Digital Ark: St. Florence, Wales: Images

Dating features:

• no telephone box
• no telephone/electric pole in front to the chimney wall
• no bench
• no letter box
• wall in front of the chimney is short.

Judging by the shadow of the pole, these two were taken within minutes of one another.

Dating features:

• has telephone box
• has telephone/electric pole in front to the chimney wall
• no bench
• no letter box
• wall in front of the Chimney is short.

Until the 1960´s if you wanted to make a telephone call you would nip up to the telephone box up by the Flemish Chimney. It has one of the good old press button B phones.

To make a long distance/trunk call you dialled 0 to get the operator. You would then give the operator the wanted destination address. Usually they would tell you that it would take a few minutes to set up the call, and that they would phone you back.

So you would then hang-up and wait for the operator to call you back.

No problem, except in summer when St. Florence was invaded by holiday makers, mostly from the midlands. And if they wanted to phone home, then there would be quite a queue outside the telephone box. You could not make a call whilst someone else was waiting for the operator to call back. Things got better in about 1959 when it became possible to dial trunk calls without an operator (to get the operator then you had to dial 100).

Dating features:

• The girl on the left is reportedly Cynthia Griffiths 2 Morgans Terrace DOB: 1929

Going up the hill, on the left-hand side:

• 2 Morgans Terrace
• 1 Morgans Terrace
• Single story building/shed with white side.
  In the 1950's onwards Mr. Hodge of 1 Morgans Terrace kept his car here.
  Hodge, Daisy, 1, Morgans Terrace.
  Hodge, Vincent, 1, Morgans Terrace.
• House, at right-angles to the street.
  From about the 1950's this was the home of Mrs. Knight mother of Mr. Harold Butler (owner of the shop and the New Inn) lived here.

At the top of the hill:

• Left and center, an "L" shaped building. Treygor and the smithy.
• to the right, side-ways on, the house where Mr. Henwood the village school headmaster, would later live.

Going up the hill, on the right-hand side:

• Spring Gardens
• House, at right-angles to the street, only the near end wall was there in the 1950's.
  According to the 1908 map there might have been a smithy and an inn here.
  In the 1950's onwards this would have been the main village shop (green tin shack) and the New Inn.

Spring Gardens circa. 1920?

Personal memory: George Salisbury

Spring Gardens the large house on the right with a white end.
I have a soft spot for Spring Gardens it was a working farm until the 1980's.

A cousin (2nd I think) of my mother lived there around 1955, named Lewis. I can just remember one Christmas ~1959 when they gave me a compendium of games: ludo, snakes and ladders, draughts...

Dilapidated building on the right
In the 1950's it definitely was part of Spring Gardens farm. We shall see it again later!

Stone wall on the left, up to the water
The stone wall, up to the far edge of the Ritec er, river, belongs to Court Vale farm, which is on the left, behind the photographer.

Stone wall on the left, beyond the water
This part of the stone wall belongs to the house on the left, you can only see its side view behind some tree/bush.
This is the house where my family lived from about 1953 for ~20 years, and where I and my little sister Christine were born. By then about 5 pipes of about 2 foot in diameter were laid to carry the water and then the pipes were covered by the road. The bridge was rebuilt around 1969 when the river flooded, burst its bank into our garden and flooded our house to a depth of almost 2 feet.

When Christine was about 4 years old she was climbing on the wall, fell on to the pavement and got a green-stick fracture of (I think) her left arm. Christine was overhead sometime later explaining to some holidaymakers walking by the wall that a particular dent in the pavement was caused by her fall.

The dark house to the left of Spring Gardens
Now this is a bit of guess work. In the 1950`s this building did not exist, only the wall immediately against Spring Gardens was standing.
To the left of this dark house, but not visible, is I think the building that is referenced on the 1908 map as an inn.
In my time it was the Sun Inn and the footprint of the dark house held the local shop, a green, tin shack. With no electric (might have had a light), or water.
Both the inn and the shop were run by Mr. Harold Butler.

The 1908 map refers to an inn and a smithy, I wonder if the dark house was the smithy?

When I saw this picture I felt like a happy dog with two tails. I did not know which to wag first.
There are so many untold stories here!

Extreme right-hand side: Bumblers Farm. In the 1950's onwards it belonged to Mr. George Johns he was brother to Auntie Annie see the section on People.

He had 4 or 5 bee-hives in the field between his buildings and the River Ritec.

Not really visible, but just behind the hedge on the immediate left is Court Vale.

Slightly left of center is the white side of a house, then Ark, where an extension is being built.

Personal memory: George Salisbury

The Ark, where I was born.

Source: my sister Kathleen:

When mum and dad bought The Ark they didn’t realise how big the garden was. It was overgrown.
Many years previously some one used to grow withys for basket making etc.
Mum and Dad said that they came across a small stone bridge at one point, in the corner of the garden by the road/river.

We built the bungalow Nant Oer, initially as a shop/post office, then converted to a bungalow. The bridge is now in the Nant Oer garden.

Apparently it was Mum'S Welsh speaking friend Enid Lewis - the Back who named the bungalow.
It means cold water.

