Old Lane Cottage (Fairview)
At the time that the Inclosure Act reached Norton in 1806 there wasn’t any buildings on this site it being part of Plot No 137, a house, garden and orchard, owned by Joseph Cox and later known as Springhill Villa and more recently as The Chestnuts.
[1806]
The land, and later the cottage, belonged to Springhill Villa for many years and it is difficult to separate references to it from those to the main house or to a labourers cottage that was also on site.
On 25 March 1824 a mortgage was raised by Joseph Cox describing his property. The accompanying indenture including a reference to; “…and also all that newly erected cottage or tenement with the garden to the same belonging nearly adjoining to the said last mentioned premises and then in the occupation of William Piff as tenant thereof…”. Could this be the earliest incarnation of Fair View Cottage ?
In 1838 a terrier and valuation of the messuages, lands, and other hereditaments liable to poor rate in the parish of Norton records Plot No 137 in two parts. One part was a house, buildings and orchard in the occupation of Hannah Cox and the second a cottage and garden occupied by Joseph Cox. It is possible that Hannah held the Springhill Villa property whilst Joseph was at what became Fair View Cottage.
As can be seen from the following plan, the cottage had appeared by the time of the Ordnance Survey 25” First Edition map at which time it might have been three adjoining cottages.
OS 25” First Edition, 1844-1888
Gloucester Journal newspaper of 19 July 1862 under the heading ‘Norton – Housebreaking’; “On Sunday last, during the absence of the inmates, attending afternoon service, a small cottage at Norton was broken into, by the front door being forced, and the house was ransacked, and an old pilot-coat, a pair of boots, an old silk scarf, a small bit of bread, and cooked mutton, the property of Joseph Cox, a labourer, were stolen. It appears Mrs Cox locked up the house at a quarter to three, to go to Norton Church; on her return she found the door had been forced open, and the cottage robbed. Joseph Cox hastened to Gloucester, and gave information to the police, who at once ‘scoured’ the lodging-houses, beer-shops, &c in the city and neighbourhood, for tramps. Mr Superintendent Griffin, with three constables, proceeded to Norton, examined the premises, and made a search in the village. The superintendent soon discovered that two young men, dressed in dark clothes and caps, were in the village and at the cottage about the time of the robbery, when he with the constables made enquiries along the road to Coombe Hill, Cheltenham, and Tewkesbury, but without effect, when Mr Griffin returned to Gloucester, searched the lodging-houses, and found the two men in bed at Roe’s, in Deacon-street. He arrested both of them, on the charge of robbing the cottage, searched them and their lodgings, but could not find the stolen property. The prisoners gave their names as John Baxter, of Birmingham, and William Dix, of Bristol. They have been identified as the two men seen at the cottage at the time of the robbery, and afterwards on the road, carrying a coat similar to the one stolen, which is now, with the other articles, supposed to be concealed or destroyed, to prevent their being found. The men were brought before the Rev R Smith, and remanded till the 21st inst”.
Joseph Cox appears to have died on 21 March 1877 when his property was described as; “… formerly three cottages but now thrown into one”.
OS 25” Second Edition, 1894-1903
The cottage can first be identified by name in 1921 when it was Fair View Cottage. It was then occupied by James and Alice Barnes.
James and Alice Barnes, 1919
James was born at Ashleworth in 1863, son of Solomon and Elizabeth Barnes. By 1881 James had left home and was lodging at Hartpury employed as an agricultural labourer and hay trusser. James was still at Hartpury employed as a labourer when he married Alice Townsend at Hucclecote in 1889. Alice was born at Hucclecote in 1873, daughter of Henry and Ann Townsend. James and Alice were to have many children; Albert Henry James, Gilbert, Clarence, John, Cecil, Ida Madeline, Eveline May, Cyril Henry, Irene Fancy, Kenneth, Kathleen, Donald, and possibly others. In 1891 they were living at Ashleworth where James was employed as a hay cutter. In 1901 they were living on the Old Tram Road, Wootton, Gloucester, with James employed as a railway labourer. In 1911 they were living at Broadclose Road, Down Hatherley, with James employed as a hay trusser. James and Alice were definitely at a six roomed Fair View Cottage in 1921 and appear to have arrived at Norton in 1916. In 1921 James was employed as a hay trusser working for John Huggett, a hay merchant of Cardiff. Also in residence in 1921 were Oscar and Ida Beard with infant son Ronald.
