Broadwell Leigh and neighbours

Broadwell Leigh, formerly known as Broadwell Nook, is a four hundred year old home on White Street in Market Lavington.

It is attached to and set at right angles from other dwellings and these have all featured in several of the postcards in our collections at the museum. Pictured at different times during the twentieth century, they tell a story of development and alterations.

This terrace of houses, all thatched, is at the back of the photograph in Broadwell 1929.

Looking down White Street in this 1940’s postcard, we see these old homes in their setting towards the bottom of the hill.

We run into trouble trying to put the next few images in date order.

The next card is undated. It is from a time when there was still a little wooded area opposite, behind a wall topped with railings. The lady with a pram further down White Street is wearing quite a long skirt (maybe Edwardian?) and the house below our terrace has a lamp on the wall. Possibly from the days of acetylene lamps before electricity came to the village in 1926.

Our records date the picture below to 1954.

There have obviously been roadworks. Piped water came in 1937 and sewers were installed in 1957. Another postcard, dated as 1950s does not have the roadworks visible. The people definitely appear to be wearing 1950s fashions.

The houses are still thatched, but those facing the road have had their white painted surface removed. To add to our confusion, our next picture claims to be from the 1960s.

The forward facing houses are not white here either, but just look at Broadwell Nook (later Leigh). Its stonework looks old and in need of a facelift. Compare it with the two previous cards, in which this work seems to have been done already. We have a copy of this card elsewhere in our collection. On the back of it is scrawled a date.

Now is this really 1960’s or could it be 1950’s?

Let’s move on. Our final postcard is from the 1970s.

Here we see the corner of Broadwell Leigh, still thatched, but the adjoining building is now tiled. The playground at Broadwell is clearly visible, but that has recently been updated yet again and all the apparatus in the 1970s picture has gone. (See Broadwell – 1970 and now.)

So that concludes our Broadwell cottages time travel. We apologise for the confusing chronology!