The Church and the Cottage

Today we feature another of the wonderful sketches by Philip Wynell Mayow. This one, like many of them, was drawn in 1837.

Market Lavington Church – a sketch by Philip Wynell Mayow drawn in 1837

We are looking at the northwest corner in this image. Our artist was standing somewhere near the path that leads up from the Community Hall to the church although that whole area was completely remodelled when the Community Hall was built. The church, from that angle, is comparatively unchanged but to the left of it there was a cottage, or maybe two cottages.

Long gone cottages by the churchyard

There is no trace of this building today and nor has there been in living memory – unless you know different.

But once again, we can see the building on the tithe map of 1840.

Then tithe map does show the building

On this part of the map number 76 is the church so 78 is where that cottage stands. The cottage itself is number 77. The apportionment lists number 77 as two cottages belonging to Henry Legg and Elizabeth Legg and occupied by James Brown and John Douval.

The surrounding area 78 actually belonged to Duncan Pleydell Bouverie but was in the possession of Thomas Fowle.

So we have another great image which is bringing to life a forgotten part of our village.

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Northbrook Cottage

A recent gift to the museum is a watercolour painting depicting the former Tudor cottage on Northbrook. The cottage stood close by the bridge which carried the road called Northbrook over the stream of the same name.

The Tudor Cottage on Northbrook – a watercolour by Roy McGrath

The artist (who was not the donor) has signed his work.

He was R McGrath – Roy.

At present we cannot be 100% sure just who he was, but we believe he married Linda Sheppard in 1937 in Market Lavington and that the couple lived on the sands just to the north of the village centre. We also believe that the McGrath family moved to Tisbury in the early 1950s so we can probably date the painting to that period of time.

Roy also titled his picture.

Of course, we’d have recognised the scene without a title. This delightful little cottage was well known and certainly was the home of Tommy Burden for many years.

To be generous to developers, the old house had passed its use by date and one day it was demolished and a house more suited to family life was built in its place. Many villagers think it was an act of wanton vandalism but very few people will say they’d have liked to have lived in the old cottage.

Roy, perhaps, has captured a lady who did live there.

We think this painting is absolutely fantastic. It needs a little frame restoration and then we’ll find space for it, somewhere, on the walls of the museum.

Huge thanks to Gaile, the donor. Her parents had been friends of Roy.

 

From the old rec

Once upon a time, the recreation field in Market Lavington was behind what is now Shires Close. This view is taken from that field.

Market Lavington from the old recreation ground on The Spring

Our caption tells us that this was before the garage was built. But of course, the garage, built in about 1967, is now long gone itself and the houses of Shires Close stand there. But let’s take a look at what we have got in the picture.

Grove Farm

This is the Grove Farmhouse which, for many years was the home of the Francis family. Amongst other activities they milked cows and had a milk round – buckets and bicycle style – in the village.

Grove Farm has vanished under the Grove Farm estate and the Community Hall now stands just in front of where the farm house once stood.

St Mary’s Church – unchanging over the years (unless you look at older photos and sketches).  The area in the foreground of this part of the photo was once occupied by mobile classrooms for Market Lavington School and is now occupied by a pair of houses.

St Mary’s Church

Meadow Cottage

Meadow Cottage is still in place and looks much the same except that the thatched roof is now tiled. This was the birthplace, back in 1921, of our museum founder, Peggy Gye although, of course, she was Peggy Welch then. We can just see one corner of our museum, peeping between Meadow Cottage and the church.

We don’t have a date for this photo but the complete absence of TV aerials makes us think it is actually pre 1953. But maybe somebody out there can advise us with more accuracy.

Flo Burbidge

Here we present a lovely portrait photo of Flo Burbidge.

Flo Burbidge at a Knapp Farm Cottage in the 1920s

Flo, as has been mentioned before on this blog, was born in 1908 at our museum building and it was there that she was brought up. As far as we know she was the last baby to have been born in the old schoolmaster’s house which we use as our museum.

After Flo married Bert Shore in 1940, the couple lived in Market Lavington Market Place.

But this photo was taken outside a now demolished cottage near Knapp Farm. This photo dates from the 1920s. The cottage was demolished in the 1930s. It had been the coachman’s cottage for Knapp Farm.

The cottage was owned by members of the Hopkins family and after it was demolished they built three pairs of semi-detached houses on the site.

Brick workers’ cottages

This is not the best photo in terms of sharpness, but our records of the old cottages which stood near the brickworks on Broadway are limited. It is good to have something which shows these cottages.

Brick workers’ cottages on Broadway, Market Lavington

These cottages, long since demolished (we saw the site they had stood on in a previous posting – click here) were occupied by the men who worked at the Lavington Brick and Tile works. They were family homes for the men and look to have been presentable buildings. We can only imagine that with the brick works closed, nobody wanted to live in them. They are a long haul from any facilities. Again, we guess they fell into a state of decay. This could have been happening when this photo was taken, probably in the 1950s. Our only other photo of one of the pairs of cottages shows them with chimney pots on the stacks.

Amongst families we know lived in these homes were the Davidge family and a branch of the Plank family.

But as ever, we’d like to know more and hope somebody out there can help us.

Hillside

Hillside is a cottage on White Street which was once the home of Mrs Elisha. May Elisha was a former Miss Potter and was the very long term infant teacher at Market Lavington School. Our photo today shows May outside this house.

Hillside at the bottom of Lavington Hill in 1932

May Elisha stands in the doorway

Yes, there is May, framed in her doorway and looking every inch the young housewife.

It is particularly good to have May’s annotation on the back of the photo.

There we are. It was June 1932, the house is named and we know it was May’s first home.

