The Village Blacksmith

DERSINGHAM HISTORY

UNDER A SPREADING CHESTNUT TREE
Under a spreading chestnut tree
The village smithy stands;
The Village Blacksmith by Henry Longfellow
Elizabeth Fiddick ©

In the village of the past, before the mechanisation of farming, when men and horses were the main source of power, the blacksmith, the wheelwright, the saddler and harness maker were indispensable members of the agricultural community. At a time when those gentle giants the shire horses were a common sight as they worked in the fields the skill of the blacksmith was in great demand. He not only shod the horses but if he were a general smith would also repair farm machinery; put the iron rims on the wooden wheels made by the wheelwright, and take on any other work where his skills were needed. He would often travel to outlying farms or small hamlets that had no resident blacksmith. Stan Nicholls, a blacksmith at Gaywood, would deal with the circus horses when Lord George Sanger or Bertram Mills brought their show to Lynn.

The tithe map and schedule of 1839 for Dersingham records five wheelwrights in the village. Some of their names are still familiar today Flegg. Patrick, Cross, Balding, and Riches.

Robert Frost was the blacksmith and he lived in a cottage in what we now know as Chapel Road. The smithy would
appear to be a small building in the area behind the present library. It is referred to as a Blacksmith’s Shop in the Tithe Schedule.

In the 1841 census we find first John Frost, blacksmith, living with his wife Eliza and young sons James and Thomas and later in the same record James Frost, blacksmith who lives with his wife Catherine and a young son and daughter. Unfortunately the 1841 census does not record addresses but both families feature in the census returns up to 1871 and these more detailed records give John’s address as Main Road and James’ as Lynn Road.

The Frost family graves can be found in the churchyard. One for Robert Frost records beneath his name the one word (Blacksmith) James Frost died on November 3 1875 aged 72. The census of 1881 records both Margaret Frost and Jemima Frost as widows.

Frost family graves

In 1875 Mary Ann, the daughter of James Frost, married Theodor Carl Wilhelm Jannoch a German national who in that same year set up The Dersingham Lily Nursery first at Brandenburg House at the bottom of Sugar Lane and later at Dersingham Hall. The nursery was nationally famous and the Hall is now called Jannoch’s Court . Theodor died in 1925 but Mary lived on at The Hall until her death in 1933.

1839 TITHE MAP OF DERSINGHAM

The map below is part of the tithe map of 1839 for Dersingham. As can be seen the village was much smaller, having a population of between 600-700 people. They lived for the most part along the present day Chapel Road and Manor Road with groups of cottages up Dodds Hill and Fern Hill. There were no buildings on the seaward side of the Main Road.

KEY
A. Robert Frost’s cottage.

B. The Pasture. Future site of William Potter’s Smithy and Barn.

C. The Blacksmith’s Shop.

D. James Jackson’s farmhouse.

E. Dersingham Hall. Occupied at this time by Mary Ann Brett and her son Edward, a solicitor. By 1871 John Bayliss Goggs was in occupation.

F. St. Nicholas Church. The cemetery was much smaller. It was not extended to cover Dove House Close until 1935.

G. The moat. Site of Oldhall Manor. In 1553 John Pell Lord of the Manor built a fine new mansion in the area where our surgery now stands and the old moated manor was abandoned.

H. Dun Cow farm. Co-op Supermarket now occupies the site.

After the Frost brothers Christopher Sainty is listed as the blacksmith here in 1874. He also worked from Docking. In 1881 John Balding is recorded as an unemployed blacksmith and Robert Collison and George Steeds are described as blacksmiths lodging in the village. In 1883 two new names appear William Valentine Dodman and William Potter.

William Valentine Dodman
William was born at Dunton near Fakenham in 1845. In the census return of 1861 for Sculthorpe Mary Dodman aged 44 is listed with her son William then aged 16. William is recorded as a blacksmith and they are living in a cottage in Moor Lane. A few years later William married his wife Susannah and is recorded as a blacksmith in Station Street Docking. His wife Susannah was a dressmaker.

Sometime prior to 1881 he moved to Dersingham. He lived here with his wife Susannah, and they were now the proud parents of four children, Gertrude 7, Clare 4, George 2 and Herbert just 10 months. They employed a general servant Mary Everitt who was just 13 years old in 1881.

It is highly likely that with such a large household he lived and worked in the house with the smithy in Chapel Road. It was called The Old Forge and later The Laurels.

