The old Club Room and Adjoining Cottages 188

The old Club Room and Adjoining Cottages

 

The third window going left of the doorway  where the roof is very low  is the store room for the club room. In the picture below is how it used to look, with a thatched roof, a very small house one up one down

The old club room is situated on the end of Smithy Lane, and was used mainly by the men of the village, to play cards and snooker, on a Monday and Wednesday nights.  On Friday nights it would be set up for the weekly whist drive, having up to eight tables.

The fire would be lit on a rota by one of the community a couple of hours before the event, and an old electric fire at the opposite end of the room.  this would warm the room almost hot but never got on top of the damp.

Next door, was a very thatched small house, the roof was rotting away, so it was converted into a store room for the club.  The door was bricked up and the roof was tiled and the front hedge pulled out, as was the old hedge round to Smithy Lane.

These two cottages are now amalgamated into one cottage, the front door to the thatched cottage is behind the pyramid bush on the right  in the picture

The middle house of the three was occupied by Norman and Flossie Brown. Norman worked at Green Farm for Reg Fairbanks and did all the hedge laying, and building the bays and stacks of hay and corn. Again when the Cumbers houses were built Norman and Flossie moved into number 2, and lived there throughout their retirement.

The third house away from the village hall was lived in by Mr Hill, who was cowman for Charlie Finnimore at Yews Farm.

The last two houses above were knocked into one, the front door into the third house was along the side , and that was the one that was bricked up, and with internal adjustments, it became one house. 

Flower's cottage. 187

This old cottage is still standing, it has been stood empty now for over sixty years, its tiled roof has been kept in reasonable condition, it is half timbered with two rooms down and two up along with a lean too back kitchen round the back.

Flower's cottage.

One interesting feature is, it had its own well in the small stone structure in front of the house, seen in the picture left of the front door.

 It has a wide inglenook fire place beneath the only chimney and to one side in the cheeks of the inglenook is a built in bread oven. A fire of dry sticks and logs would be lit in that oven, and the smoke from it would go up the chimney within the inglenook, when hot enough the ashes would be raked out and bread and other items for cooking would be place in, the very hot bricks and tiles that form the floor and dome of the oven remained hot for quite q few hours. 

The last person to live here was Reg Flower and his family, they moved out in the 1950's into one of the new ten council houses that had just been built. Reg worked on Cooksland Hall farm for Eric Bennion, he was also a very good carpenter, and at weekends he turned barber, cutting the hair of most of the  farm men of the village.  

How we Lived in our Old House (1940 0nwards) 186

Lived here from 1942

How we Lived in our Old House

Insulations none existent, big jumper you must ware,

Half timbered single brick, few inches plaster of horse hair,

Frosty weather glistens inside, a fridge you could compare,

Roof half filled with starling’s nests, built up over the years.

Kitchens the warmest place, coal fire in big old range,

Heats the oven and boils, the kettle on the chimney crane,

Boils the taters and stew, toast the bread on a fork,

From the ceiling hangs a cloths drier, lifts and lowers on cord.

Bedroom bove the kitchen, only room upstairs warm,

Usually the kids have this room, that is always the norm,

Other rooms are chilled and cold, cool in summer though,

This is how we lived them days, kids now will never know.

Old iron bedstead webbed with steel, straw mattress on the top,

Then feather mattress covered with a white sheet she’d pop,

Mother made a groove up this, dropped us into bed,

A sheet two blankets and eiderdown, feather pillow lay ya head.

Best front room not often used, too posh to use every day,

Used over Christmas and party’s, best crockery out on display,

Fathers roll top desk in there, his bills and letters wait to pay,

Always locked cus of cash in their, he always had last say.

Now heating was a big open fire, ingle nook chimney above,

Logs as long as ya can lift, one end on the fire to shove,

The bigger the fire, bigger the draught across the floor,

The heat goes up the chimney, fresh air comes in under the door.

A cellar beneath front room, brick steps leading down,

Couple of vents to the garden, the mesh with weeds overgrown,

Air circulation its not good, and musty damp and wet,

Timber in the floor above, gone weak and springy pose a threat.

A room with settlass all way round, there to salt the pig,

Not been used now for many a year, doesn’t look so big,

Salt has drawn up the brickwork, all through to outside

Bricks are flaking and rotting, replace section of bricks decide.

Mother kept a big tin bath, hung on a nail outside back door,

Brought it in to the hearth, filled with kettle and big jug she pour,

Youngest first then nother kettle, warm it agen for the second,

Cold night our steaming little bodies, hot crisp towel it beckoned.

So we kids lived in the big kitchen, our bedroom top of back stairs,

Long old sofa under the window, father had his own armchair,

Big old peg rug in front of the fire, we played and sat on that,

Large old radio in the window, then hurray first tele in front we sat.

Countryman

And here from 1960 for 25 years

Looking back at pictures of my first farm 1960 185

 Some old picture of where I first started farming in 1960

Parts of the old farmhouse date back getting on for 300 years, the gable end front is part of the original house being half timbered. 

Judging by the pitch of the roof it would have been thatched 

This was the modern double sided cowshed that you could only dream of back in the 1950's  when this was built, it tied up 26 cows, see the same shed on the right of the top picture

The store shed and loft where feed for the cattle was stored,  dairy corn and other straight  feeds like beet pulp flaked maize and barley for rolling went, and below was where the mangle's  hay bales and straw for bedding was put through each day from the hay barn

A general view through the farm gate looking between the house and cow shed, at the far end of the yard we had erected a new cubicle shed to hold 64 cows, which makes this picture  1970. 

On the bank in the distance is the wheelwrights workshop, and the small holding that his brother ran 

An early aerial picture 1970,  farm house on the left,  with new cubicle shed  top left,  the cow  shed that held 26 tied up is just to the right of the house and just above that roof you can see the new milking parlour  where we milked 64 cows.

The hay baler is on the yard in the centre and on the right you can just see the old warn out Martin Markham flail forage harvester with its blue spout  

Bottom right in the picture is the needles of the top of the church tower, and the new house was built on the site of the old thatched house, see picture below

Another 1940's picture of the back of the farmyard taken from the fields, on the right is the new white roof the the double cowshed, the old thatched  cottages in the centre below the tower of St Chads church

An older picture still of the thatches two cottages probably 1930 , the south side of the church covered in ivy,  there is more about these cottages in the storey "Green Farm Cottages" written and put on a few weeks ago.