Each cottage had four rooms with two bedrooms, a living room and a kitchen. A set of stairs in each cottage allowed access to the bedrooms. Fireplaces in each of the main rooms and bedrooms provided heating. An iron cooking range fuelled with coal was located in each kitchen for cooking while a copper with a cast iron interior and a lid with a fire underneath provided hot water for washing clothes and cleaning.
A bathroom did not exist in the cottages until the 1940s. Before this residents would have probably taken hot water from the copper and then emptied it into a tin bath placed on the kitchen floor in which they would have taken turns to bath, perhaps once a week.
Three entrances at the front, back and on the right of the building allowed entry and exit. An outside toilet, a shed and a well were located in the garden area at the back of the building. The house still has two chimney stacks and a tiled roof.
The National Census for Upchurch dated 1841 shows that thirty year old Henry Miskin and his family lived on one side of the house. Miskin owned 121 acres of land mainly in the Holywell area. Farm worker William Taylor, his wife Cordelia and their six children lived on the other side.
During the second half of the nineteenth century Wakeley Brothers from Rainham owned Poot House, Street Farm and most of the land in the surrounding area until the 1940s. They inherited much of this through marriage into the family of farmer Thomas Dodd from Rainham.
The residents of Poot House were predominantly farm employees until the early 1980s. When Henry Miskin and his family moved to Holywell House during the late 1840s, farm worker Henry Rose moved in. Richard Mudge and his family moved into the other side. They were succeeded by William Truss and fisherman Samson Smith during the 1860s then farm workers John Holloway and George Hansted and their families during the 1870s and 1880s.
Bargeman Ernest Attwood, his family and Sarah Muggeridge and her daughter resided at the two cottages during the 1890s and they were followed by Harriet Coveney and George and Annie Singyard around 1900. The Singyard family continued living there until the late 1920s then two Coveney families lived on each side of the house for a while.
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Poot House - Photo David Wood. |
During the late 1930s Pat and Gwen Carlton lived in Poot House then moved to Wetham Green Cottages where Pat worked for A Hinge & Sons as a farm worker and gained fame as a sheep shearer. After this Palmer Brothers from Cambridgeshire bought Street Farm and Poot House from Wakeley Brothers. Their farm manager Bert Moon and his wife Eleanor moved into the house which Palmer Brothers had converted into one property. A bathroom and toilet were installed into what previously served as a bedroom, while the kitchen on the right side was converted into a spare room. Palmer Brothers later had a bungalow built for Bert Moon at Street Farm almost opposite Poot House. When he moved in Ernest ‘Sonny’ Cripps, a farm worker at Street Farm and his family lived in Poot house until the early 1980s. According to Pam Bridge (previously Cripps) the two kitchen coppers from the early days still existed but the staircase on the left had been blocked off so the staircase at the front had to be used to access all the bedrooms. After Sonny Cripps’s retirement and departure the house stood empty for several years before being privately sold. From the mid-1980s until 2014 financial manager Richard Carleton and his wife Louise lived at the property. They had an extension put on the right side of the building and had the exterior renovated and the garden and boundaries decorated with colourful flowers to give the house a more attractive image which is how it remains today.
About David
David Wood was born and raised in Upchurch and is able to write from personal experience about many people and aspects of the village and of changes that have taken place over the years making ‘Memories of Upchurch’ a very readable book and a detailed historical study of the village. David's book ‘Memories of Upchurch’ is available direct from David at: david3702001@yahoo.co.uk or from us here at Upchurch Matters. Price £12 + £3.50 postage and packing.