The Old Forge

William was a prominent member of the community and featured in the Directory of 1883 as a blacksmith. In 1890 he is recorded as a Blacksmith and Machinist. He was a prominent member of the Wesleyan Methodist Society in the village and had been a circuit steward. In 1890 he laid one of the foundation stones for the new chapel being built in Post Office Road (then Middle Road). He died aged 56 in 1901.

William Valentine Dodman died, aged 56, in 1901

William's son, George William Dodman, continued the family business. In the directories up to 1916 a Mrs. Dodman was living at a house named Rosedale and in 1922 her address is given as Mill Road. She remained an active member of the community acting as treasurer and then secretary for the chapel.

George William Dodman died in April 1932 and is buried in the churchyard. In 1929 Richard Stanton is listed as Farmer, Manor House, smith and wheelwright at the Chapel Road premises.

William Turner Potter
The second new name of significance that is recorded in Kelly’s Directory of 1883 is the one that is of importance to us, namely, William Potter. It was William Turner Potter who came to Dersingham, set up his blacksmith’s business and built the smithy and Barn that stand now at the junction of Centre Vale and Post Office Road.

But we must start at the beginning with William’s Grandfather Robert Potter who ran his blacksmith’s shop in Gaywood just outside King’s Lynn. The census returns of 1841 for Gaywood record Robert Potter, blacksmith, with his wife Francis and three children, John 10, Sarah, 9 and Frances 4. Unfortunately the Smithy and cottage were demolished in about 1961.

Robert’s son John went on to set up a blacksmith’s shop in Snettisham. He is recorded aged 40 in the census of 1871 and the address given appears to be Back Street. He now has a wife Mary Ann and six children, Henry 3, Mary 5, Alfred 7, Emma 9, and Ann Marie 11. The oldest child is our William, aged 13, who is described as being born in Gaywood and a scholar. This makes the date of William’s birth 1858. He worked for a while with his father but at the age of 16 he went to Halstead in Essex where he continued to learn his craft for about 6 years. He is recorded as living with his Brother-in-Law Arthur Doe who had married William’s sister recorded as Fanny aged 25. Other members of the family included Arthur, the one year old son of Fanny and Arthur, and Anna, sister of Arthur Doe Sen. , 28 years old and a dressmaker.

He came to Dersingham shortly after 1881 and opened a blacksmith’s shop in the pastures at the bottom of Fern Hill and is recorded for the first time in White’s Directory of 1883. It is interesting that William Dodman is recorded as blacksmith but William Potter as smith.

Below is the Blacksmith’s shop and cottage in Gaywood shortly before it was demolished. William was probably born in the cottage.

Dersingham in 1884

Before we continue with William’s story we need to learn more about Dersingham at this time. On the map of 1884 can be seen the extensive buildings that made up Dersingham Hall. By 1871 the Hall was occupied by John Baylis Goggs a building contractor from Swaffham who employed 12 men and 3 boys. He lived there with his wife Hannah, nine children, a governess, nurse, cook, housemaid, and kitchen maid. The grounds of the house are extensive and include a fountain, flagstaff and what appear to be glasshouses. From a map of the estate in the early twentieth century the area marked number 137 was also part of the Hall Estate.

The other significant building to our story is that marked 116 which was the attractive farmhouse occupied by James Jackson who in 1881 was described as a farmer of 28 acres.

William Potter’s first Blacksmith’s Shop or Smithy can be seen marked opposite Rose Cottage on the upper right of the map in the present Fern Hill. William Valentine Dodman’s house and Smithy is to the left of William’s next to the plot of land numbered 134.

The land on the map numbered 136 was pasture land and that on the other side with the number 135 was known as the Great Pasture.

The only buildings in what we now call Post Office Road are the 4 cottages on the left as it enters the main road. They were erected in 1883.

Dersingham Hall in 1905

The Beginning
In January 1873 not long after he arrived here John Goggs increased the size of his estate by purchasing the parcel of land described as the Great Pasture and Allotment. He bought it from Elizabeth Banks, widow of Harvey Percy Banks. In 1884 he used that land as collateral and took out a mortgage for £2000.

John Goggs died shortly after this and in1887 the land was legally converted from pasture land to building land and a firm of Solicitors in King’s Lynn began the process of selling the land in separate lots to settle the mortgage on the estate.

It was at this time that William Potter acquired one of these plots to establish his next home and business and if my reading of the legal documents is correct he paid £28.

