The history of the land we call our garden.
I live in a bungalow that is built on what was previously a farmhouse. So far we have found a horseshoe, an old clay pipe, a farm gate hinge and a blue Victorian brick.this makes me wonder about the lives of the people who lived and worked on this land. What have you unearthed on your patch of ground?
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Isn't it fascinating!
Here are some earlier posts on a similar theme
http://www.gardenersworld.com/forum/the-potting-shed/buried-treasure/277795.html
http://www.gardenersworld.com/forum/the-potting-shed/buried-treasure/173303.html
We've got lots of new forum members since those threads - hopefully they've found lots of buried treasure too
We had to clear some very overgrown woodland and found a small iron 5 spoke wheel, an old hand lantern and many small tools!
A A Milne
I once dug up, what I think is , a fossilised seed pod. Nobody has been able to identify it though.
Our place was built on a lorry repair yard took ages to repair compacted oily soil
but found loads of small lorry bits and heavy-duty wire meshing which has been really useful and the chairman has made a lovely wooden pergola with mesh inserts
If you know the name of the farmhouse you could look it up on the 1901 census and find out who was living in it then. I did that for our house and unearthed a sad little story, with the help of the census and FreeBMD.org. A woman had a child just before Christmas and then died shortly after. The family managed to keep the baby alive till the census in March/ April, but then it too died. I dread to think of what it was like up here in the Pennines with a tiny baby to care for through the winter. It's bad enough now with central heating and hot water and a supermarket to provide the food, but the town is 4 miles away and they were farmers with animals to care for too.
My bungalow was built in 1928 on a farmer's field which was called the spring field so the name of the bungalow is "Springfield" So far I have not found a spring.so perhaps it is named after the season. I do have loads of spring flowers. My boys used to dig up bones, mostly fox or cat which they gave dinosaur- like names to. and displayed in their "Museum".
Lovely Marion, lucky you. We live at Springhill, not a spring flower to be seen when we moved in ten years ago but plenty of boggy ground. We found 7 springs and have spent a lot of time and effort putting in rumbling drains which has only helped a little!!!
A A Milne