Horace and Ethel Wells came to Manor Farm Kilby 82 years ago with a daughter aged two (now Mable Stepehens) and in the following year a son was born.

(Picture showing Mrs Wells outside Manor Farm before the railing were removed during the war.)

Horace was an ex-serviceman and Manor Farm is where he started farming with 5 cows. Ethel helped on the farm and was a member of the Mother's Union and the Women's Institute, also serving as treasurer and secretary of the Langham Memorial Church for 50 years. Mable has carried on the tradition of service by playing the organ for the past 72 years.

Colin Doughery, an author and Methodist preacher in his book "Why Me" speaks of his visit to take the usual evening service a this Congregational Church. The village was without electricity in those days and the heating and lighting equipment was rather unreliable. On the occasion of Colin's visit the temperature in the Church was less than welcoming and he, as many other preachers before him, came down to Manor Farm to conducted the worship by the light of candles and the comfort of a beautiful blazing fire.

(The pump shown below is in the yard at Manor Farm and was their only source of water for many years.)

Many of the preachers came from Leicester and usually caught the Bromley bus from the Horse and Trumpet at a quarter to two, coming to Manor Farm for tea. Then they took the service at 6.15pm going home later on the same bus at 8.00pm

Four generations of the Wells family have lived at Manor Farm and have enjoyed the village life and farming. Horace represented Kilby on the Blaby Rural District Council, for many years attending meetings at the Council Offices at Blaby. The family was delighted to have Wells Avenue named after our parents and grandparents.

Horace was a governor of the village school at which three consecutive generations have attended. Mable taught sewing and needlework there for 17 years.

(Picture showing children at Kilby School celebrating May Day. One of the little girls is Horace and Ethel's granddaughter)

Horace and Ethel had five grandchildren and the eldest grandson Paul Stephens, now runs the same farm.

Bricks above a bedroom window on Manor Farm carry the engraved inscription W.D. & T.W. 1814, this presumable being the initials of the craftsman and the date of the construction.

In 1967, a Mrs Evelyn Dixon of Brisbane, Queensland, came to visit Manor Farm where her father William Draycott and his family had lived for some time. There are many gravestones bearing the Draycott name in the parish churchyard.

Although little is known of these predecessors of the Wells family at Manor Farm at least the foregoing gives a rather fuller picture of life at Manor Farm and its residents since 1924.

Manor Farm is a listed building dating back to 1814. Little has changed except for the railing being removed during the war to make ammunitions for the war effort and of course the building of 5 houses in the field opposite, now Wells Avenue.

Manor Farm in the 1911 showing field opposite where 5 houses now stand.