The plot bought by William is described on the deeds as “formerly part of a piece of land described as the ‘Great Pasture and Allotment’” containing one thousand two hundred and twelve square yards. It is bounded on the north by the High Road leading to Hunstanton from King’s Lynn and having a frontage of one hundred feet (more or less). (This road we now call Post Office Road.) On the South it is bounded by land lately belonging to the solicitors of the estate and sold by them to Robert Balding; on the East by the private road (which we now know as Centre Vale) and on the west by land lately sold to Walter Terrington.

Mr Potter agreed not to erect any building beyond the front building line.

Robert Balding appears in the records of the time as a farmer and cattle dealer. When I first came to the village in 1968 an old and very dilapidated railway carriage stood on the open land behind Mr Potter’s barn where the gates that lead down to the house called “Hideaway” now stand. The Late Mr. Stanley Lines, a Dersingham man born and bred, told me that “Happy” Balding used to live there. He said he was a drover who used to take the cattle all the way to King’s Lynn on market days and return in a very happy frame of mind.

Both the Baldings and Terringtons were large well known families in the village. At this time Walter, Henry and John Terrington were all recorded as boot makers while Frederick Terrington ran a butcher’s shop. Thomas Balding is also listed as a farmer and cattle dealer with Robert Balding Jun. Described as a grocer and draper.

Establishing the Business
Having acquired the land William now set about establishing both his home and business.

In later documents the property he built is described as a brick and tile coach house with hay loft and adjoining tack room. There was also the smithy itself that still fronts onto Post Office Road with the mounting block still there outside the old iron gateway and a pair of semi-detached cottages next door. William lived in the cottage next to the smithy for the rest of his life. At some point an additional wooden barn was erected in Centre Vale Road.

Thus it was that that whole area along what had been a small private farm road flanked by pasture land leading to Jackson’s farm was transformed.

I have already mentioned the row of cottages on the left as you enter from the Main Road. They carry the date 1883. On the opposite side stand Wern Cottages bearing the date 1887.

In 1890 we know that William Dodman laid the foundation stone for the Wesleyan Chapel which was completed shortly afterwards. Not long after that the house that is the Post Office even to this day was erected and Miss Alice Maud Beckett moved in to run the business previously run by her father Enoch Beckett. In fact the old Post Office can be seen on the previous map next to Rose Cottage. In 1895 a row of cottages were built alongside the farm track that runs past James Jackson’s farmhouse. A further row of cottages (below) now stand in Fern Hill (136) on the pastures where William opened his first blacksmith’s shop.

It was just a short while later in the opening years of the twentieth century that John Charles Reynolds established his nursery business on the land opposite the smithy. Orchard Close Sheltered Housing now occupies the site. The Gables Residential Home that stands opposite the Smithy was built in 1920.

The road was known as Middle Road until1911 when the Parish Council decided to formalise the name to Post Office Road.

The following map is dated 1905 and shows clearly William’s smithy, barns, and cottage as well as all the development along Middle Road and Centre Vale. Dersingham Hall is now occupied by Theodor Jannoch who ran a large nursery specialising in growing Lily of the Valley. The Dodman’s Smithy is still marked in Chapel Road.

Dersingham was growing rapidly as shown by the fact that the population had grown from just 800 in the 1850s to 1,186 in 1891 and 1, 316 in 1901.

1887 -1926 His Working Life

In 1888 William married Caroline Fanny Jarvis, 21 who was the oldest daughter of James and Frances Jarvis. James Jarvis was a baker and from the information I have gathered his baker’s shop stood on the site next to the flats built in 2005 on the corner of Lynn Road and Post Office Road.   The flats replaced the Garage known as Twaite’s Garage which had traded there for many years. The Bakery occupied a much older building that housed other businesses over the years. When I came here you could buy excellent Fish and Chips there. Sometime in the late 70s there was a serious fire in the premises and the old building was so badly damaged it was demolished to make for the modern building we know today.

William was a member of the Methodist Chapel in Post office Road and it seems possible that Caroline and her family also attended there and it may have been where they got to know each other.

Caroline had 5 siblings, Thomas recorded in 1881 as 16 and a baker like his father, James,12, Walter 10, Ernest 5, and Henry 4. The final member of the household was Edward Carter 20, recorded as servant and also a Baker. It seems most probable that James, Thomas, and Edward all worked in the shop on the Main Road.

When Willam set up his smithy with barns in Post Office Road he and Caroline moved into the first of the semi-detached cottages next door where they lived for all their married life. From all the subsequent census returns I have learnt they did not have any children.

