Court Cottage

.Research by Joan West

In 2011 Geoff Gomme sent me a letter, in response to my request for his life at Court Cottage in Church Lane, Lacey Green. The following is an extract in which he describes the house.

The Gomme family moved into Court Cottage in 1938 – 39.   It consisted of the living room, about 12ft by 12ft, with a cooking range (open fire on the left, oven on the right). A small kitchen (or scullery), which was called “the backplace”. This room with a sloping roof was added on the back by a previous tenant. In it was the “copper”, a large copper bowl, bricked in with a fireplace below, where water was heated for laundry, bathing, etc.

Upstairs a similar layout, one large bedroom and a smaller room which was more like a landing leaving little privacy for the occupier as people passed through to reach the main bedroom.

There was no electricity in the cottage at the time.   Light in the living room consisted of a “Wonder” lamp.   Fuelled by paraffin with a two-inch wick it gave a lovely white light – better than our modern bulbs.   Elsewhere candles had to be used – including going to the loo down the garden.

We had no tap water then.  Outside the back door was a water tank, catching rain from the roof.   Any water we used had to be drawn up from the tank using a bucket attached to a rope.   It wasn’t until the late fifties that electricity and water were piped in.

The walls of the cottage were mainly brick and flint.   In some places they were eighteen inches thick, with no cavities and no draught proofing.   And was it cold!   All we had for heating was the range on which most of the cooking was done.   The range had an open fire on the left with the oven on the right.   When we sat in front of the fire we scorched at the front and froze at the back as the draught was pulled in from the door and the windows.

Throughout WW2 we had evacuees living with the family.

We got on well with all our evacuees.   The biggest problem was bath night.   If you can imagine drawing up bucket after bucket from the tank, heating it in the copper, carrying it through to the tin bath placed in front of the fire.   It was quite a chore.   Then a wooden clothes – horse would have to be erected with a sheet as a partition and all those not involved would have to retreat to the colder parts of the cottage.      But somehow we managed!

My father, Albert Gomme, who was a farm carter, and my mother Ethel, had rented their cottage until 1952.   Somehow they managed to raise five hundred pounds to buy it – paid in three instalments.   It must have taken some time for money wasn’t easy to come by in those days.

I’m not sure if it helped that during the war we took in evacuees.   I believe a small payment was paid to help with the cost.

My parents finally paid for the cottage on April 26^th 1952.    In the late 1950’s electricity and water was piped in.

P.S. I sold it in 1991 to move to a small flat in Naphill.

C 1900  TOM HICKMAN &  ?.     Tom was a good rick builder. Son Arthur was a chimney sweep, moved to Turnip End.