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| Ivy Cottage (click photo to enlarge) In 'Villagers Reminiscences', the first of the Hampsthwaite Village Society’s history books, we read these words of George Wainwright . . . . . “Ivy Cottage, on the left of the village green (coming from Church Lane), where Eric Lundell lives now, was once the property of ‘Tinner’ Wade, a local tin-smith, who repaired pots and pans. As a lad, I went with my grandma to the sale that was held when he died. That must have been in 1927-28.”  Eric Lundell 1906-1995
In the same volume, Eric Lundell described how "In 1928 I bought my house from ‘Tinner’ Wade for £400. At the time it was just a shell – it had no bathroom, no toilet, no electric light, no water. ‘Tinner’ had a cylinder at the back to make his own carbine gas and there was an ‘ash pit".
Water was collected from the village pump on the Green; electricity came to Hampsthwaite at the end of the 20s. To go back to ‘Tinner’, he had two daughters, one of whom, Mrs Metcalfe, owned the High Street Stores before the Calvert’s. ‘Tinner’ himself was a little man who did all his work in the loft, which he had boarded out and to which he gained access by a ladder." (Eric’s memory was at fault, it seems, as to how much he had paid for the house all those years earlier, for the records of the Wakefield Deeds Registry show a price of £275!) James (‘Tinner’) Wade was born in Dewsbury as was his wife Emily. It is assumed that they married there for their first daughter, Ann, was also born there and the family make their first appearance in census returns for Hampsthwaite in 1881 by which time a second child, Eliza, is also recorded (born in Hampsthwaite). The return for 1891 shows the family still in Hampsthwaite (although Eliza is no longer listed) and by 1911 James and Emily no longer have Ann living with them (was she now Mrs Metcalfe?). The returns are consistent with the family occupying Ivy Cottage throughout those years although they seem to have rented the house initially. The Conveyance to Eric Lundell on the 14th August 1928 indicates that the property was earlier held under Copyhold title by members of the Shann family (owners of much other land in Hampsthwaite) having been acquired by them in 1895 following the death of Charles Shann. It was some time thereafter that they must have sold the house to the tenant 'Tinner' Wade. Further research is required to establish ownership of the property in the years preceding the death of Charles Shann nor is it yet clear when the house was built. The O.S. Map of 1853 would appear to show the house and the two abutting properties on the north but the detail of the buildings is indistinct.  What is clear is that the building has grown from smaller origins. In the following photograph we can see two chimney stacks, one on the roadside gable wall and the other in the centre of the roof line.
 The chimneys mark the outer walls of the original structure and, indeed, variations in the courses and colours of the stonework make it obvious that the eastern end of the building is an addition to what was first erected. Joyce Lundell (Eric’s daughter-in-law) confirms this from her own recollection and also says that the eastern end replaced a single-storey, lean-to extension. The Land Tax valuation of 1910 confirms the smaller extent of the building in that year when it describes the cottage as . . . "Cottage 100 sq.yds. net...Occupier and Owner James Wade (Copyhold) Eric Lundell occupied the property until his death in 1995, after which it was sold and the new owners demolished the lean-to and replaced it with the two-storey extension we see today. Ivy Cottage (click photo to enlarge) |
