Heavy rain all last night.
Out with Mr. Craig tonight [a member of the War Agricultural Committee], and surveyed Brickhouse Farm, Ipswich Road, (Mr. Williams).
Rudsdale was undertaking this survey as part of the National Farm Survey, which began in 1941 and continued until 1943. The Survey was seen as a 'Second Domesday Book', and as a 'permanent and comprehensive record of the conditions on the farms of England and Wales'. The Survey aimed to inspect farmland to maximise food production for the war effort and to inform post-war planning but also, more controversially, to grade farmers according to their perceived capabilities to manage a farm. Farmers receiving a low grade were more likely to have their farms taken over by the County War Agricultural Committee.
Today the Survey returns provide an important record of land ownership and land use in the 1940s and are available to view at the National Archives.
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