A History of Fox Corner, Pirbright

The most significant historical difference between the 2 maps is that in 1807, both Merristwood Mead and Hockford Farm comprised fields (with no buildings), but in 1841 there are buildings in both segments.

Hockford Cottage

Early history of Merristwood Mead (now Hockford Cottage)

Hockford Cottage is a relatively recent name for this property.  Originally the land that Hockford Cottage now stands on was just a field called Merristwood Mead.  The earliest references to Merristwood Mead are from a 1574 survey, which mentions John Cobbett as having held (copyhold) “Hethers” which included “Meristewood” (a 1-acre meadow) since the 35th year of Henry VIII’s reign.  To save the reader the trouble of looking this up, it refers to 1544.

We will now fast-forward to the mid-1600’s.  Merristwood Mead still formed part of the property called Heathers.  This name Heathers no longer exists, but at the time it was around 33 acres in size and comprised at least 4 distinct properties:

 

1.    23 acres of land called Bullswater Farm, stretching from today’s Bullswater Farmhouse along Rowe Lane northwest as far as Whites Lane.

2.    Speeches, comprising 7 acres of land now part of the Fox Corner Wildlife Association, south of where Pirbright Cottages are today.

3.    Merristwood Mead, now 2 acres, coloured purple above.

4.    Mill Mead, 1 acre, which was the lake serving Heath Mill.

It is a little puzzling to understand why Speeches and Merristwood Mead should have formed part of Bullswater Farm, which was some distance away.  Perhaps it was because they were fertile pieces of land abutting Stanford Brook, offering good opportunities to provide cattle or sheep fodder to the farm.  Or perhaps it was because it enabled Bullswater Farm to have an additional water source (in addition to the Hoe Stream which flowed through its property).  Whatever the reason, both Speeches and Merristwood Mead remained as distinct parcels of land, which were never absorbed into other neighbouring properties.

The Pirbright Court Rolls provide quite a lot of detail about the early ownership of Heathers.  We have extracted below a summary (which is a lot easier to follow than the original, trust us), only covering the transactions which relate to Merristwood Mead up to 1784.

 

• 1647:  Christopher Bull (the copyholder at the time) leased Heathers to a John Sherman for 9 years.  He may have been the source of the name “Bullswater”, which crops up a lot today in our area (Bullswater Common, Bullswater Common Road, Bullswater House, and Bullswater Cottage).

• 1653:  Christopher Bull died, and the property) passed to William Bull, his brother.

• 1664:  William Bull died.  The property passed to Elizabeth Mitchenell, aged 20, his cousin.  

• 1667:  John and Elizabeth Burle had somehow acquired the property, and surrendered Merristwood Mead to Benjamin Martyn (or Martin). Possibly Elizabeth Burle was the married name of Elizabeth Mitchenell who had inherited the property in 1664, but we cannot find any evidence for this.

• 1670:  John and Elizabeth Burle surrendered the Bullswater Farm and Speeches parcels to Benjamin Martin.    

• 1676:  Benjamin Martin died.  Merristwood Mead (2 acres) passed to his son, George Martin, aged 52.

• 1694:  By now, George Martin owned all of the original Heathers, ie Bullswater Farm (23 acres), Merristwood Mead (2 acres), Mill Mead (1 acre) and Speeches (7 acres).

• c1700:  George Martin must have died, and left Heathers to his son, George Martin II (born 1673).

• 1760:  George Martin II died.  His Heathers properties (excluding Speeches) were inherited by his son, George Martin III.

• 1763:  George Martin III, who also lived at Bakersgate, mortgaged the 3 parcels of Heathers property a few times.  George’s Bakersgate connection stems from his marriage to Mary Baker, widow of John Baker (who had owned Bakersgate) in 1722.  This story is told in the Bakersgate section.

• 1784:  George Martin III “Of Bulswatter” died.  The 3 parcels of Heathers property (including Merristwood Mead) were left to Elizabeth Boylett, wife of George Boylett, husbandman of Pirbright.  

