Chartridge Memories

Memories of Old Cottage, Chartridge

by Dawn Lewcock (nee de Fraine)

Old Cottage, as far as we know, was a two up two down cottage with a cellar, next to a large double doored barn, in the 1920s. My father took the barn down and extended the house into that area. He and Ted Wells did most of the work themselves. My first memory is of them building the staircase. He always said the original cottage was Tudor or Elizabethan and that the big beam that goes right across the kitchen came from then and that the other beams had something to do with ships' timbers, and/or the Armada. Not sure what he meant. He enlarged the windows, and there was little of the original left outside, except the brickwork, and of course at the time it was very up to date, now it is clearly 1930s.

The army requistioned it for a time during the war, I don't think they used the air raid shelter for anything but storage. But my father carried on his business in the sheds and yard at the top of the drive, commuting from Amersham every day.

Photographs courtesy of Dawn Lewcock

[There are more photos of Old Cottage in the Chartridge Yesterday photo gallery or on Caroline O'Neill's family history pages www.Lewcock.net.]