First Aid Training
      • Kathleen Wilcox 100th Birthday
    • Scouts Brownies Guides >
      • Scouting in Croxley Green >
        • Scouting through the years
        • Scouting Terminology
      • Scouting Memorabilia
    • Wassail
    • Youth Club
  • Sports
    • John Dickinson Sports >
      • Dickinson Sports - Tennis Club
      • Football Team
      • Ladies Hockey
      • Rifle Club
    • Football
    • National Association of Boys Club
    • Old Boys School
    • Old Boys Football Club
  • Croxley at Work
    • John Dickinson >
      • Aerial views of the Mill
      • Coal Deliveries
      • Croxley Worldwide
      • Fire Fighters >
        • William Beauchamp (Fire Fighter)
      • The Mill Railway
      • The Mill Employees >
        • Charles Barton-Smith
        • Percy Barton-Smith
        • Charles Hope Little
        • Union of the House of Dickinson
      • Mill Photos
      • General Views
      • Plans of the Mill
      • Delivery Vehicles
      • 1896 Booklet
      • JD Booklet
    • Blacksmiths
    • Coal Deliveries
    • Croxley Commercial College
    • G H Browning Recovery
    • Sand and Gravel
    • The Windmill
    • Watercress Growers
  • Croxley Farms
    • Croxley Hall Farm >
      • The Bovingdon Family & Croxley Hall Farm
      • Croxley Great Barn
    • Durrants Farm Estate
    • Hollow Tree Farm
    • Killingdown Farm
    • Lovatts Whitegates
    • Stones Orchard >
      • Stones Orchard Excavation
    • Parrotts Farm
  • Census & Register
    • Census 1841
    • Census 1851
    • Census 1861
    • Census 1871
    • Census 1881
    • Census 1891
    • Census 1901
    • Census 1911
    • Census 1921
    • 1939 Register
    • Population
  • Publications
    • 1896 Booklet
    • 1896 Booklet 1
    • The Croxley Resident Archives
    • The Parish Pump Issue 1 to 26
    • Parish Pump Issue 27 to Current
    • Local Directories
  • Village Views
    • Aerial Photos
    • Croxley From Above
    • Before and After >
      • B&W / Recoloured
      • Original / Modern
      • Merged B&W / Colour
  • Famous Locals
  • Local Memories
  • Recorded Memories
  • Trees on the Green
  • Walking in Croxley
    • Historical Boundary Walk
    • Circular Walks
    • Around Croxley Common Moor
    • Village Walk
    • Wartime Walk in Croxley Green
  • Albert Freeman Diaries
    • Albert Freeman Diaries 1915
    • Albert Freeman Diaries 1917
    • Albert Freeman Diaries 1918
    • Albert Freeman Diaries 1919
    • Albert Freeman Diaries 1920
    • Albert Freeman Diaries 1921
    • Albert Freeman Diaries 1922
    • Albert Freeman Diaries 1923
    • Albert Freeman Diaries 1924
    • Albert Freeman Diaries 1925
    • Albert Freeman Diaries 1926
    • Albert Freeman Diaries 1927
    • Albert Freeman Diaries 1928
    • Albert Freeman Diaries 1929
    • Albert Freeman Diaries 1930
    • Albert Freeman Diaries 1931
  • HELP
    • Page Directory
    • Useful Links
    • Committee
    • Copyright
  • Contact Us
Lovatts and Whitegates
PictureLovatts Farmhouse
The distinctive white house abutting the road at the top of The Green is Lovatts, an old farmhouse with many original features. The Manor of Croxley Green and Snells Hall Survey Map 1766 shows the house standing in “meadows”, suggesting agricultural activity. It had a broad frontage with two end wings. One occupant of Lovatts from 1951 to 1967 recalls a blackened open inglenook fireplace some two metres wide and made of small bricks in the northern wing (now Warren Cottage), a deep well in the east rear garden, a large brick-lined cellar with an earthen floor under the southern wing (now Lovatts Cottage) and the front house built of small bricks and flint in a timber frame structure with a thatched roof (still visible under the tiles in 1960).
The 1926 map of the Parrotts Estate shows Lovatts Farm as occupying plot 62 which comprised a farmyard with barns and a field of approximately 2 acres. By the 1950s the field had become an orchard, producing red and white cherries, apples, pears and gooseberries. The house was divided into two before WW2 and in the early 1950s the northern wing was renamed Warren Cottage and the southern wing Lovatts Cottage. During the 1950s there were significant changes in ownership of Lovatts’ land, as shown in the sketch below.