Oscar was born at Long Compton, Warks, in 1886, son of Edwin William, a schoolmaster, and Sarah Beard. Giving an address as Long Compton, Oscar was actually baptised at All Saints, Cheltenham, in September 1886. In 1901 Oscar was living at Hinton Manor, Hinton Waldrist, Oxon, where, at the age of 14 years, he was employed as an indoor domestic servant. By 1911 Oscar had become a butler at Langby Priory, Diseworth, Derbys. Oscar was living at 46 Salisbury Road, Gloucester, when he married Ida Madeline Barnes, daughter of James and Alice, at Norton in July 1919; “The bride, who was given away by her father, wore a dress of white English crepe de chine with a wreath and veil, and carried a bouquet of pink carnations and cream roses, and wore a gold bangle, the gift of the bridegroom. She was attended by two sisters as bridesmaids who wore dresses of blue sponge cloth and carried bouquets of pink and white sweet peas and wore gold brooches, also the gift of the bridegroom. Later in the evening the happy pair left to spend their honeymoon at Weston-super-Mare”. Oscar had been working as a chauffeur for W Pegler, a grocer of Penarth, Glamorgan, but by 1921, when Oscar and Ida were at Fair View cottage, he was unemployed. The Beards were still at Fairview Cottage in 1928 but left for Thame, Oxon, in 1937 where in 1939 Oscar was employed as a lorry driver. Oscar died in 1967 and Ida in 1994.
Madie, possibly at Fairview, and Oscar Beard in approx. 1960
Towards the end of the 1920s the cottage name appears to have changed in spelling from Fair View Cottage to Fairview Cottage. James and Alice Barnes’ younger children were still living with their parents here through the 1930s.
Lilian Turner, born in 1924 and the daughter of one of James and Alice’s daughters, grew up here and in 1939 was still living with her grandparents, working as a cashier in a café. Lilian married Alfred Hale in Grimsby in 1945 and in the late 1990s she was still living at Grimsby when she wrote to me with some of her memories of Norton. She told me that during the 1930s the Barnes’ ran tea rooms from the property to cater for the busy traffic that used to pass along the old road during the summer months. People used to stop to picnic in the field adjacent to the cottage and she would earn pennies opening and closing gates for them.
The Barnes’ were still at Fairview in 1939 but had left prior to 1947 when Stanley and Edith Peck were in residence. James Barnes was still living at Fairview Cottage when he died in January 1940 at Wick Lane, Apperley and Alice died in 1953.
Stanley G had married Edith Dorothy nee Clover at Wandsworth, London, in 1940 and they had two children; Jennifer and David. Denis Williams who lived in several properties along the old road from the 1950s shared the following memories in the 1990s; “’Old Lane Cottage’, the last property on the Tewkesbury Road, was occupied by Mr and Mrs Peck who had a son and a daughter. Mr Peck was an ambulance driver and a pest controller and he would soon sort out any local vermin problems. Mrs Peck, a very determined lady, withdrew her children from Norton School and for many years walked to The Leigh school with them, making the journey there and back morning and afternoon in all winds and weather. For a number of years Mrs Peck and my wife [Lily Williams] ran a successful tea garden at the cottage”.
The next change in ownership came when the Pembridge family arrived here in approximately 1960 and renamed the property Old Lane Cottage.
John N Pembridge had married Retta M Stephens at Worcester in 1960 which suggests they came here straight after marriage, and they had two children here; Philip and Richard. During their time here they found Georgian coins between the floorboards. John and Retta were still in residence in 2002.