William became known as a shrewd business man and an expert at his trade. He took particular pride in his ponies and traps and was frequently called upon by the villagers when they needed transport. He would often meet travellers leaving the train at Dersingham Station and drive them on to their particular destinations. Mr. Riches, whose family for many years ran the shoe shop at the end of Post Office Road, recalled that after his mother and father were married at the Methodist Chapel Mr. Potter drove them in his pony and trap to Hillington Station to catch the train to Great Yarmouth where they spent their honeymoon.

So it is easy to visualise Potter’s Barn and the smithy when it was in its heyday. The hayloft and tack room in constant use as the ponies were fed, groomed and harnessed to the traps. I can imagine the fire glowing in the smithy as the horses were shod or wheel rims forged and machinery repaired.   The old mounting block shows signs of the constant use it had as labourers and owners remounted their horses to ride them away. It would have been a hive of activity and the sound of hammer on metal would have been heard from far away.

William was an active member of the Methodist Church and took part in many village activities. He supported the local cricket club and his name appears on their end of year accounts on several occasions. He is recorded as paying in 2s.6d to the club each year and the accounts in 1901 show a payment of 12s.6d to settle Mr. Potter’s bill. In 1901 he was elected onto the committee as was James Chambers his brother-in-law. He was an active participant in the annual Sports and Athletics Day which was held during the May holiday and well supported by all the neighbouring villages. We know that in 1890 the Pony race was won by Mr. Potter’s Spot.

In 1901 the village decided to mark the coronation of Edward V11 by installing a clock in the church tower and giving commemorative medals to the children. Donations were sought from the villagers and Mr. & Mrs. Potter appear on the long list of subscribers as giving 5s.0d to the clock fund and 5s.0d for the medals.

No doubt he and Caroline joined in with the celebrations in 1911for the coronation of George V when sports were held on the pastures by Dersingham Hall followed by a tea and   there was a concert in the Tithe Barn that evening.

They would both have experienced the fear and excitement when the Zeppelin passed over the village in the early part of World War 1 and would have witnessed the devastation caused to the cottage in Doddshill when the Zeppelin dropped a bomb there.

William's Family

William and Caroline did not have any children but other members of William’s family were in the village.

His sister Anne Marie, just two years younger, married James William Ward Chambers who ran the Temperance Hotel for many years. The hotel stood at the cross roads opposite the war memorial and is now known as Ashdene House. Anne Marie died very suddenly and unexpectedly in 1916 aged just 56. According to the obituary she was preparing the dinner when she suddenly fell back into a chair and expired. She suffered with a heart “affection”, as the Lynn reporter described it, for some years but was described as a good wife and mother and a kind hearted friend. Her husband James, who was born in the same year as William, died in 1933.

Another sister was married to James’ brother Jabez Chambers of Providence House in Manor Road.   They had four daughters and one son; the family are in the photograph below.

Alfred ran the forge just off the market place in Snettisham. John Tee Potter the father died in 1906.

Ashdene House formerly The Temperance Hotel

Anna Marie Potter

William Ward Chambers

Retirement
William’s wife Caroline died on January 17th, 1926 aged 59 and is buried in the churchyard.

It was shortly after this sad event that William retired as a blacksmith. On November 27th 1927 papers were drawn up and signed by which William sold the barn to James Jackson, senior, who lived and farmed close by on Centre Vale Road. The conveyance describes the sale as, That freehold brick and tile building formerly used as a coach house with hay loft above (except the harness room adjoining same ) containing a frontage of 20 feet to Centre Vale Road and a depth of 30 feet, Bounded on the North, South and West by land retained by the vendor and on the East by Centre Vale Road.

Mr. Jackson also had:

Use of a drain to the cesspool in the adjoining property and right of way on the north, south and west as shall be necessary for repairing the building or cleaning the windows but not further or otherwise.

Farmer Jackson
The Jackson family had been in the village for many years. They are mentioned in the schedule for the Tithe map of 1839. In the 1851 census a James Jackson, born at Wolferton, is recorded as a carpenter employing one man. By the 1881 census a James Jackson is recorded as a farmer of 28 acres with a son James then aged 19. The James Jackson who purchased William’s barn took over the Blackheath Lodge Farm in 1890. This, I believe, was where the present Garage in Chapel Road stands next to Beck House. In 1916 he moved to The Poplars, the farm in Centre Vale which was the home of both his father and grandfather. As seen below the farmhouse still stands today and is very little changed it would appear.

