Elms/Elm Tree Farm (now Tramps Hall)  Fairstead Lane

The first reference to the name Elms Farm or The Elms can be found in Kelly's Norfolk Directory for 1892, but the house and adjoining barn are very much older than that. A report by the Norfolk Historic Buildings Group suggested that, based on the timber work of its construction, the barn dates from about 1600 so there was a farm here from at least then although the currrent house was built about a hundred years, probably replacing an earlier one. In the Manorial Court records ownership can be traced back to 1720 when the owner was Richard Kett, but as with so many farms, the early owners were investing landlords rather than farmers. At the time of the Enclosure Award in 1818, the farm was owned by Daniel Coppin when he was granted additional land from the manorial wastes and commons in Tasburgh, extending his property down the hill as far as the river. The Enclosure Award map shows that the farm also included land to the south of Church Road, now comprising Longwood House and the eastern part of Valley Road. Again, it seems likely that the farm was let rather than occupied by him, because when he bought it in 1809 he was described as a Norwich painter and when he died in 1822 he was buried in St. Stephen's churchyard in the centre of Norwich.

The Manorial Court records for 1824  registered a sale of the farm by his widow, Margaret,  for £2,260 to William Gwyn who at the time was living in Bergh Apton but a year later purchased and moved to Tasburgh Lodge, since rebuilt as Tasburgh Hall. Rather than letting the farm however, it seems clear that William Gwyn farmed it himself in conjunction with Hall Farm, because during his ownership almost all of the occupants revealed in the census returns were described as agricultural labourers, with none described as farmers. That also fits with his own census entries where he is shown as farming rather more land than just went with Hall Farm.

William Gwyn died in 1880 and it seems his executors quickly let farm, as the census return for 1881 records the occupant of the farmhouse as Walter Watts, a 36 year old farmer from Hackford near Wymondham , with his wife and three young sons. On the farm he employed two men and a boy and they also had a 16 year old girl as a live-in general servant, but there then followed a series of farmers in quick succession, with Arthur Betts recorded in 1891, Mrs Ellen Tallowin farming there in 1896 perhaps in succession to her husband, George Attoe in 1901 and Arthur Wilby in 1904. This last entry, from Kelly's Norfolk Directory, gives a possible clue as to the identity of the purchaser of the property following William Gwyn's death. In about 1888 Tasburgh Lodge and Hall Farm had been bought by Philip Berney Ficklin, who in 1903 also bought Malthouse Farm, now Tasburgh Grange. The auction particulars for Malthouse Farm named Arthur Wilby as the tenant, and if Mr Berney Ficklin was already the owner of Elms Farm it would have been relatively simple for him to put Mr Wilby into Elms Farm in place of Mr Attoe. Further, the auction particulars of the adjoining Hill Farm sold by Sir Charles Harvey of Rainthorpe Hall in 1903 reveal that Mr Berney Ficklin also owned land in the area, perhaps originally part of Elms Farm, which he included as part of the sale of Hill Farm. Longwood House was also built on land leased from Mr Berney Ficklin, all of which seems to confirm that he had bought the whole of Elms Farm from the executors of William Gwyn.

The 1911 census shows that Arthur Wilby was a 50 year old widower, originally from Gissing. Living in the house with him were his three adult sons, and as the oldest, William, was 34, it seems Arthur must have been a father at 16 although ages and birth dates were not always accurately recorded. The household at the time also included William's wife and four young children, plus Arthur's two unmarried sisters. He was succeeded by Henry Bennett, who Kelly's name as the farmer at Elms Farm in 1916, and may have been the purchaser of the farm when it had been sold in 1914. In May 1924 the farm was offered for sale by auction (Norfolk Record Office ref. BR 241/4/78) with almost 88 acres of arable and pasture land and extensive farm buildings but the plan of the farm didn't include the land on Church Road, suggesting that Mr Berney-Ficklin had retained ownership of that when he sold in 1914. The house was described as having an entrance lobby, two sitting rooms, kitchen, scullery, storeroom, dairy and cellarage plus three bedrooms and three attics, and was occupied by Mr F A Stone, possibly the owner of the Norwich tailors of the same name on Prince of Wales Road. He had been given notice to quit but otherewise the property was being sold with vacant possession. The auction particulars show that the seller was the mortgagee in possession, so the purchaser in 1914 had clearly run into financial difficulties, but a hand written note on the particulars indicates that the property failed to reach its reserve and was withdrawn at £1750. The following year Kelly's Directory shows the occupants of the farm as Everson and Son, hay and straw dealers, so it seems possible that they may have been the subsequent purchasers. What relations they may have been to the brothers Albert and George Everson, who were renting White Horse Farm in 1939 or to John Everson and his sons Russell and George who bought Old Hall Farm in 1944, isn't clear.

  By 1937 Kelly's was showing Sidney Jackson as the farmer, and the 1939 Registration has its address as Elm Tree Farm, which is the name used by William Moore in his memories of Tasburgh in the 1940s and 50s. He says that after the war Sidney Jackson ran a sand and gravel merchant's business, extracting material from a pit at the bottom of the hill. The fact that he was able to extract and sell sand and gravel would suggest that he would have been the owner, rather than just the tenant, in which case it seems he would have bought the farm from the Eversons.