Picture
  1. Warren Cottage
  2. Lovatts Cottage
  3. Brackendale
  4. Tudor Cottage (once the home of Miss Nunn, who fostered orphaned children)
  5. Land sold to Mr George Ide who had an electrical appliances shop in Rickmansworth
  6. Land sold to Mr Millen of Clare Cottage
  7. Clare Cottage
  8. Whitegates House​
Plot 60 became the Baldwins Lane recreation ground
 
In the 1960s, properties 5,6,7 and 8 were all sold to developers to create Whitegates Close.
Nabby Sear
During the first half of the 1900s, Lovatts was the home of a well- loved character called Nabby (Harry) Sear and his family. When he was a boy his family lived at the George and Dragon pub on Scots Hill and he went to work at Parrotts farm just off The Green. His mother, Jeanette Maria Sear, bought him a horse and as a young man he began buying fruit and vegetables including apples, cherries and potatoes that enabled him to start a small business selling them on at the Watford market.
He moved into Lovatts in the 1920's and progressed to having a farm including a herd of cows he pastured in fields down the Sarratt Lane near Redheath. The cows were driven twice a day from the fields to his milking parlour just behind the shops at the top of Scots Hill and opposite what is now Rickmansworth School. A passage way still exists that would have led to the parlour, now part of the Windmill Housing Estate. Nabby was not a 'commoner' and thus when driving the cows across The Green the cows had to keep moving and were not allowed to stop and graze.
 
During the Second World War,  Nabby  was able to take on Land Army girls to help out on the farm, driving tractors and lorries and assisting him and his two sons Clem and Terry. One of the girls, Phyllis Newell, married Clem Sear in 1946 and lived at the dairy house on Scots Hill with Terry who had married Marion Ewens of Chorleywood in 1944. The dairy business was sold in 1951 and Nabby passed away in 1952. Lovatts Farm was altered around this time so that Clem and Phyllis could live separately in Lovatts Cottage, where they raised two children, Christopher and Rachel. The name Lovatts is taken from a previous occupier of the house.
Clem Sear passed away in 1978 and Phyllis was forced to sell the house in 2013 due to failing health.
Picture
Nabby Sear in one of his fields, using a sickle to harvest vegetables
Picture
Phyllis Newell driving cows across the Green. Her mother Rose Newell stands on the right
Picture
Margaret Ryder delivering milk for Nabby Sear
Picture
Clem is driving the tractor and Terry controls the grass cutter
Picture
A land army girl waits in one of Nabby’s Austin lorries (HBO 512) while cabbages are harvested
Picture
Marion Nobbs on the right with another land army friend
Picture
Three land army girls on one of Nabby Sear's Fordson tractors. Note the steel rear wheels used to gain traction on muddy soil, suggesting that Nabby’s farm was well equipped.
Picture
Front view of Nabby's Austin van van with Terry Sear at the wheel
Picture
Rear view of Nabby's Austin van
Picture
Lovatts in the final stages of conversion into two properties. Ca.1960. Note the central front door frame to the original Lovatts Farm.
Picture
Lovatts Farm in the early 1950s undergoing conversion into two semi-detached houses with removal of the original front door. The property to the right is Tudor Cottage which has been extended more recently.
Picture
CGHP are proud to be included on the Imperial War Museum "Mapping the Centenary" project website. You can see other projects HERE and our project HERE
© Ross Humphries
Clicking on a photo will open it in a new window to hopefully be viewable more easily​
Please contact us should you wish to contribute or have images you would like to share. Contact HERE
Picture
© Croxley Green History Project 2025        Legal | Privacy

If you have any questions or comments please use the contact page