Merristwood Mead (now Hockford Cottage) from 1784

Thus in 1784 George Martin died and Elizabeth Boylett acquired Merristwood Mead.  On the face of it, this seems a rather unusual arrangement by George Martin – to leave his property to the wife of another man.  Presumably there was a very good reason for this; it’s just that we don’t know what that reason was. 

Elizabeth Boylett had been born Elizabeth Osbourn c 1728 in Pirbright.  She had married George Boylett in 1753 when aged 25.  At the time George Boylett was aged 38 and was the village blacksmith in Worplesdon (like his father, also named George, before him).  They had 3 children:  George (junior), Elizabeth and John.

When Elizabeth inherited Merristwood Mead in 1784, George Boylett changed his occupation from being a blacksmith to being a farmer.  At that time there was no dwelling on Merristwood Mead, and we cannot be sure where they lived, but they continued to farm Merristwood Mead until George’s death in 1793, aged 79.  At that point, George Boylett junior took over the running of the farm, still owned (copyhold) by his mother, Elizabeth.

Elizabeth died in 1803.  Their daughter, Elizabeth, died the same year, aged 43 (unmarried).  Elizabeth senior’s will describes her as “of Bullswater” and she bequeathed her copyhold lands in Pirbright to her eldest son, George Boylett junior.  She left her copyhold lands in Worplesdon (presumably the blacksmith’s smithy) to her youngest child, John.

George junior continued to farm Merristwood Mead until his death in 1843.  He never married and his brother John had predeceased him in 1828, leaving him with no close living relatives.  So his will (drafted in 1830) makes interesting reading.  He left several of his not-very-close relatives the grand sum of one shilling (worth just £4 today).  However he left all his copyhold properties (2 in Worplesdon and Merristwood Mead in Pirbright) and the rest of his personal estate to Jane Searl(e), the wife of Benjamin Searl(e).

George’s 1830 will makes reference to a “messuage” (ie a house) at Merristwood Mead, but there is no house shown on the 1807 map, so we know that the house was built between 1807 and 1830.  The will was witnessed by John Heather, who ran the first shop in Rickford at a cottage near the present-day Christmas Bakery. John’s story can be found on our sister website dealing with Rickford.

The obvious question is:  Why did George leave his property to the wife of another man?  It echoes the situation in 1784, when George Martin left Merristwood Mead to Elizabeth Boylett, but the reason may be easier to work out.  In the 1841 census, George was living with Benjamin and Jane Searle.  The census location is given as “Hogley”, but so are 4 other dwellings, so this may not be very accurate.  The 1841 Tithe map clarifies that Benjamin “Sale” (probably it should have read “Searle”) was occupying the house at Merristwood Mead.

Given that a dwelling already existed at Merristwood Mead by 1841, it looks as though George allowed the Searles to move in with him at Merristwood Mead, and take over the running of the farm as well as looking after him (by 1841 George was aged 86).  Jane Searle had been born Jane Saunders in Pirbright, and so there may have been a connection between the Martins and the Saunders families of which we are not aware.  

This arrangement seemed to work well, and George decided to bequeath the farm to the Searles.  The decision not to give much of his estate to his relatives is another matter entirely.

Benjamin Searle was born at Frimley in 1785.  In 1807 he married Jane Saunders (born in Pirbright in 1791 and only aged 16 at the time of her marriage) in Horsell.  They had 3 children.  Benjamin died in 1848, aged 63, but Jane moved to Fellmoor (near to Stanford) and continued to work as a farmer.  Her grandson, Charles Faggetter lived with her, working on the farm.

By 1871 Jane had returned to “Merristwood Cottage” (today called Hockford Cottage).  She described herself as a farmer of 2.5 acres (which was Merristwood Mead), even though she was aged 80 (she gave her age on the census as 82).  Living with Jane was Charles Faggetter, her grandson, together with his wife Mary and their 4 children.  Charles was a gardener, but presumably he also did most of the work on the 2.5 acres owned by his mother.

