He described his memories from the 1930s of how he would walk from  Church Road, through ‘a kissing gate leading to an avenue of lime trees, leading to a footbridge and a meadow behind the church and the school. Then we pass the wide gate opening onto the school yard playground, and the elementary school standing well back, with the headmaster’s house adjoining. We are now in Church Walk which takes us up a rise to the hamlet where our family lived. Our family home had as its postal address No1 Church Wlk, but it has changed now to No.3 Church Road, to co-ordinate with modern building and traffic developments.

All the cottages in the hamlet, fifteen in all, were originally “tied cottages”, which meant they were built for workers at the Hall Farm, a little further along the road. The Hall was , I suppose, originally a kind of manor House, but it was not acknowledged as such in my parents days. The owner of the Hall was Thomas Carter {ed. note this was Ena Carter’s father-in-law}, who therefore became landlord to the inhabitants of all the tied cottages.

Today we might call our houses “units”, but at the turn of the century they were called houses or cottages. Our family lived in the first of a row of three ‘houses’ under one roof. They were set back from the road by about a chain, in a row parallel to the road. The fronts and backs of the house were built in brick, but the ends of the block were made in lath and plaster, pebble dashed on the outside. The roofs were slate, and did not need such a high pitch as thatch. Each house had a brick chimney, with three flues in each. All the front doors were fitted with letter-boxes, used by the postman, and the paper boy in the 1930s. This block of two-storied houses had iron window frames with casement lights, so paintwork was minimal. The paint of the front doors added a dash o colour, reflecting the wish of the resident of each unit.

“Separated by a wide strip of garden, including Uncle Happy’s fowl yard, the next block of three cottages stood at right angles to the road. A path ran from the road along one side of the block and gave access to the three houses. These were probably older than the other blocks, being built in oak timbering with plaster between the studs. They were two-storied dwellings, with a steeply pitched thatched roof, topped by rather stumpy chimneys and chimney pots. This meant they had only one flue, and consequently just one fireplace in each house.”

Moving along up the footpath by the road, we find a stone wall, running right along the three large garden plots and the next block of three houses, up to a wide carriageway leading to the back of the next two blocks, and continuing up beside the carriageway. That block was the most imposing of all our four blocks, probably because it was the last to be built. It was taller than all the rest, made of red brick and tile roof, with full height on both floors. These houses had sash windows, so the glass panes were larger than those with casement windows. The road sloped gently upwards, so I suppose these houses were at the highest point of the Uplands of stow, apart from the Hall, which stood on a slightly higher rise.

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Moving on to the last block, we find the wall continued, down the side of the wide cartway, and along the public footpath till we come to a pond, which collected water from two ditches and stood stagnant until the cottagers used it up to water the gardens in dry seasons. This block of six dwellings was set further back than the three and was covered by a long thatched roof with one brick chimney for each house, and had weatherboard sides preserved with brown creosote. The windows were casement style, with small leaded panes, giving the cottages a quaint look. They were called the “Barn Cottages” and it was easy to see why. The building was originally a very large barn which had been adapted to make six cottages. The builders had squeezed in an upper storey for bedrooms, all of which had sloping ceilings, making it difficult for adults to stand upright near the windows. Certainly ‘quaint’ would have better described the barn Cottages then ‘comfortable’.