This cottage still exists although the wall and fence in the picture no longer exist. Originally a farmhouse and the wall would have helped keep the animals from wandering too close to the door. (Photo above from Mrs Sue Miles)
We have another photograph of the cottage here:
The cottage has always been known as ‘Nash’s’ but there is potential confusion here. There was a Nash Kemp and we know where Nash sat in church as he was given the use of a small pew by the vicar. This was recorded by Robert Brand when he made a note of the church seating in 1844. Robert was one of the churchwardens. , You can see the church seating plans and read Robert’s description here. However the Nash marked on the plan is, I think, different from the Nash that Robert Brand is talking about. On the church plan everyone is marked by their surname and not their first name and in fact on one of the plans a place is clearly marked for ‘P Nash’. If you look at the 1851 census there is the following entry:
Church Street: Peter Nash, aged 34, married to Emma living with his mother Marthe (or possibly Martha).
The census also tells us that Peter Nash was a farmer of 63 acres employing two labourers. It seems far more likely that this is the ‘Nash’ that ‘Nash’s farmhouse’ is named after. By the 1861 census he has acquired another acre, farming 64 acres with the help of one man and two boys. Ten years later and the next census where they are back to 63 acres but employing three men and a boy by now. Peter Nash is also one of the guardians for the SW Workhouse. In the 1881 census he is still farming at 63, now with 65 acres, employing two men and two boys and with Susannah Wright, a dairy maid, living in the house. However in November of 1881 we have a burial record in the Church records for Peter Nash aged 64. Emma, his wife, dies in 1898.
So Peter was a successful farmer and I wonder if the second photograph above does show Peter Nash and his wife Emma by the gate?
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