On the 1873 OS map the house was accessed by a track leading diagonally across Bullswater Common from the Ash Road (opposite Bakersgate).  However later maps show that this track had disappeared, and the only access was via Pullens Farm (see below).

 Jane died in 1877 in Burnham, Buckinghamshire.  By this time her grandson, Charles Faggetter, had taken over the Merristwood Mead property, having presumably been left it by his mother.  

A bit of background on Charles:  He had been born in 1829, the son of Henry Faggetter and his wife Mercy (nee Searle, the daughter of Benjamin and Jane Searle).  Sadly Mercy died in 1839, which must have been a tremendous hardship to the family.  However Henry quickly remarried and bore several children with his second wife.  In 1841 Henry and his family (including 12 year-old Charles) were living at Millstream Cottage near Heath Mill.  Charles married Mary Collyer (who had previously lived at West Heath and was working as a servant at Goldsworth Nursery) in 1862.  Over the next 20 years they had 9 children, one of whom, Albert, was later to farm next-door Hockford Farm (see below).

Charles remained at Hockford Cottage until his death in 1893, aged 64.  He continued to describe himself as a gardener, though he also presumably continued to tend the 2.5 acres of Merristwood Mead.  Where did he work?  We think it was probably at nearby Merrist Wood (for the reasons suggested in the paragraph below).  In case the reader thinks that Merrist Wood is quite a distance away, it is worth remembering that Hockford Cottage is just 600 metres (ie 3 good golf shots) north of the 2nd green on the Merrist Wood golf course, albeit separated by thick woodland today.  

Mary Faggetter (Charles’s wife) inherited the property, but moved out of Hockford Cottage in 1900 and sold the property to the descendants of Charles Peyto Shrubb, who had owned Merrist Wood.  This would have benefitted both parties – for several years Charles Peyto Shrubb had been intent on extending the acreage of Merrist Wood, while Mary, aged 61, would surely have been keen to sell a small property in a somewhat remote location.  Charles Shrubb had died in 1899.

She went to live with her son William and his wife at Merrist Wood Farm.  William was a gardener there, and it seems that the links between the Faggetter family and the Shrubbs were quite strong.  This is what drives us to think that his father, Charles, had also been a gardener at Merrist Wood.

Although none of the Shrubb family ever lived in Pirbright to our knowledge, they did own (in the 19th century) the large tract of land which was the Merrist Wood Estate, part of which was near Fox Corner.  We have therefore included elsewhere on this site a history of Charles Peyto Shrubb, written by Steve Cranstone.  If you read it, you’ll see that he (Charles Peyto Shrubb) was a rather colourful fellow…

The 1901 census records that “Oxford Cottage” (presumably Hockford Cottage, misheard by the census enumerator) was occupied by James Stevens, a farm labourer aged 71, and his family.  James had been brought up at Pottery in Chapel Lane (near the Providence Chapel building), and then (in 1861) was working as a porter at the newly-opened Necropolis (now known as Brookwood Cemetery).  By 1871 he was a “Beerhouse keeper and labourer, also farmer of 7 acres”, living at Swallow Cottage, near Burners Farm.  We are not sure which beerhouse he kept (was it The White Hart?), but with 3 different occupations he must have been a busy man.  He and his wife Ann (nee Warner) then moved to Ash, where he worked as a labourer, before later returning to Pirbright.  

One member of the Stevens family at that time was Harriett, the 39 year-old daughter of James and Ann.  We have mentioned Harriett specifically, because she later married Moses Cooke at next-door Hockford Farm (see below).

James Stevens and his family moved out c1904, and moved into 12, Pirbright Cottages,  which would have been considerably less isolated than Merristwood Mead (and also a much nearer to a pub).