Slightly above and to the left of the Ark you can see a house with 3 windows that is sideways to the road. In the 1950's onwards Mrs. Knight the mother of Mr. Harold Butler lived there, he was owner of the main village shop and the New Inn

Slightly right of center is a single storey white building. Actually it is a part of the Spring Gardens farm. Spring Gardens is the grey building to the left of the shed.

The wall and bushes just uphill of the New Inn were replaced by Longstone View sometime around 1962/63.

The house edge just visible at the front left is where the Morris family lived. They had an unfriendly dachshund which occassionally got loose.

Personal memory: George Salisbury

One day the dachshund got loose and bit my mother on the ankle.

When I was about 7 years old Mrs. Morris gave be some old books:

• A large book of pictures (black and white), almost A4 sized, of major events. Included pictures of: the R101 airship disaster of 1930, Queen Victoria's funeral procession, the coronations of Edward VII and George V.
• A set of encyclopedias from about 1940.
• A massively thick book that was full of things for the young boy
  Stories: greek ledgends and viking sagas, jokes, general history, general science,...

Junction of High and Cross Street looking east: ~1957 and 2026

The cottage right next to the NO ENTRY sign is where two elderly spinsters lived. When Ridgeway View was built they moved in to a bungalow there.
One of the 2 had badly swollen legs and very little mobility.

It is nice to see in the Google Map image that the old walls on either side of the cottage are still standing.

The old wall on the right, and the 2 houses further along are gone.

In one of the houses lived a Mrs. Gough, Jane, 2, Cross Street DOB: unknown DOD 5th June 1964 an elderly lady who had lost a leg so was in a wheelchair.

Her neighbour was a Mr. William J.E. Davies
Two memories that have been submitted:
When he stood in the doorway he wore brown leather apron, sacking and string comes to mind.
An old chap who used to walk along the lane past the school who wore a jacket and trousers made out of sacking?

The 2 houses were demolished to make the entrance to the new Ridgeway View estate.

Refreshments 19xx?

Personal memory: George Salisbury

I wish I could date this picture.

The Rectory
The big house at the back was the Rectory. In the mid-1960's the Church sold the Rectory and installed the vicar at a modern bungalow at the start of Eastern Lane.

Refreshments The house with the sign, middle house of 3.
In my day this was the Sun Inn, the landlord was (~1960's) a Mr. Neville Skone who also operated a small garage/petrol station, across the road, where the white single storey build stands.

Elm Grove.
To the front of the Rectory, on the right of the picture, is a row of trees. These lead to the large house and grounds of Elm Grove.
My elder sister, Kathleen, can remember the owner of Elm Grove, a Major Barclay, hosting a Queen Elizabeth coronation tea for the local children.

Refreshments 19xx?

Personal memory: George Salisbury

I estimate that this picture is from the late 1940's, early 1950's.
This picture is taken from near to the Rectory of the previous picture, and is looking towards where the previous photographer must have been standing.

Update: I have found and almost idential picture to this but without the two people.
On the Image Gallery there is a Squibbs Studio postcard. The framing and shadows are indentical.

Sun Inn the middle house of the row of 3 on the right.
We met the Sun Inn in the previous picture, the Refreshments sign has been replaced by the Sun Inn. The single story white building of the previous picture is gone, and replaced by a open courtyard.

Refreshments The house with the sign, middle house of 3.
In my day this was the Sun Inn, the landlord was (~1960's) a Mr. Neville Skone who also operated a small garage/petrol station, across the road, where the white single storey build stands.

Wall on the near, left side.
In the previous picture this was a rough stone wall. Here it has been made smooth.
But notice that in both pictures the wall has a small opening. I think that it hosts a community water tap.

Pig in the garden
Around 1950 my parents (and sister Kathleen of course) moved in to the nearest of the three houses on the left, Wood View which they rented from the village blacksmith Mr. G. Twigg. They lived there until they bought the Ark down by the river Ritec.
Well apparently my father, who worked at the Army camp in Manorbier, came home one day with a baby pig.
They kept the pig in the garden, that is to say, in the garden behind the tidy wall on the immediate left of the picture.

Source: my sister Kathleen:
Porky was one of only two piglets born and the mother wouldn’t feed it. Dad was at the camp, told this and the farmer gave him the piglet. He brought it home in his coat pocket and was hand reared by mum. When old enough he was housed in the pigsty at the bottom of the garden. He was a constant companion to mum as she spent a lot of time in the garden, over the road.

The women and the girl
To be honest I do not know who they are.

Elm Grove.
To the front of the Rectory, on the right of the picture, is a row of trees. These lead to the large house and grounds of Elm Grove.
My elder sister, Kathleen, can remember the owner of Elm Grove, a Major Barclay, hosting a Queen Elizabeth coronation tea for the local children.
Major Richard Charles Edward Barclay

Dating features:

• The shadow means that the sun is in the east, and it is a Squibbs Studio image.
  It has technical simularities with other Squibbs Studio images of post-1958
• opposite the Sun Inn is a (garage ?) courtyard