No, my late father and his business partner actually owned the grass drying business at Merryfield! As well as the ones at Weston Zoyland, Dunkeswell and Lulsgate.
The smell which used to hang over Ilton was originally due to broiler chickens - but later when the old Officers' Mess site was sold we bought it and kept up to 3000 pigs in it. Some said that this improved the standard of the place! Tried for years to sell the land for building, but the planning authorities wouldn't hear of it! Finally successful in around 1972 - when they came round to see whether there was indeed any 'agricultural odour' affecting the village we arranged for the slurry tank to be stirred up just before they arrived. Sorry about that!
The only Meteor prang I remember was a RN target tower which came to grief on the threshold of 26 - but pointing East! No-one was hurt in that one.
I don't think that the large chicken farm at Isle Abbots was built until long after the 1950s?
Farmers I remember were Dick Lucas and Morley Goodland. Who was John F?