By 1906 David Marshall was living at Hockford Cottage, aged 16, soon joined by his elder brother, George Marshall, who was 2 years his senior.  They were both gamekeepers, in the employ of the Shrubbs at Merrist Wood, and came from a family of gamekeepers.  The 1907 Kelly’s Directory lists them as gamekeepers to Stanley Brotherhood, who rented shooting rights from the Shrubb family.  [Stanley Brotherhood ran his family engineering firm, which made high-speed engines.  He went on to become Chairman of Humber, ther well-known car company.] 

Their father, David senior (born in Dorset in 1859), was a gamekeeper and had, together with his wife Fanny (born in Dorset in 1855) and their 9 children, moved around the country from job to job.  Their children had been born in Dorset, Somerset, Essex, Shropshire and Hampshire, and they now found themselves in Surrey, working at Merrist Wood Farm.  David Marshall junior and his brother George were therefore living not far from the rest of their family.

This was to be David senior’s last posting, as he died at Merrist Wood Farm in 1923.  Fanny died in 1931 at nearby Norton’s Farm in Rickford, which was part of Merrist Wood Farm at that time.  But David junior and George remained at Hockford Cottage.

In 1917 David junior married Elsie Riggs, daughter of James Riggs, a gardener at Merrist Wood, at Worplesdon.  David gave his occupation as cowman, and his father’s as farm bailiff.  They had one child, Yvonne (born in 1919).

David and Elsie Marshall remained at Hockford Cottage until 1938, but in 1939, the whole of Merrist Wood Farm was sold to Surrey County Council (with a view to using Merrist Wood House as a mental institution).  Presumably the Marshalls were evicted, and later that year David and Elsie were living at The Shooting Lodge near Whitmoor Farm.  David’s occupation had reverted to estate gamekeeper.

Their daughter, Yvonne, married Robert Bailey in 1942.  Elsie Marshall died at The Shooting Lodge in 1956, and David moved to Cox’s Farm, Sutton Green with Yvonne and Robert.  David died there in 1977.

Meanwhile, George Marshall had married Daisy Simpson (daughter of William and Maria Simpson who lived in Stoughton) in 1912 at Worplesdon and they moved out of Hockford Cottage into Fern Cottage in Goose Rye Road.  They later moved to Wood Street, but Daisy died in 1935, while George died in 1956, living in Milford.  We don’t think they had any children.

We are not sure who lived in Hockford Cottage during WW2.  A Margaret Failes placed an advert offering a “country home for a young baby”, but that’s all.  In 1945 three ladies (including Margaret Failes) were living in the cottage, so maybe Surrey County Council were using it as temporary wartime accommodation for families displaced during the war.  

In addition Louis and Elizabeth Mann lived in the house during WW2, and they stayed there until 1955 (when Louis died, aged 78).  We do not know much about the Manns, although Louis may have been brought up in Worcestershire, and they had previously been living at Stanford.  After Louis died, Elizabeth moved to St John’s.

c1961 Walter Joseph and Pamela Morphew, who had previously been living at Walton-on-Thames, moved into Hockford Cottage.   They brought with them the phone number (now Worplesdon 232094), which Victoria Newsom had acquired when she moved into Hockford Farm in 1934.  Victoria had transferred it to Hockford Bungalow when she moved there in 1950 and the Morphews had somehow acquired it when they moved into Hockford Cottage in 1961.  

At the same time, Clarence and Annie Drake lived at the cottage until at least 1970.  We do not know for sure who they were, but they may have originated from Yorkshire, and may well have been lodgers with the Morphews.

c1991 Walter and Pamela Morphew moved out of Hockford Cottage into  nearby Hockford Bungalow (see below), which they promptly renamed Hockford Byre.  They took with them the phone number (Worplesdon 232094) they had brought from Hockford Bungalow 30 years previously.

