Forgot ....

... to mention two exciting [to me, anyway!] things that happened recently.  One of the three girls who grew up in White Gables came to visit, and she found that her brother-in-law had 4 old photos of the place before the three dwellings were pulled down and built as one house in 1962.  She emailed these four to me:

 

                    

Annie thinks the old cottages weren't completely removed because of the same position of the windows in the rebuild, I think she has a point.

What I found most exciting was the huge outbuilding standing at right angles to the three cottages. The large garage [former dairy and ice cream factory] you can see a corner of on the right of this photo is still in the same place now, but apart from lots of bricks no trace remains of the outbuildings on the left. It must have been roughly where John is standing in this photo after he planted the first apple tree.

When John and I came to live here at the beginning of July 1998 the little outhouse was still standing and used as a wood store.  We removed about half of it and converted it into our first pond, the fish pond.

 This is the fishpond [with too many water lilies] on the left, and the brick flooring on the right I'm sure is what's left of that large outbuilding in the old photographs.

I found some fascinating details of the original sale and former occupancy in our White Gables file and put some of it into the Coleorton Book of Memories recently launched:

White Gables stands down the drive immediately next to the Post Office on the Lower Moor (Rotten Row), which was part of Thringstone until 1884 when it became part of Coleorton Parish.  It was once three adjoining dwellings occupied by the families Fairbrother, Stacey and Robinson.  

On the left is a photo of Thomas and Dinah Fairbrother outside one of the three dwellings. 
As they are in their finery and people only had photos taken on special occasions we’re guessing that it was taken on their wedding day.  Would their house have been the one on the left of the main building?

 

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The other exciting thing was that Pat and Graham took me on an outing to Beaumanor Hall, one of my birthday presents, last Sunday 15th November.  It is a stunningly beautiful place, much used for weddings [Pat's grandson recently celebrated his wedding there] and other special occasions.  My treat was a very special tea just like pictured below, each one of us got that amount!  What we couldn't manage to eat they packed up in dainty cartons for us to take home.  I bollowed some photos from the internet.  A wonderful place, will go there again!