d only two had w.c.s: the water supply, provided by the estate, was inadequate to cope with any increased demand should the houses be modernised. In other respects the cottages were in good repair, with many of the thatched roofs recently overhauled. The cottage rental was £411, plus £25 for the village allotments.
As well as Park Farm, the estate kept 267 a. of woodland in hand, of which 200 a. had been clear felled during the war, although at the time of the Penrhyn sale a good deal of mature oak remained in some of the coppices, as well as hedge and field timber.
At the time of the 1945 sale, the Wicken estate was let for £4,074 gross, £2,100 net. The Merchant Venturers were advised that it was a first class investment: although about £1,000 would have to be spent on immediate repairs and wages, and initially there might be no net income, within about five years the estate should be producing 2½-3 per cent. Farm rentals should be raised as opportunity allowed; the mansion should if possible be let, rather than sold, as the Society tended to do elsewhere; and about £7,000 could be raised quite quickly from the sale of timber, after which the woods should be let to the Forestry Commission.
The Society generally followed these recom mendations over the next thirty years and also sold (unmodernised) the cottages not let with the farms. Apart from two cottages built in 1949 for Wicken Park Farm, the Society left the provision of new housing to the local council, to which they sold building land as required. The former estate water supply was also transferred (as a gift) to the R.D.C. in 1948. (fn. 313) The mansion was let almost at once to a private schools syndicate, (fn. 314) and in 1949, after timber to the value of £12,000 had been sold, the woodland was leased to the Forestry Commission for 200 years at £43 16s. 6d. a year. The estate was extended in 1951 by the purchase of 128 a. of glebe land and cottages, bringing the total outlay to £103,000 for 3,170 a. At the end of 1958 the gross income had risen to £9,