Northey Donkey Cart Paul Davies February 2020
Visitors arrived by pony and carriage whilst luggage came by donkey cart (photo courtesy Diana Northey)
When she was a child, my grandmother lived at Ashley Green and said they always knew when Northeys were expecting company as the donkey cart was sent down to the station for the luggage. When I was a boy, I used to like to take a walk around Ditteridge to see the donkey that was kept in a field between Cheney Court and Cheney Cottage - same one or descendant?
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My grandmother and her sister both had scarlet fever and Mrs Northey used to call to enquire how they were, and used to say I will send Sumsion over with a calf’s foot jelly to help build them up. The doctor advised my great grandmother to put the baby between the two girls so that he would not catch it. This would have been about 1910. They all lived to old age. |
Arriving by horse and gig (courtesy Diana Northey)
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Incidentally, the picture of the Mothers’ Union was produced in one of the local papers (possibly Bath Chronicle and Herald} and my mother had it in a scrap book {now unfortunately long lost}. The reason she had it was because the lady to Mrs Shaw Mellor's left, as you look at the picture, was her great aunt Mrs Maria Hancock who lived at Prospect in 1901 and Fairmead View in 1911.