Willow Farm – visit by Mr & Mrs Briggs in 2009

Following the visit by Mr & Mrs Briggs, relatives of the Fulcher family, Ken Bassett wrote up the following notes. Of particular interest is the comment about the windmill since it is well known that there was a second windmill in the village, but its location has not been determined.

It is indeed a rare thing to have proof of what life was like on a smallholding and a positive link back in time to a little more than a century.

To have a photograph of the previous owners and their equipment (Rated at one horsepower!), taken in front of the very building, which is still standing today in 2009, more or less completely as it was in 1907.

We have two sets of people to thank for this occurrence, Mrs. Maureen Briggs and her husband Robert, who with the help of Ray Beales and his wife Maureen of Hill Farm, Little Ellingham, were able to pin point the location of the farm in the photograph. At the end of July 2002, Sue and I were visited by a couple who, at the time, were unknown to us. They had travelled From Harrow in Middlesex and had with them a photo of some of their ancestors standing in front of a house which they were hoping to find, having no knowledge of exactly where it was. 

They decided to ask at a few local farms and by sheer coincidence, knocked at Hill Farm on the road from Deopham to Little Ellingham. There was further coincidence when they mentioned their family name of Fulcher showing the photograph to Ray and Maureen Beales because incredibly, they knew that James Fulcher (Jim) the little lad in the photograph had married a girl by the name of Olive Sizeland!

Further coincidence was the fact that I had come to know Ray through being a member of the Wymondham Farm Machinery Club for over ten years. Ray said to Mr. & Mrs. Briggs I think I know the people you want to see, it’s Ken and Sue Bassett and they now own Willow Farm, the farm in the photograph.

Of course, the moment Mr. and Mrs. Briggs got out the photograph, Sue and I could immediately see it was indeed this Willow Farm.

As we stood in front of the house looking towards the very spot where the photograph was taken, it was quite an emotional few minutes as the photograph, which was taken circa 1907 showing these almost ghostly figures, transported us all back over a hundred years.

We made some tea and spent a short but most enjoyable time with Mr. & Mrs. Briggs. We took them for a walk and showed them all over our land, pointing out such features as the well, which had been sealed up and was eventually discovered under the concrete path leading up to the old garage at the side of the house. After Sue and I moved in and found the well, which was of brick construction and in good order, it was placed on my priority list to open up and have working again! Fortunately this work had been completed before Mr & Mrs. Briggs’s visit, otherwise their attention would not have been drawn towards it. We also told them about our theory with regard to the house being approached from the Deopham/Morley Road by the lane at the rear.¹

The marriage of John Fulcher (Snr.) to Edith was most fruitful as over a period they produced eleven offspring. including one set of twins.

The young man on the left in the family group photo, Johnathan Elijah (Jnr.) had a sister Margaret (born in 1896) and she visited Willow Farm in the early eighties and the other photograph shows her standing by the front door. Margaret had a long life and died in 1988 at the age of 92! (Must be something in the air at Willow Farm!!)

After Mr. & Mrs. Briggs visited us, Mrs. Briggs spoke to her mother who had several interesting memories of Willow Farm.

Her mother remembered the well and the fact that there was a hand pump on the top, she even remembered it being used. She also remembered a little footbridge across a dyke to get to the next field. (There was nothing at all like that when we came as I believe Mr & Mrs. Mickleborough may well [have] filled and levelled this area to increase productivity.) She also remembered a gate into a meadow where there was a chicken run. What is intriguing is that she remembered a windmill “at the end of the lane running up to the house”. Now this is the point, nobody seems to remember a Windmill out by the road we now use, so was this located at the end of the access roadway (lane) where you get to the far end field.

I don’t suppose we will ever know but it would make a good research project.

With best wishes and compliments of Ken & Sue Bassett.

PS The lady standing with Sue & I in the third photograph, is Mrs. Maureen Briggs.

Notes

1. This is very likely. Prior to the 1814 enclosures there was a track (called Baylam Lane) from the Wymondham road through to Willow Farm:
   
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