Beam Heath

OLD NANTWICH PICTURES (13)

Local trio in BBC radio broadcast

This article starts as a letter on the This and That page

John Barlow writes: Here is a picture of my father, Sam Barlow taken, I think, in 1952 when he was interviewed about his job working for the Beam Heath Trust for a BBC North programme called "Summer Outing".

The interesting thing about it is the lady who did the interviewing was Muriel Burton who belonged to an Audlem family, and the sound engineer was Jimmy Brett who came from Nantwich.

Nantwich historian Andrew Lamberton writes: I have been much intrigued about the Heath Keeper's Cottage. I wasn't aware of its existence!

After seeing John's e-mails and pictures [here] I had to go and find it straightaway. I found it - much altered (right). Apparently, it is now the housekeeping headquarters for Alvaston Hall Hotel and has been much extended at the back and side. However you can still make out the original frontage from my photos.

It was owned some years ago by a dentist who may well have carried out the extensions.

I also took a photo of the gate leading to the ley (right).

lTHE website maps.cheshire.gov.uk/tithemaps is an extremely useful site where you can call up tithe maps and later, alongside more modern ones. One shows that the cottage was there in 1839 - that's interesting. The question is was it there when the racecourse went past? Probably not, looking at the building itself. I would say it could have been built not long after the racecourse was ploughed up around 1830.

I've just done a search on the Ancestry website and discovered that the Heath Keeper from 1861 to 1891 was George Farrall. He was then 75 and his wife Mary was 68.

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