Rains Farm - historical connections ...
The earliest records we have been able to find regarding Rains Farm are for the 1600s when Rains Farm belonged to the Dawney Estate. Farms were often named after their tenants and in 1666 a Jamese Raines (spelt as per the records) paid One Pound Five Shillings and One Penny to the estate. The farm was spelt with an ‘e’ in ‘Rains’ but over the years this has been omitted - probably due to a clerical error.
Ray Allanson (now late husband of Jean and late father of Lorraine, proprietors of Rains Farm Holidays) came with his family to work on the farm in July 1959.
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Domesday Book ...
Rains Farm - the home of Rains Farm Holidays - is situated between the villages of Allerston and Yedingham in North Yorkshire, England - one mile from each.
In the Doomsday Book, Allerston was recorded as Alverstain through to Alverstane in the 12-13th centuries, and Allerstain in 1258-1408; Ollerston in the 16th and 17th Centuries and arriving at Allerston from the mid-1600s onwards. Legend has it that Charles I spent a night at the Inn at Allerston (now the Cayley Arms) during fighting against the roundheads in the Scarborough area.
Earliest records ...
The earliest records we have been able to find regarding Rains Farm are for the 1600s when Rains Farm belonged to the Dawney Estate. Farms were often named after their tenants and in 1666 a Jamese Raines (spelt as per the records) paid One Pound Five Shillings and One Penny to the estate. We believe this must have been the rental for Rains Farm. The farm was spelt with an ‘e’ in the Rains but then over the years this has been omitted - probably due to a clerical error.
From the Dawney Estate records - which have been transcribed from 1666 to 1723 - it is possible to trace who was the tenant and how much they paid in rents twice a year on Lady Day and Michaelmas. It appears that different parts of the land were rented by different farmers. Many of the field names are still used today. Examples are Booth Ings, Greenehill (a flat field on the way to Yedingham, not a hill at all) and Boone Cliffe. Close by are Rains Wood and Rains Dyke. At some point the farm stopped being part of the Dawnay Estate to belonging to the Cayley Estate. At that time it realised £4,700 for the farmhouse, buildings and 155 acres of land.
World War II ...
When one couple came to stay at the farm, the husband recalled his memories of the farm, as a boy during the second world war. He could remember many of the details. At that time, the valley was used for training for the D-Day landings. Soldiers used to sleep in hen huts which were scattered all around the fields. He alleges that ‘Monty’ came to visit the farm, and that Churchill also came to the Yorkshire Wolds and inspected tank troops on exercise. He spent the night in a train parked deep in a tunnel to avoid attack.
Ray Allanson (now late husband of Jean and late father of Lorraine, proprietors of Rains Farm Holidays) came with his family to work on the farm in July 1959. He had been involved in mechanisation at a previous farm where he had worked, and he now set about mechanising the work at Rains Farm. Later, in 1974, he was able to take up the tenancy of the farm because the people farming it previously were advancing in years. The tenancy continued for 16 years.
Recent days ...
In the early 1980s, when his wife, Jean Allanson, accepted redundancy from her work in the kitchens of a local school, she began to explore other ways of expanding their income from the farm. Initially this only involved selling eggs and cakes at the farm gates, but this eventually led to providing teas for tourists in the summer, and finally to the establishment of a small café offering light meals and Sunday lunches. Her daughter Lorraine (now a partner in the business and its business manager) was the cheerful waitress that everyone remembered!
Since then the changes at Rains Farm have naturally moved from one thing to the next, following the purchase of the farm from the previous owner in 1990. First the bed and breakfast facilities were opened on a modest scale, then, after Ray Allanson’s sad death in 1994, work began on transforming the unused farm outbuildings into the present holiday cottages with their extensive grounds including an imposing courtyard, well-stocked gardens, and numerous historic features.
Up until then, the buildings had been used for a variety of agricultural purposes. Dove cottage (originally the kitchen for the farmhouse) had chickens living above, Granary cottage had a mill for crushing grain upstairs and a workshop below. Orchard cottage included the 1940s milking parlour. Primrose was also a granary, and Wren had been a stable - and had also housed a turnip-cutter (used to cut turnips up to make cattle feed).
Original herringbone flooring and the cobbles from the former milking parlour were saved to be used as features in the newly-developed courtyard; old beams, historic bread-ovens and kitchen ranges were reinstated in some of the transformed cottages and other items discovered during the refurbishment were carefully protected until work was completed seven months later.
The present day ...
Finally the bed and breakfast accommodation was refurbished over time and all rooms provided with their own en-suite facilities. Since then there has been further work on the grounds and gardens, regular improvements of the interiors and of course ongoing maintenance. So three and a half centuries after it was originally rented by Jamese Raines for One Pound Five Shillings and One Penny , Rains Farm now welcomes visitors from around the world in its new role providing luxury holiday accommodation for the 21st Century.
Use the menu system to explore our cottages and B & B accommodation, as well as other articles about the history of the farm and its transformation.