James was a supporter of the Methodist cause and was a local preacher and trustee of the Sandringham Road Methodist Church. The late Mr. Peter Reynolds remembered seeing Mr. Jackson whom he describes as patriarchal and bearded. He would meet him slowly pedalling on his old black tricycle, tapping a stick on the handlebars as he drove his few cows from the milking parlour to the pasture. Mr. Reynolds recalled that as a boy he was sent to fetch milk from the farm. He would watch as it was ladled from earthenware crocks into the lidded enamel jug he took home fresh from the cow that day. Alec, who worked for Mr. Jackson, remembered the barn being used as among other things a potato store. He also recalled seeing Mr. Jackson smartly dressed in black riding his three wheeler every Sunday to the Chapel.

Remarriage
William remarried. His second wife was Margaret Butcher and according to his obituary there was a step daughter and two stepsons.

Although retired he still led an active life. He was a member of the Institute Bowls Club.

At some point his brother Henry came to live in the village. When the threat of the Second World War was looming large in 1938 many villagers became Wardens or joined the Home Guard Reserve.

A picture was taken for the Lynn News and sitting in the front row according to the accompanying report is one H. Potter. (However a local villager has identified the same man as W. Potter. William would have been 80 years old at this time so perhaps it is more likely to be his younger brother)

Mr. Reynolds also describes walking as a young boy down the old Centre Vale Road towards the pastures and passing Mr. Potter’s garden and the chickens he kept.

Photo taken for The Lynn News
H. Potter is identified in the news report as sitting second from the left in the front row.

The End Of An Era
William died on July 28th 1940 after a short illness. He was 82 years old.

His funeral was held at the Sandringham Road Methodist Church on the 31st and the Rev.Softley of Ingoldisthorpe conducted the service. The hymns “Jesus the very Thought of You” and “Abide with me” were sung. The service was well attended by the family and by the many friends he had made in the nearly 60 years he had lived and worked in the village. He was interred in the churchyard of St. Nicholas next to that of his first wife Caroline.

In his will dated January 16th 1939 William is described as a retired blacksmith and jobmaster owning “a semi-detached cottage, with garden buildings and domestic offices situate in Post Office Road“ .

He appointed his wife and James Jackson the Younger of Hill Farm with his wife Hannah, who was his niece, as his executors. James’ father was the Jackson on Centre Vale who purchased the barn from William in 1927. Hill Farm lies on the high ground to the right of the main road as you leave the village for Hunstanton. William wished that the house in which he was living should be described to his wife for her life and on her death the property should be sold and the proceeds of the sale divided amongst his heirs as he designated.

The executors agreed to the vesting for life to Margaret Potter of the cottage, outbuildings gardens and yards in Post Office Road. The document was signed by Margaret Potter, Hannah Jackson and James Jackson the younger. James Jackson Senior of The Poplars signed as a witness.

So Margaret Potter lived on in the cottage for the rest of her life. She drew up a will in which she appointed her daughter Beatrice Margaret Butcher and Hannah Hilda Jackson (also a daughter) and her husband James Jackson the Younger as executors.

Margaret died on the 30th June 1948 and it is in the documents drawn up for the sale of the property that we learn more about how the workshop and outbuildings had been used since William’s death.

In May 1949 the executors agreed to sell the property for £1500 to Thomas Turner Drew, a builder, who lived with his wife Annie in a house called “Hampden” on Lynn Road.

The property is described thus,
A semi-detached house with General Smith’s Workshop. Boot repairers shop and other outbuildings and the gardens belonging situate on the South East side of Post Office Road.

There was also a right of way that was identified. On the plan that accompanies the document the buildings and land to be sold are coloured pink and the right of way green. The Jackson Barn can be seen to be isolated from the sale.

Boot Repairer’S Shop
Of particular interest is the next clause that identifies the small building that has been erected at the front of the property nearest to Post Office Road as having been rented to James Horace Hancock for the term of seven years. This arrangement is confirmed.

Local villagers have told me there were two Hancock brothers and at the end of World War 11 Jim Hancock returned having lost both his legs. He was set up as a boot repairer and the small premises were provided for him in Potter’s yard.

Also of interest is the fact that at the end of the conveyance that detailed the sale of the barn to James Jackson Senior in 1927 a memorandum has been added that states that on the 25th of November 1948 James Jackson the Younger and Hilda Jackson conveyed:
All that semi-detached cottage and garden situate on the South side of Post Office Road to Samuel Russell

So by 1949 William Potter’s house, Smithy and other outbuildings were now the property of Thomas Turner Drew. As he already had a substantial house on Lynn Road it would appear the William’s cottage was rented out although as a builder no doubt Thomas had good use for the other buildings on the site.

