Worlds End Cottage

In 1807 there was a property slightly further along the lane from what is now Woodside bungalow at Priors Norton.  Plot No 292, near the bottom of the following plan, was then a house and garden, 0-0-17 in area, owned by the Duke of Norfolk, with no details of the occupants at that time.   For orientation, the site of Woodside bungalow was Plot No 317, Benges Cottage at Plot No 315, and the lane leaving the plan to the north is heading towards Benges Farm and Ivy House.

[1807]

The cottage can be identified again in 1838 when it was named Worlds End Cottage, was owned jointly by John Garlick Ball and John Clift, with tenants William Holder and James Lawrence.

The Ball and Clift families owned a lot of land in this area throughout the nineteenth century.

The Holders had been a Norton family for many years by this time.  William was born at Norton in 1763, son of Thomas and Sarah nee Morris and married Sarah Skinner at Norton in 1797.  Amongst their children was daughter Sarah who later married James Lawrence.  William Holder’s death has not been identified but by 1841 Sarah Holder was widowed and living at Worlds End Cottage as an agricultural labourer and pauper, in the household of James Lawrence, his wife Sarah, and three infant children.  Sarah Holder was still here in 1851 when daughter Sarah was also a widow with husband James dying in 1846 and buried at Norton.  Sarah Holder died aged 90 in 1852 also being buried at St Mary’s, Norton, and the Lawrences appear to have moved to Cheltenham.

The property at Plot No 292 has not been identified again after this time and on maps of the area from a few years later was no longer here.