We thought you might like to know a little history of Sunnymead farm, well anyhow as much history as we know, it may not be entirely factually correct as our knowledge has come from old photos and stories from local people.
Sunnymead Farmhouse was built in the 1930's, by a local farmer, and at that time was called Upper Bickenbridge, during the second world war it became home to American troops who were based in North Devon and did training on the beaches here and the burrows at Braunton. We found signs of them whilst trying to put fencing up in 1994, everytime the postholer went into the ground in certain areas such as the camping field entrance it would become entangled in metal rods, these same rods can be seen all over the burrows at Braunton as they were used to support the heavy vehicles accross soft ground.
The officers were housed in the farmhouse and the troops where housed, in a row of Nizzan huts along the north boundry of the land. One of these huts was still here when we moved in.
Sometime after the war Upper Bickenbridge as it was still known then became a chicken farm and I can remember as a child being driven past on the way to Woolacombe thinking how wonderful it must be to live there. To our knowledge it carried on trading as a commercial egg producing chicken farm up until the late 1980's, eggs were still produced on the land but not on the same scale.
The farm name was changed sometime in the 1980's we believe from Upper Bickenbridge to Sunnymead Farm.
Today you will still find chickens on the farm but the majority of them are ex-battery hens.
