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Photo courtesy of Sandra Clayton
My gran used to live in one of the houses in the 1950's and I loved to visit. There was no electricity and the oil lamps that she lit at night used to
cast lovely shadows round the room. All the cooking was done on an open fire with an oven beside. There was one earth toilet at one end for the
men and at the other end for women. Browse Around says that there was space in the roof but I never saw it and I dont know how you would have
accessed it. You went straight into the living room from the path and a bedroom was behind this. There were earth floors and these were covered
with layers of newspapers and old mats before the carpet was laid down on top. It looks as if a lot of activities went on outside with the tables,
stools and bowls by the doors. The lady in the middle has got a well dressed visitor and the lady in the white pinny is on the picture in Browse.
People on the photograph are (left to right):
George Bell, George Armstrong, Albert Corney, Jean Cook, Click Cooper, Mr Ormand (with young Richard Cook on his knee).
Taken outside the almshouses at the junction of High Burgage, Cliff Road, Back Lane and Winterton Road, the Almshouses are still evidently all in
use which places this picture pre-1950s. Marjorie Bratton tells us that the floors were earth, and the two toilets to serve all of the houses were also
earth ones - though of course ‘earth’ having a slightly different meaning in this case!
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 This photograph is reproduced
by kind permission of Marjorie Bratton, and scanned ©Ken Jacobs 2005
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