A copy of the front of the Conveyance follows with a plan of the site at the time where the boot repairer’s shop and the additional wooden barn can clearly be seen.

Later Developments 1953 -1993
Thomas himself died on November 10th 1954 and the property was then vested with his wife Annie with a Donald Ferrier and Eleanor Constance Drew as executors. In the documentation of 1957 it would appear that by then the house, workshop and other outbuildings were occupied by George Dunger.

Further changes of ownership at the site had occurred in 1953 when James Jackson Senior died. His funeral took place at the Sandringham Road Methodist Church. He had lived in the village all his life and the funeral service was well attended by relatives and villagers. He had appointed his son James of High Farm and Albert Robert Ding, a retired carrier, to be his representatives. The Brick and tile building formerly used as coach house with hay loft above, (except the harness room adjoining same) were then transferred to James Jackson the Younger of High Farm.

By the year 1961 Mrs. Annie Drew had left the village to live nearer her family and the property was sold to Mr. George Clayton who lived at “Shangri-La” in Bank Road. The property is described again as the semi-detached house with workshop or buildings but this time a garage is also mentioned. A small red brick garage type addition can still be seen at the side of the Smithy.

In October 1962 George Clayton sold the semi-detached house with other buildings and gardens situate on the South East side of Post Office Road bounded on the East by property retained by George Clayton to one Eric Granville Ransome.

Further changes happened in 1972. James Jackson of High Farm had by then moved to Essex and High Farm was operated by his son, the grandson of the Late James Jackson of Centre Vale. The Brick and Tile former Coach House that has figured so often in this narrative was sold for £825 to Eric Allan Moore who was living near Dunstable. He retained ownership until 1987. By that time he had moved to Mallorca in Spain and the barn was then sold to HCL Construction Ltd.

It was in the 1990s that major changes took place once again. David Neeve bought the smithy which included the small tack room from George Clayton. A little later he bought the semi-detached cottage from the Everitt family. This meant David now owned the blacksmith’s shop, the small tack room, the cottage and the old wooden barn that stood next to the coach house and had been used as a garage for the cottage. David and Dianne Neve finally bought the old Coach House from HCL Construction which had gone into liquidation. So William Potter’s property, the coach house, barn, smithy and cottage, was after a gap of many years once more under single ownership.

Restoration and Renovation
Although the smithy was in use almost immediately it was some time before David decided what he would do with the old Coach House. It is the village’s good fortune that he decided to restore the old building and with a real appreciation for the history of the place to make it into the beautiful residence it is today. If William Potter were somehow to come back and walk round to his old smithy, or old Mr. Jackson rode his three wheeled tricycle once more down to the barn, they would both recognize it instantly as from the outside it looks almost exactly as it always did. They would, however, be amazed by the changes inside to the old brick and tile coach house with loft and adjoining tack room and no doubt William would be very chuffed that it all now bears his name.

We were kindly given permission to make the following Potter photographs available on our web site by Andy Whitfield. The captions are his words.

No 1 - Potter family just before WW1. Possibly taken at the rear of No.4 Old Church Road. The older lady at the back is my Great Grandmother Emma Potter nee Turner. She was born in London. But her father was from Snettisham.

No 2 - The Potter siblings in the stable yard of 4 Old Church Road c1920’s. My Grandmother is the tallest one at the back. Born I believe in Snettisham in 1896. Nora is the short one at the front (left hand side). Next to her is Rose then Ted. Nora's holding the doll and by 1929 she was pregnant. Nora came to London to have the baby as she was unmarried. The boy went on to live with here Sister Dorothy and later was legally adopted. So my uncle was in fact my second cousin.

No 3 - Nora Potter

No 4 - Lambert & Sons

No 5 - My Grandmother and her father were born in Snettisham. My great aunt Nora Potter lived there all her life; she died in 1981. Her sister moved back to Snettisham in the late 1950’s and later married a chap called Lake. His family were from Heacham. Rose Lake (nee) Potter passed away in 1989 in a care home across the road from the old Compass Inn. This is the wedding of my great grandfather Alfred Thomas Potter (village blacksmith Snettisham till 1930) and Emma.

No 6 - The older couple sitting on the right are William Lord and Harriet Lord, my great grandparents.

Potter 9 - 1921 is my Grandmother’s wedding photo (Dorothy daughter of Alfred and Emma). Which was taken on Ladies Walk. Just across from my Great Grandfather’s blacksmith forge. My Great Grandparents (Emma and Alfred Potter) were related; first cousins; they are seated on the right.