Old Thatched Cottage - 1622
An old thatched cottage is perhaps the first thing that comes to mind when you think of an English country village. Well, Old Weston will not disappoint. Tucked in between the village hall and the chapel is "1622".
In fact this thatched roof cottage did not start out as one home, but two. The second was known as Chapel Cottage. It isn't known when they were joined into one building.
Back in the 1900s it housed the village Post Office, in the room which is the present owner's kitchen.
By the 1930s it had become derelict. The thatched roof cottage was left with a tin roof once the thatch wore out. It was then re-thatched during the second world war.
The photo below, comes from volume 3 of the Huntingdonshire "Old Picture Postcard Book" by David Cozens. The text that accompanies the picture reads...
Continuing through Winwick we arrive at Old Weston. This card by Goggs of Huntingdon looks back up the hill. The view from Brook Farm House shows in the distance Fairmead before it was enlarged. The shop on the left has been demolished. The window and door of the house with the slate roof have both been bricked in since the photograph was taken. Set in the wall of the white building with the three dormers is a stone plaque dated 1622. A new dwelling has been built alongside. The main road was realigned to serve Molesworth airfield leaving St Swithin's church seemingly detached from the village.
The photo below was taken around 1900 and shows a slate roof. The little girl in the photo was Gladys Harrison, who spent her last years living across the road from the old thatched cottage, in The Chestnuts.
She spent her childhood years in the cottage, and back then the family used to collect drinking water from a well in the back garden. The well is still in situ, although the top is bricked in and the gate is padlocked. The current owners still pump water out of it occasionally for the garden. They say that although it is very clear water, they haven't ventured to drink it!
Behind the well is a crooked cherry tree, which is apparently over 90 years old but still blooms beautifully every spring.
Gladys mentioned a walnut, which was planted when she was a very small girl. This has now become a massive walnut tree, right at the top of the back garden.
Gladys sadly passed way in 2005, aged 91 years.
The cottage was modernised, and a front porch added, just before Hilarie and her husband bought it in 1992. Although modernised, a lot of the "old" features remain. The beams, inglenook and stairs are original. The dining room has an original bread oven - this room was the main room of the second cottage. There was an inglenook in one cottage and a bread oven in the other. The lounge and dining room is now one room.
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