Walter Morphew was born in Brentford in 1926, and in 1945 had served 2 years at sea as an apprentice.  In 1956 he married Pamela Burningham (who had been born at Chertsey in 1927).  They had 3 children.  Walter died at Hockford Cottage in 2000, but Pamela remained there until at least 2005.

We are not sure as to the ownership of Hockford Cottage after Surrey County Council purchased it in 1939.  By 1982 (and presumably from 1961) the Morphews were the owners.  From the late 1990’s, the cottage was owned by someone who lived in Woking.  A flood of planning applications to extend the property followed, but most were refused.  

Hockford Farm

Early history of Hockford Farm

The earliest reference to the area that became Hockford Farm is in 1652, in the will of one Robert Purse, where he leaves “land in Pirbright lately grubbed called the Coppice (12 acres) and meadow Burnham Mead there” to his son, John Purse.  As we will see shortly, Burnham Meadow (c4 acres in size) became part of Hockford Farm, and 2 of the other Hockford Farm fields are 12 acres in area.  In other words, Robert Purse’s land later formed the major part of Hockford Farm.  The description of The Coppice as “lately grubbed” suggests that, by 1652, it had only recently been converted from wasteland to agricultural use.

Robert named as one of his executors “my friend John Baker”, who was probably the owner of nearby Bakersgate.  

John Purse’s will of 1665 makes no mention of Burnham Mead, which suggests that he may have sold it.  The purchaser was probably John’s brother, Robert Purse, as, in his will of 1662, Robert Purse (son of the Robert who had died in 1652) left “Coppice Ground, Burnham Mead and Hockford Mead” to the daughter of his wife by a previous marriage.  This daughter was Ann Hinde, who had been born in 1652.  Ann had already inherited Heath Mill from her grandfather, so was a significant landholder in the area.  Ann went on to marry Henry Rober, but the trail then goes cold.  Ann and Henry had a son, Henry who went bankrupt in 1736, so this may have resulted in a sale of the Hockford land, but this is guesswork.

After that promising start in the records, we then have a gap of 120 years until the 1774 Poor Rate records show that a Mr R Huntingford owned the land.  33 years later, the 1807 Pirbright map confirms that Richard Huntingford still owned what we know now as Hockford Farm:  The 6 fields coloured yellow on the Tithe Map above, totalling 20 acres.  Around this time he let the land out for others to farm.  These people included Thomas Woods jnr (who was the miller at Heath Mill and a John Collins.  

But who was Richard Huntingford?  He was born in 1738, the son of Richard and Alice Huntingford of Worplesdon.  However he did not meet the approval of his father, who had died in 1786, as evidenced by this opening to his father’s will:  “I give and bequeath to my son Richard Huntingford one shilling and no more in the month after my decease, I having given him divers sums of money before and my lands in Pirbright”.  Just to make it clear, the father specifies that the remainder of his estate should be “equally divided between all my children, except my son Richard Huntingford”.  

Putting all this together, it seems that Richard Huntingford the elder had owned the Hockford Farm land, perhaps from the mid-1700’s (following the bankruptcy of Henry Rober junior in 1736), and that he had given the land to Richard the younger, who still owned Hockford Mead in 1807.  But there is no building shown on the property on the 1807 map, which tells us that the land was just land, probably rented out, and that it was not at that time a farm.

By 1822 James Terry had purchased the land from Richard Huntingford.  James Terry was a notable figure in the development of Worplesdon.  His wife Ann had inherited a substantial land holding in Worplesdon, and James went on to increase their land holdings in future years, but this purchase (of Hockford Farm) was one of his first (if not the first) venture into property.  It may well have been James who decided to build a farmhouse on the land, and call it  Hockford Farm.

James Terry died in 1859, and his family influenced the future development of Worplesdon in no small way.  His story is told in the Terry Family section of our sister website dealing with Rickford.  One of his great-grandsons, Silas Terry, lived at nearby Westbrook Cottage in the 1930’s.

