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| In March 2005, while looking for something
totally different, I uncovered a treasure trove in a small box of very,
very old photos. At the time, I knew that the photos were from my
grandmother, Kate Baverstock's, home in Chilbolton, England. I had
heard stories about Chilbolton from my grandmother, all my childhood, but
apart from a photo of the village church that hung on her wall, and
another of her mother that stood on her dresser, I was not aware that
there were any extant photos of her home. |
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I knew that my mother had visited England with her parents,
my grandparents in the early 1920's but was unaware that visit had lasted
more than a year, involved a number of visits to Chilbolton, while staying
with paternal relatives in London. Here is a picture of my mother,
Mary Willmot, at age 7 in 1920, on board the HMS Tunisian on her way to
visit her grandparents.
Below there is a picture of the ship itself from a saved
postcard. |
| It is amazing to me to think that the
photos saved by this little girl in 1920 took me on quite a journey in
2005! |
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Click photo for full-size |
One of the most immediately striking photographs was the
photo of my great-grandparent's cottage in Chilbolton, dated 1920 during
the visit.
As I looked at these photographs I started an internet search to see if
I could discover what the village looked like today. During that
search I found the village website at http://www.chilbolton.com. |
| I wrote to the good folks that manage the
website and was immediately greeted with unexpected warmth and
interest. Although initially it was thought to be unlikely that the
cottage survived or that it could be located, through looking at numerous
photos, one distinctive photo proved to have the solution to the riddle. |
| This charming photograph of my grandmother as a young woman
reveals a moment in 1920 when the family cat upstaged a photo by grooming
itself in the foreground. Giggles ensued from the subject.
More important to the amateur detectives was the view up the
street. The Baverstock cottage is in the background and the Smithy,
a well-known landmark determined the site of the cottage! |
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| A day after I sent this photograph, the cottage
as it stands today was identified. A new addition and some
remodeling had to be confirmed as having happened since 1920 to assure
that this was the correct cottage but the location seemed to match.
I was struck by the fact that in the photo on the left there is a mildewed
imprint of a pruned-back vine and in the modern photo on the right, there
is an ancient climbing rose in the same growth pattern. Is this the
same bush? Or does the pattern of sun and shade shape the growth of a new
climber? |
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| In a number of the photos, my mother and grandmother were
joined by my grandmother's sister, Lil Eastman (nee Baverstock) and her
children, my mother's cousins Queenie and Fred Eastman. |
click photo to view fullsize |
Click photo to view fullsize |
This photo, on the left was taken next to one of the
aspects of country life my mother didn't remember with great fondness, the
outdoor plumbing! |
| It shows l-r, my grandmother, my mother (in
front), my grandmother's sister, Lil Eastman, my great-grandmother, my
mother's cousin Queenie and my mother's cousin Fred Eastman kneeling in
front. |
Click photo to view fullsize |
This photo would serve to confirm the location of the
Baverstock cottage. This is a picture of Fred Eastman taken much later, in
about 1935. My mother had remembered that her Aunt and cousins, the
Eastmans lived across the road in a more modern cottage. (It even
had hot running water in 1920. I wondered if this could be that
cottage. Low and behold it is still there on Joy's Lane. It is
a home still today although it spent a number of decades this century as a
brewery! Apparently barrels were rolled down the street to the pub
that was built on the site of the old Smithy. |
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