History of hardship revealed in Bromborough Village building

It was 1933 when my family came over to live in Bromborough from Liverpool where they had run a pub in ‘Scotty’ Road. I was just two and a half years old.

We had a very short stay in Neville Road but could not afford the high rent, so we moved to Laburnum Cottage were we lived until late 1939. My family included Mum (Ruth) and Dad (Arthur), sisters Audrey and Eunice, brother Stan and of course, me, Ted. Another brother

Ken was born later - at the cottage.

Ted Thompson

The cottage was a two up, two down. It had a small back kitchen, a pantry, and a cellar. In the back kitchen there was a door leading down concrete steps to the cellar. In the cellar there were large hooks for hanging pigs and the likes.

My Mum used to keep a big heavy mangle in front of the door, to stop us children going down.

On the outside of the back-kitchen wall there was once an oven for baking bread and pies, but it was all bricked up before we moved in. The only gas lighting was in the living room, the rest of the cottage was candle power only.

The dining room had a large cast iron built open fire and side oven where my Mum did the cooking. She used a big cast iron kettle to boil water as there was only one cold water tap on hand, and used a set of cast iron pans to cook in.

The toilet was situated about sixty feet right at the very bottom of the garden. It was a bit of a ramshackle building, which let water in when it rained. The seat was a plank of wood the full width of the toilet with a hole in the middle where the pan was.

In the dark, in the bitter cold of winter, we children had walk down to the ‘dunny’ two at a time with only a lighted candle to show the way.

Our bathroom was a tin bath in front of the fire. On bath days, which were each Sunday, my mother had to boil water up over the fire in the big cast iron kettle and pan to warm the bath water up. Us children went in the bath in twos.

We dreaded the winter. The cottage was cold, damp and musty smelling. Money was so scarce we couldn’t afford to buy much coal to keep

warm.

My Dad, like other fathers, had very low paid jobs and we started to fall behind with the rent again. I can remember the rent man when he came.

My Mum used to usher us kids under the table so the man couldn’t see us through the window. He used to shout through the letter box, “I know you’re in there missus”.

Being poor wasn’t the word for it. Christmas, Easter and birthdays were a nightmare for Mum trying to find money for presents and Easter eggs.

On numerous occasions she had to pawn her wedding ring so she could put food on the table and buy clothes.

Ted in 1935 driving his little push car outsidethe family home - Laburnum Cottage

Each Christmas My granddad gave me a little pedal car as a present, but each Boxing Day it mysteriously disappeared, only to reappear the following Christmas cleaned up and reboxed!

They were truly dark and unforgiving days. But, in the end, the cottage was our home and we had to put up with it, there was nowhere else to go.

It had good and bad memories, but most of all we survived.

The family moved to Forwood Road in 1939. It was from there that Ted attended St Barnabus Church School followed by Woodslee Primary.

He took up boxing in his early teens and later became an adept rifle shot; his NSRA badges still among his possessions when he died.

He was to meet his future wife, Maureen, in a coffee shop in New Ferry – coffee shops were the places to hang out in those days, (remember ‘frothy coffee?).

They were married in 1955 and moved to Helsby Avenue in Eastham were they had four children, Sandra, Carl, Denise and Keith.

By this time Ted was working at Cammell Lairds, originally in the Gatehouse as a ‘runner’, before going on a five year apprenticeship as a joiner.

He went on to work on ‘Ark Royal and ‘Windsor Castle’.

Sadly, Ted died in January 2021. He didn’t live long enough to see the story published of his early life in Laburnum Cottage.

But what of Laburnum Cottage itself?

Laburnum Cottage today - 26 Bromborough VillageRoad, the home of Jo Jacques Health & beauty

Today the cottage is number 26 Bromborough Village Road and the home of Jo Jacques Health & Beauty business.

The neat sandstone walls fronting the hedge, the little front garden and the sash windows have been replaced by car parking spaces and modern-paned windows.

Once a stand-alone dwelling, its first recorded occupant, Charles Davies, was in 1778. By 1815 the Land Tax Records show his nephew, William Davies, as the occupant.

1840 Tithe map, Laburnum Cottage arrowed

The cottage is shown on the Tithe map of circa 1840.

The entry reads ‘House, Building (i.e. barn/stable) Yard and Garden’ and William Davies is shown as both owner and occupier. This was rare in those days, properties usually being tenanted.

The 1851 census has William Davies still in occupation with his wife, Jane, and four children.

But the investigation doesn’t end there.

The Eastham Archivist was delighted to have been allowed to inspect the property in April 2021 by Jo Jaques, the current proprietor.

Rear elevation of Laburnum Cottage, showing were the upper brick story was added to the original sandstone building

The building remains essentially a two up, two down with the kitchen at the back. But it was the rear elevation that was particularly interesting, which seems to be virtually untouched since Ted Thompson’s day.

The photograph shows two distinct building phases. The lower story is sandstone while the upper half is brick.

This could be evidence that at one time the cottage was single story and probably thatched.

The datestone

A sandstone date stone is embedded in the brickwork at the top of the building. It shows the initial ‘D’, subtended by ‘W’ and ‘J’, followed by the date of 1837.

This clearly refers to William Davies and his wife Jane.

Could this have been the date when the cottage had a second story added?

William still owned the property in 1885, though by now he was living elsewhere.

The site of the bricked-up bread oven, described by Ted in his reminiscences, is clearly visible, outlined by the surrounding mortar and as Ted states its on the outside back wall of the kitchen.

The site of the bread oven outlined inmortar

However, there is no trace of that door in the kitchen, blocked by a mangle that led to the cellar with its butcher's hooks.

What might the future hold for this once humble cottage and what other memories might it reveal to later historians?

With special thanks to David Allan from the Eastham Archivist, who kind allowed this article to be reproduced by the Globe.