2007
Mulberry Cottage, 6 Yew Tree Lane
It was built as a farmhouse in the late 1600's, with the left part of the present house being an attached barn. It is believed that, at the time of the enclosure award of 1766, it was in the ownership of William Hawkins (surgeon) who was allotted 89.5 acres off to the south-east at the end of Yew Tree Lane. The land was thus not attached to the farmhouse. The house may have been let at that time, or soon after, to John Knighton, and the farm would have been let out too. In 1784, there is a reference to this farmhouse within a mortgage deed (£2000 loan to Hawkins) and it is sated that the house is then occupied as three tenements with the Homestead by Edward Farndon and his sub-tenants. It appears, therefore, that the conversion to three cottages occurred at a much earlier time and was not specifically done by Spratton House to create living accommodation for its employees. It appears to have been vacant in the 1911 census. William and Rose Johnson lived in the left-hand of the three cottages in the 1940s and early 1950s. From the early 1950s, Mr Hart, gardener at Spratton House lived in the left hand cottage, Mr Herbert William Bartlett, the groom, in the middle one (until his death in 1963), and Mrs Fishlock, seamstress, in the right hand one.
Image Reference: 1987
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