But by 1831 James Terry had sold Hockford Farm (probably to fund further land purchases in Worplesdon) to James Stanford.  Stanford Farm is not far away from Hockford Farm, so it would be natural to wonder if James Stanford was connected to Stanford Farm.  The short answer is No. 

Hockford Farm from 1841

By 1841, the Hockford Farm building can be seen on the map above (at the top of field 143).  The building has been known as Ockford Farm, Ockford Farmhouse, Hockford Farmhouse and (currently) Hockford Farm House.

The farm and the 6 fields comprising the yellow area on the map above were still owned by James Stanford, but he let out a small portion (including the farmhouse) to a William Bullin.  This is what else we know about James.

 

• He was born in 1774 at Burlingham, Norfolk, near Norwich, the son of Jonathan and Sarah Stanford.

• In 1807 he married Mary Parson at Stoke (Guildford).

• From 1826 to 1841 he lived in Rickford (at The Old Malthouse) and described himself as a Farmer & maltster.  They had two children Mary and Ann, who had been born in Stoke (Guildford).

• By 1851 he was a widower, living off his savings.  He was living in Merrow Rd, Guildford with his daughters Mary and Ann, both in their 40’s and unmarried.

• In 1857 he died at Stoke, aged 82, leaving all his properties to his daughters Mary and Ann Stanford.

As to the ownership of the farm, it seems likely that it was sold to Charles Peyto Shrubb fairly soon after James died.  We know for sure that Mr Shrubb owned Ockford Farm by 1880.  The purchase of Ockford Farm by Charles Peyto Shrubb should not surprise us.  Ockford Farm was adjacent to the Merrist Wood estate, which had been owned by the Shrubb family for nearly 50 years.  Charles may have seen it as an easy way to increase the acreage of the estate.  The farm remained within the Shrubb family estates until at least 1912.  

Although none of the Shrubb family ever lived in Pirbright to our knowledge, they did own (in the 19th century) the large tract of land which was the Merrist Wood Estate, part of which was near Fox Corner.  We have therefore included elsewhere on this site a history of Charles Peyto Shrubb, written by Steve Cranstone.  If you read it, you’ll see that he (Charles Peyto Shrubb) was a rather colourful fellow…

In 1918, the entire Merristwood Estate was sold to Harold Denison Arbuthnot (1868-1944), a partner in a firm of stockbrokers.  Hockford Farm would have been a small part of the overall estate, and the farm was later sold off by him to Maxwell Logan c1930.

Mary and Ann Stanford continued to live in Guildford, and by 1871 they were living in Waterden Road.  Ann died in the 1870’s and Mary in 1885, still living at Waterden Road.  Both were unmarried and childless.  Mary’s estate was valued at £16,000 (worth £1.5 million today).  

In terms of occupancy, by 1851 Henry Cooke (sometimes spelt Cook) was established as the farmer at Hockford Farm (although in the census that year, the property had no name), having moved there from Brook Farm, Rickford.  Henry had been born in Ash in 1778, the eldest of 10 children of Gloucestershire parents.  His grandparents had 15 children.  Henry married Mary Boxall (born in Godalming) in 1803 in Worplesdon, and they went on to produce 11 children.  The Cookes certainly seemed to like having big families….

Henry and Mary Cooke lived at Hockford Farm until their deaths in 1859 (Mary) and 1860 (Henry).  

In 1861 Abraham Cooke and his family were living at “Merrist Farm” as a market gardener.  On the Electoral Registers around that time, the farm was called “Mirrist Wood”.  Perhaps there was no “official” name of the farm, but it was known as Merristwood Farm (or something similar) because of its proximity to Merristwood Mead (see below).

Abraham was the youngest of Henry and Mary’s 11 children and had been born at Perry Hill, Worplesdon in 1825.  It seems curious that the youngest of Henry’s children took over the farm – at the time it was more usual for the eldest son to take over his father’s business.  However only 2 of Abraham’s brothers were alive at the time.  One was a smith in Southwark and the other was a farm labourer at the Pottery in Chapel Lane.  Perhaps they were both happy where they were, because, for whatever reasons, Abraham took over running the farm.

