The first thing that should be mentioned here is that the following are people’s homes. They are not tourist attractions and the owners and/or occupiers should be given every respect and not disturbed. No details of current owners or ownership in the 21st century will appear on this website. Some more significant properties, that qualify through size or historic importance are listed separately.
These private homes do, however, form part of Musbury’s history. The real centre of interest in these older properties is that they were often commercial properties, representing the various trades and retailers that were so important to village life. There are also social history implications, such as the number of occupants per dwelling, types of construction, etc.
Currently very few of the following will link to pages about the houses, as this is in the development stage. The house names shown are the latest names given to these homes, but previous names will be shown when detailed pages appear. If you have any details of past occupants, historical facts or especially old pictures it will be great to hear from you or, even better, meet up to discuss this.
- Adcroft House
- Brook Cottage
- Cartref
- Cherry Tree House
- Crossway House
- Glen Fern
- Hillside Villas
- Hunt’s Row
- Laurel Cottage
- Malvern House
- May Cottage
- May House
- Missals
- Monmouth House
- Mount Pleasant
- Musbury Barton
- Old Bakery House
- Old Bakery Cottage
- Pump Cottage
- Rose Cottage
- Rose Villa
- September Cottage
- South Cross House
- The Old Cottage
- The Old Forge
- The Post House
- The White House
- The Stables
- Virginia Cottage
- Wisteria Cottage
- Woodhayes
- Yew Tree Cottage
- Yew Tree House
I would like to find out more about Virginia Cottage beside The Lion Inn, Axminster Road. My Great Grandparents Thomas and Ellen Hawker, and their children lived there at least from 1901 to the 1920’s He was a Thatcher and appears in several of the trade pages
Hello and thank you for contacting us. I suppose the simple answer to your questions is ‘so would we!”. I assume from the census and electoral registers that your great-grandparents lived there from at least from 1891 to 1931, if that was their only home in Axminster Road. You doubt know more about this, but it seems Thomas died around 1921 and Ellen continue to live in the house thereafter.
We do know that Virginia Cottage was under the same ownership as the Lion Inn and came up for sale in 1894 (See Lion Inn timeline, etc.) The owners at that time were the brewers, Mitchell, Toms & Co., who presumably sold the property with your GGPs in situ as tenants. It seems the brewers bought the two properties as one lot from the Harding sisters and had no reason to keep Virginia Cottage.
Like many properties in the village, its research is an ongoing project, but we are very happy to exchange anything we discover. Likewise if you have anything to add to the story (info, pictures, anecdotes, etc.), we would be very pleased to hear from you. Feel free to email me at martin@musburyheritage.co.uk.
Hello – A Nigel Hawker has just been named in the 1948 school photo. Could this be a relative? See number 15 on School Photograph 1948