Have you visited the Family Home ?

[Mobo]

 

Aw ! what a shame 

 

[Gadget]

Just for you Mobo 

Here are two pictures taken in Kirkcudbrightshire. The first is the last house that my ancestors lived in before they ran away to Wales. Luckily i have letters describing the events. I came upon this late on a Saturday afternoon in October 2003. To my amazement the whole place was deserted and looked as if someone had 'done a runner' - weird or what?

The second is a reference to the letter. My 3 x grandfather said that he'd left most of their household stuff in Scroggiehall barn - now which one was it?

Gadget 

[Mobo]

 

Lovely Gadget, am I right in thinking that the first building is called a Bothey ? (think that's how you spell it)

 

[PaulaToo]

My husband's folk came from Moray Shire. I was lucky enough to visit the little house my husband's grandfather lived in, and where he spent his childhood as an evacuee in the war.
While there he took this picture with his sister's camera. The little house is the one to the right of the picture, with the welcoming smoke curling from the chimney.
It's been modernised now, and I wouldn't want to set foot inside.
Also, I thought, just for interest you would like to see Grandfather with his strings of onions. He grew good onions. It must have had something to do with Mrs G's chicken and all their little parcels of fertilizer.

[Gadget]

Lovely Gadget, am I right in thinking that the first building is called a Bothey ? (think that's how you spell it)

 

No Mobo

You're a bit out there. A bothy was usually a one roomed building, often used in the summer months by those tending the sheep and cattle in the summer pastures. Also it tends to be appied to any shelter in the mountains for walkers and mounaineers  these days.

This was quite a large one storey building on one side of a farm yard with barns on the other sides - a little grander than a bothy but not as grand as their previous and future houses. I have lots of more detailed shots.


Gadget

[CarolBurns]

These two show my Nain and Taid outside the houses they were brought up in.

The first one is my Nain's home and she made my Dad go and knock on the door and ask the present owners if she could have a look around. They said Yes but we don't know whether they just said it because they thought she was a crazy old woman

The second is my Taid's home. I have a picture (somewhere) of the wall in the back garden which has his initials and the date carved into it.

Both homes are still standing

Carol

[CarolBurns]

Oh and my Taid's home held 2 adults and 11 children in there !

Carol

[Su]

When I first started researching Dad's family as a present for his 70th Birthday in 1981, I wrote to the owners of what was my Gran and Grandad's cottage in Dunham Massey to ask if they would mind if I took some photo's of the garden (Grandad's pride and joy). I had a lovely letter back inviting me, my sister and my Dad's sister to visit.  We went along and went in the cottage where I had spent most of my childhood (living next door but three).  The old black fire range was still there with a copper kettle on the old brass box where my gran had kept newspapers to light the fire.
There was a rocking chair where my Gran had hers, and in the parlour was the old piano, left in the cottage after gran and grandad had died (within a year of each other).
It was like stepping back in time.  Gran and Grandad had 6 children and they and their children (including me( used to visit on Sundays).  How we all got in the little back room is a mystery now.  And how they all slept in just two small bedrooms is too.  Dad used to say they slept end to end in bed.
Gran had a scullery off the back room where she had the stone sink with one cold tap.  She had a pump outside the back door.  She also had a 'cold slab' which was alway covered in pies of all kinds when we visited...Grandad had an orchard, so Gran made apple pies, gooseberry pies, blackcurrent pies etc mouthwatering, I've never tasted anything like them since.  She also had a larder with a cold slab where she kept bottles and bottles of fruit, and beans in salt and whole hams.
We loved going to Gran and Grandad's, and when we moved to Wilmslow, my sister and I used to go and stay with gran and grandad every summer holiday until we were teenagers.  We used to hang out of the bedroom window during the long summer nights and whisper to the girl next door, then gran would shout up...time you two were asleep.
Everytime I go over to stay with Mum we visit Dunham and Dad's grave, he's buried with gran and grandad, and always stop outside the cottage and the memories of a wonderful childhood come flooding back.

Su

[Jane Eden]

Hi Sue

It doesn't say on your profile where you are so I don't even know if you are in England. I had to look up Dunham Massey which I now know is in Cheshire.

What a lovely story of your childhood. The recollections of your gran and grandad are lovely. I assume they were your favourite grandparents then.

I had favourite grandparents as a child but since I have been on Rootschat I regret not knowing my 'not so favourite' grandparents better. Not that there was anything wrong with them. Maybe they were not so touchy feely. The regret is that I felt I could not ask them personal details, I just was not so close. So now I don't have the 'colour' to put in their lives. Though I suspect now they had alot more color than I imagined.

The mysteries of life.

Jane