BURNT ROW COPSE: AN ARCHAEOLOGICAL INVESTIGATION:

THE LAST INHABITANTS

I recently had the pleasure of interviewing Mrs Edna Hayward (nee Bennett) who, along with her family was amongst the last residents of the Burnt Row site. Mrs Hayward actually lived in the cottage opposite Weavers Cottage although both were identical and only separated by the footpath still evident today.

What Mrs Hayward was able top tell me of the years she spent living at Burnt Row confirm much of the archaeological record produced as a result of the excavation.

Mrs Hayward’s Father, George, was a market gardener by trade and worked and lived with his family in Berkshire near the river Thames. In 1928 the Thames burst it banks and George Hayward’s livelihood was taken away. The disaster was dismissed as an ‘act of God’ by the insurance companies and so George received nothing for his lost business. With the country still in depression George was able to get s job as a gardener with Mr Saunders who had recently purchased the Tefdold estate.

Mrs Hayward describes living at Burnt Row in great detail and the lifestyle for her and the rest of the family was very simple compared to today’s complex situation but she remembers her childhood with a good deal of affection.

As the excavation suggested, neither Mrs Haywire’s cottage nor weavers Cottage had electricity, gas or running water. Mrs Hayward remembers the pump being added to the spring and before that the family had to fetch water from the well. After the pump had been brought in the first job for Mr Hayward of a morning was to start the pump to send water to the Tedfold farm.

When I told her of our surprise on finding so many fragments of domestic life she pointed to the obvious that we had begun to consider. Near the cottages was a pond into which the waste of all the inhabitants was dumped. This pond has now disappeared but when the cottages were finally demolished much of its contents were strewn across the site.

Mrs Hayward only laughed quietly when I suggested how hard it must have been for her Mother looking after and keeping clean five children in such conditions, such a lifestyle was the norm rather than the exception and people simply managed!

All the surrounding footpaths were un-metalled and with the nearby spring mud was something of a perennial problem, so much so that the Postman sometimes refused to deliver the mail.

Mrs Hayward remembers the fruit trees in the gardens, both apple and pears, which no doubt are the ancestors of those to be found on the site today.

The cottages were also quite simple inside. The floors were stone flags and cast iron grates were the only source of heat. Mrs Hayward’s own cottage was so covered in ivy that when it was demolished the roof was found to be in such good condition that it was recycled and used by the builders on another property.

The cottages only contained four rooms, two up and two down with the downstairs two being the biggest. With water taken from the well and a cast iron range for cooking and the heating of water life must have been far harder than we can imagine, all available lighting came from candles and lamps. Having said this Mrs Hayward did explain that people from the village came especially to Burnt Row to collect water because it was so pure!

Mrs Hayward explained that even for their time the cottages were in a poor state of repair and quite damp to live in. By the mid 1930’s Mr Saunders had sold the plot to a Captain Glyn-Percy who then sold it on a Mr Cornell. The new owner did not want the cottages or certainly did not want to go to the expense of renovating them and in 1935 when Mrs Hayward was ten, the cottages were demolished by a firm called Bartholomew and Baker.

The Haywards were moved, along with their neighbours the Lewis’s (who lived in Weavers Cottage) to numbers 10 and 11 West Street in Billingshurst which had not long been built. Mrs Hayward like all of her family went on to serve in the forces during World War Two and was a WREN based in Portsmouth for the duration.

Finally, the local council acquired the Burnt Row site as part of its development plans for the Billingshurst area and the recently built amenity tip and the by-pass were presumably part of the longer-term plan. Consequently the Community project, of which this inquiry is only a small part, has added playing fields, country walks, picnic areas and a fishing lake to the Burnt Row area.