Instant Cousins : archiving my ancestry
- Cheesemongers and Dairies
- House History
- Other Stories
- Reviews, Reports and Research
- Stone, Steam and Dynamite
- The Welsh Connection
- Wheelwrights, Publicans and a Country Lad
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Life begins at Number 7
The Scotts’ moved in to 7 Earlspark Avenue in April 1910. That was just over 114 years ago. In 1987 I moved into 7 Earlspark Avenue with my wife and son. That was 37 years ago. The Scotts’ lived here for 45 years. We moved in 32 years later. I have a fascination with the…
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Bill Carver
George William Eustace Henry Carver was my father. He always signed his name G.H. Carver, but everyone called him Bill. Unless my mother was admonishing him for something and then she called him William. Baptism entry in the Oxted Parish Church register for W.G.E.H Carver, Bill Carver, living in School Lane, his father was a…
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Grace, before marriage.
This week I am concentrating on The 1911 Census return for a house in Acton, London. In 1911, Grace Walker, my grandmother, before she married William Wilcox, had moved to London from Offord D’Arcy in Huntingdonshire, to lives with a cousin. The address is 39, Mill Hill Road, Acton. It is a large house, three…
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Whithorn, a field trip journal
We have just returned from the Whithorn peninsula. The cone shaped peninsula that juts out from Galloway into the entrance of the Solway Firth. With gentle rolling hills and moors known as the Machars, grazed by the distinctive black with white strip Galloway cows, this hidden area of Scotland is steeped in history. The first…
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First Residents
I am writing this post in the smallest of the upstairs rooms. In all there are five rooms in the house plus a kitchen and bathroom. The kitchen was once the scullery, and it was built with a concrete floor with a gradient leading to a drain. This enabled any overflow of water from the…
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The Cheesemongers of Bermondsey
My Great Great Grandfather Samuel Walker could, I suppose be called a Bermondsey Boy. Born and brought up there, married in St. Mary’s Church, Rotherhithe. He was ticking some boxes there. He was not a Bermondsey Boy in the traditional sense. That sense would have its roots in the nostalgia of the 20th Century like…
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An Interesting Wedding
Laura Esther Spillett 1906 -1992 My Great Aunt Laura was someone who I can never remember meeting, if I did, I expect I was very young, too young to remember. I think that I heard my father talking about her. I have a nice photograph of Laura and my father at the annual Crowning of…
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George Anderson, Wright and Builder
George built my house in Earlspark Avenue. He also built the whole of Earlspark, other than some new houses that went up in the 1960’s on the site of a farm where George had his offices. George was a prolific builder in the beginning of the 20th Century. He bought up land from Sir John…