Abraham married Elizabeth Palmer in 1846 and they had 9 children, continuing the Cooke large-family tradition.  The 3 youngest boys were called Moses, Job and Aaron, so Abraham presumably wanted to expand the number of biblical names in his family (in addition to his own).

By 1871 Abraham Cooke and his family were living at what was now (on the 1870 OS Map) named Hockford Farm (although the 1871 and 1881 censuses recorded it as “Ocford Farm”).  By 1881 its size had risen to 26 acres, possibly by the acquisition of a long narrow field aligned north-south on the other side of the Stanford Brook (and therefore lying in Worplesdon).  The farm was accessed  in the same way as today – along a track, now the paved road Hockford Close.

Abraham made a profit from working the land – enough to buy 3 cottages in Rickford (Stonebridge Cottage and 2 semi-detached cottages which were later combined to become Rickford Cottage).

Abraham died in 1882, and his third son (out of 5), Moses Cooke, took over the running of Ockford Farm.  At this time there was a sale of farming stock (including horses, cows and pigs), as well as farm equipment and some furniture.  Perhaps Moses wanted to shake off his father’s old farming habits, modernise the farm and make a fresh start.

We are afraid to say that Moses has a bad reputation, with family sources citing alcoholism and wife-beating amongst his habits.  One put it this way:  “He wasn't a very nice gentleman”.  If you would like to read more details about Moses, he appears on the page dealing with the Slaughter Family.

Moses had been born in Pirbright in 1857 and so was just 25 when he became the new farmer.  In 1883 he married Elizabeth Slaughter (born 1858), daughter of Thomas Slaughter who just happened to be the farmer at Bakersgate, just along the road.  They had 2 children, but sadly Elizabeth died in 1887, aged only 28, when her youngest child was only 6 months old.  This must have been a dreadful time for Moses, but he carried on living at the farm with his 2 young children, which must have been very tough for him.

 Several years later, c1900, his eye was caught by a lady called Harriett Stevens, the daughter of James Stevens, who was living at Merristwood Mead (at that time called Ockford Cottage – see above).  Although the 2 properties were next-door to each other, they weren’t connected by any official track.  Maybe Moses chatted to Harriett over the boundary hedge.

The Stevenses only lived at Ockford Cottage for a couple of years (before moving to 12, Pirbright Cottages), but that proved to be long enough for Moses.  He and Harriett were married in October 1905, and 5 months later Harriett gave birth to Olive.  Moses purchased No 1 Kelvin Cottages in Rickford, and the family lived there until 1912.  They then moved to Littlehurst Farm, near Stringer’s Common.  c1924 they moved to Bramley and a few years later to Wonersh, where Harriett died in 1940 and Moses in 1944 at the age of 86 – rather surprising in the light of his drinking habit.  Olive married in 1943 and died in Chichester in 1993.  

c1910 Albert Faggetter (born c1880) moved into Ockford Farm, together with his elder brother, William and his wife Laura (nee Marsh), who was from Suffolk.  William would have known the area well – he and Laura had been living at Merrist Wood Farm (in Worplesdon), and prior to that William had been living at Merristwood Mead (before the Stevenses) with his parents Charles and Mary Faggetter.  Now Faggetter was a common surname around Pirbright at that time, so it should not be a surprise to find that William was a cousin, once removed, of John Faggetter who built Pirbright Cottages.

William and Laura left Pirbright soon after 1911, and they moved to Andover, where they stayed for the rest of their lives.  William died there in 1935, aged 67, and Laura also died there in 1959, aged 88.

Albert Faggetter, however, stayed at Ockford Farm for 20 years.  He married Marion Smith (born in Brighton in 1882) in 1911.  A delightful memento from their marriage is pictured below.  They had 2 sons (Dennis and Alfred).