The caption continues.

Many years ago the snow reached the roof! So I have been told.

I wonder if any weather historians might be able to pick a year for such an event. The snow, no doubt bad enough, may well have got deeper in the telling.

It’s a lovely picture of a house still standing, but no longer under a thatch roof. And three cheers for good captioning.

Ernest and Arthur Oram

This isn’t the first time, and it probably won’t be the last time that Market Lavington’s Jubilee Cottage occupies a slot on the Market Lavington Museum blog. The cottage was built at the time of Queen Victoria’s Golden Jubilee in 1887 by Robert Oram. Descendants of Robert are still active in the village and even more dispersed members of the family are great supporters of the museum.

Here we have Ernest and Arthur Oram standing outside the cottage.

Jubilee Cottage on Northbrook, Market Lavington with Ernest and Arthur oram standing outside

Ernest and Arthur Oram of Northbrook, Market Lavington

There we see the two men, leaning on the fence, and both wearing leather gaiters to protect lower trousers from mud.

Ernest was born about 1902 and Arthur in 1904. They were the children of Henry Robert and Matilda Oram which would make them the grandsons of the Robert Oram who built the cottage. As far as we know, Robert still occupied Jubilee Cottage in 1911 but Henry Robert, Matilda and seven children lived elsewhere on Northbrook.

Perhaps by the time this photo was taken the next generation had moved into Jubilee Cottage. We think this must date from the 1920s.

Both men lived their lives in or around Market Lavington and Devizes.

Looking at the house, we can see the strange carved head above the door.

Carved head above the door of Jubille Cottage, Market Lavington

That no longer exists and neither do the flower pots built onto the gate posts.

Flowerpot on the gatepost of Jubilee Cottage, Market Lavington.

The windows have been altered too, but the cottage still looks much the same as it did then.

The Tudor Cottage on Northbrook

As Frank Sinatra said, ‘regrets, I’ve had a few’. And it is regrettable that this little cottage failed to survive. Mind you, you won’t think that if you live in the decent modern house that now occupies the same plot. Many people, however, feel it a great shame that this cottage was consigned to oblivion as recently as 1984.

Tudor cottage on Northbrook, Market Lavington. For many years this was the home of Tommy Burden

The cottage, which stood close by the bridge where the road called Northbrook crosses the stream, does look very attractive – an idyllic reminder of past times.

This idyllic cottage was demolished in 1984

It is possible to imagine this cottage as the home of Little Red Riding Hood’s grandma. No wonder some locals called it the witch’s cottage or the Noddy House.

One suspects it was originally thatched. It has that steeply pitched roof that indicates this, as well as an absence of guttering.

Having quoted Frank Sinatra, I’ll mention another hit of the 60s – ‘Out of Time’ by Chris Farlowe. For, I suppose this cottage just ran out of the right kind of time.

It was small, and suited to be a bachelor pad or maybe a nest for newlyweds. But these became the people who didn’t have time or inclination for a high maintenance house and garden. Nobody actually wanted to live there and take on the responsibility for the place. It stood empty for some years before demolition.

Our museum founder, Peggy Gye, was always of the opinion that time couldn’t stand still and that our village must develop. She would also have put any regrets behind her.

The cottage has gone and we can’t bring it back. The replacement house is suited to modern living and the village has moved on.

But at the museum we have preserved the heritage of both Market Lavington and Easterton, at least in photos. And that, of course, includes photos and memories of this cottage which for many years was the home of Tommy Burden.

Down Lavington Hill

Today we have a lovely shot down Lavington Hill and on to White Street with St Mary’s Church as a backdrop.

A view down Lavington Hill to White Street and beyond in about 1940

We do not have a date for this photo but electricity wires clearly cross the scene and it was before the cottages on the right were demolished. It could be the 1940s or 50s.

Let’s start at the back with the church.

St Mary’s, Market Lavington stands on its hill

It sits on its raised area, above the level of much of the rest of the village. It is always uphill to finally reach the church, whether you approach from Church Street, Roman Way or from St Mary’s Road. A dedication to St Mary is quite common for a church on a hill.

In front of the church we see the cottages that face up Lavington Hill with their interesting fluted chimneys.

These cottages are still there and face up Lavington Hill

The cottages on the right have been demolished and replaced by new dwellings set back from the road.

These Lavington Hill cottages have been demolished

On the left, down past the junction, we can see barns associated with Knapp Farm.

Buildings at Knapp Farm, Market Lavington

All in all, it is quite a different view from what we’d see today, although the centrepieces of church and cottages are more or less unchanged.

Where cottages once stood

Broadway, Market Lavington was once the home of the Lavington Brick, Tile and Pottery Company. That ceased production around the time of World War II and local cottages, which had once housed workers were no longer needed.

Britain was in post war austerity at the time and when rubble was needed to assist with road improvements at the Black Dog crossroads, it was acquired locally. The Broadway Cottages were demolished and the demolition materials were used to help form the foundation of a better roadway.

In 1958 a photographer – we don’t know who – recorded the scene where the cottages had been.

Site of Broadway Cottages, Market Lavington’ The photo dates from 1958

Presumably the unknown lady visitor was standing on what had been the base of the cottages. Was she, we wonder, a former resident visiting her former home? The picture, sadly, is not of good enough quality to allow for enlargement, but maybe somebody will recognise the lady.

At least the photo was well captioned as to location and date.

Photo caption. What a shame it doesn’t name the person.

Broadway Cottages when Lavington bricks were still being made.

These were the cottages in earlier and happier days, clearly lived in for smoke issues from the chimneys.

We’d like to know more about these homes – their precise location for one thing. Can you help?