Fouracre – Wolves and Winged Serpents

This will be our first Christmas in our “really old house” and I am excited. My imagination is conjuring images of previous occupiers celebrating Christmas – how many families have hung decorations from the beams or wooden screen panels?

I have discovered some details of past residents, just a scanty few clippings for now with a great deal of research needed to fill the gaps. For example, in 1714 our home was where the school master lived, and although I don’t have his name, another schoolmaster, William Chudleigh, lived here in 1841. The school itself was probably a little further up the street from us, though it is hard to be certain and I know from my research on Bermuda’s history that it was common for schoolmasters to teach in their own homes and some even had boarders in their own homes. By 1878 William Chudleigh must have moved on, because he does not appear on the list of residents of Fore Street (GenUKI).

Skip forward 30 years and records show that the Abbot family lived at “Yew Tree Cottage”. I will deal with the several house names in a later post, but in the early 20th century the whole building was divided into three separate dwellings, a fact which leaves us with three house numbers and an ever-so-slightly-clumsy hyphenated address. Charles Abbott was a coal merchant and was winning prizes in the Bovey Horticultural show for several years up until 1921.

I have some other surnames but am lacking detail: Fouracre, Coniam and Noakes occupying the house around the mid – 20th century. If anyone reading this can fill me in on details please do contact me. I have plans to explore the records offices in the New Year.

After several years of an artificial Christmas tree we have reverted to a natural one, this one from Dartmoor, freshly cut on Saturday morning. Our old white one found a place in a corner of the dining hall and so far the white tinsel is shedding more than the real tree! As I said in my Christmas “round robin” to friends and family, I have been knitting and crocheting decorations – crochet “paper-chains” and trees now adorn the beams.