Stonehouse Farm

Stonehouse Farm - J.J. Dixon Dairy.

Stonehouse farm and Dixon's Dairy were for many years synonymous although in latter years the loss of pastures to the ever encroaching housing developments turned what had been a dairy farm into a dairy selling pre-bottled milk. Even this came to an end brought by retirement and the ever-changing methods of milk production based on ever larger dairies. A letter reproduced below from Yvonne Dixon now Yvonne Hewett paints a picture of what life was like.

The Letter

STONEHOUSE FARM, WROXHAM ROAD, SPROWSTON, ------ J.J. DIXON AND SONS. All is familiar to me being part of my heritage as the house, farm and dairy become treasured family memories.

My grandfather Joseph J Dixon with his wife Edith, build up their dairy business possibly prior to the Great War. The dates are unclear. The herd had plenty of grazing land, named Dixons field now an area of housing development-Stonehouse Road and Blenheim Road.

Sprowston, at that time, with a small population meant sales and delivery is had to be aimed at the expanding Norwich. Door to door service known as "Dip a Can " this being a measuring can with a long handle to extract the milk from the container. The delivery vehicles were by handcart or horse drawn carriage.

My parents, Stanley and Joy, gradually came into the business at the time of change. The 1930s saw the Dixon and grazing land begin to shrink at the expense of housing development, meant the herds would have to go, and to stay in the business by having to import milk for bottling. During the war and for a time after wards, my mother Joy took to deliveries driving the first of the J. J. Dixon vans - no driving test needed. A long serving member of the dairy was George Pipe who partly covered the area by handcart.

In the late 1940s J. J. Dixon had installed the latest pasteurising and sterilising equipment giving the dairy much acclaim throughout the county and duly recognised as the "Model Dairy".

I have memories as a young girl operating these units, also the bottle filling and capping with those cardboard inserts. Another of my duties that put me off milk for years after --- tasting milk samples.

Grandfather died in 1951 and soon after the units were dismantled, therefore closing down the bottling operation. Dixons now became a distributor of "ready bottled milk" and invested in larger vehicles and an electric operated handcart. The business had four large rounds penetrating Thorpe and Norwich, such was the demand for Dixon's milk. When father died in 1965 my mother Joy decided to take the business onwards. That she did for 15 years, then in 1980 she retired and the rounds were taken over by Dairy Crest.

Our old maps show the area as "Gurney of Walsingham" and Cozens Hardy Road shown as “Cattonham”. This Stonehouse was never rated as a listed building and despite the erection of new properties in the vicinity appears to add lustre to the old house.

By Yvonne Hewett nee Dixon (Feb. 2002).

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  Stone House Farm Dairy, Sprowston. J.J.Dixon The 1930s

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  Stone House Farm: Stanley Dixon with his dairy herd in Dixons Field, 1938.

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  Caption Joy wife of Stanley Dixon at Stone House Dairy farm.

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  Stone House Farm. J.J.Dixon, milk delivery, prior to the van.

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  Stone House Farm. Early J.J.Dixon milk delivery van. 1930s

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  J,J,DIXON Milk Delivery Vans of two eras Top. 1950 ? Bottom 1970 ?