Bramble and Greenmore Cottages, Low Road

The OS map published in 1882 clearly shows that Bramble and Greenmore Cottages hadn't been built by then as there were no properties between The Horse Shoes public house and Wayside Cottage which at the time was the village post office. However, the OS map published in 1906 does clearly show the pair of cottages, although interestingly without any defined boundaries. These and the pair of Wayside and Jasmine Cottages were both owned by Philip Berney Ficklin of Tasburgh Hall and both carry his heraldic shield.

However,unlikethe shield on Wayside/Jasmine, the shield on Bramble and Greenmore Cottages was incorporated into the brickwork at the time of building and as Philip Berney Ficklin was only granted arms in 1888, this fixes the date of construction to between 1888 and 1906. It is possible to narrow that windowfurther because the national census taken on 5th/6th April 1891 has entries for two properties between the Horse Shoes and Wayside Cottage, which brings the dates down to 1888 – 91, or more likely 1889 – 90. The 1891 census in April that year records the occupant of Bramble Cottage as George Briggs, a 25 year old agricultural labourer, almost certainly employed by Mr. Berney Ficklin on his two farms, Hall Farm Hapton Road and Elm Farm Fairstead Lane, so he was probably the first tenant.

George had been born in Tasburgh as had his wife Rosa or Rosie Sayer, and the 1891 census records that they had an eight month old daughter, Gladys. Both sets of parents were still living in Tasburgh, his in a cottage on the main road and hers in a cottage on Church Hill just below the school, so one would have expected George and Rosa to have been married in Tasburgh. However records show that they had been married in Pulham St. Mary in July 1890 so one of them would almost certainly have been living down there at the time because for both parties to be married outside their parish would have required a special licence, unheard of in those days for children of agricultural labourers. More interesting is that in April 1891 their daughter Gladys was only eight months old so Rosa would have been seven or eight months pregnant when they got married. Records show that Rosa had been born at some point between July and September 1873, so she would at best have been only just 18 at the time of the marriage, and certainly pregnant at 17; maybe she had been sent away in disgrace to stay with a relative in Pulham St. Mary, or perhaps it was George who was living and working down there. As their daughter was born in Pulham Market, and traditionally farm labours were hired at Michaelmas, or 11th October in Norfolk (the old Julian calendar), it seems likely that his employment and their move to Bramble Cottage can be pinpointed to October 1890. At some point before the next census in 1901 they had moved to Swardeston where they had five further daughters and although theirs may have been a "shotgun" wedding, the marriage lasted for 58 years, George dying in 1948 and Rosa two years later. They lie together in Swardeston churchyard.

Anyway in 1901 Bramble Cottage was home to Robert Matthews, 36 and his wife Charlotte. He was described as an estate worker, so clearly working for Mr Berney Ficklin.By 1911 there had been another change with a retired policeman, John Royal, living in the property together with his wife and four adult but unmarried children. Their eldest son, Harry, was listed as an army pensioner but as he was only 30 he may have been invalided out of the service, and their daughter Vera was a school teacher, perhaps at the village school. The youngest two, Claude, 22, and Cecil, 18, were recorded as a gamekeeper and his assistant, so almost certainly employed on the Tasburgh Hall estate to which the property still belonged.

The first occupants of Greenmore shown in the 1891 census were James Atkins, 52, and his wife Charlotte together with their 18 year old son George and a younger son, Henry. Both James and George were described as agricultural labourers, so it seems likely that James at least would have been employed by his landlord, Mr Berney Ficklin. Although the 1901 census shows James and Charlotte as occupying the cottage next to the Horse Shoes, it seems far more likely that the two cottages had been entered in the wrong order rather than the family having moved next door, especially as both cottages would still have been identical. Both their sons had left home by then but an older daughter, Elizabeth Matthews, had returned. She was working as a housekeeper, again probably at Tasburgh Hall, and may well have been widowed as her young son Leslie was also living with her. Given her age, it is even possible that she had been married to the brother of Robert Matthews who was then living next door. However the next census shows Greenmore to have been unoccupied when it was taken in April 1911.

Following the death of Philip Berney Ficklin in 1917 and his widow in 1921, Tasburgh Hall was sold but the rest of the estate, including these two cottages, was retained by their son Alexander who lived at Tasburgh Grange, and the cottages were still owned by him when in 1947 he decided to sell up and move to South Africa. They formed part of Lot 1, along with The Grange, which was bought by a builder, Mr Gibbons, who had sold off the cottages before The Grange was purchased from him by Julian and Ann Crawshay in 1956.

Although the sales particulars in 1947 didn't name the tenants, it is known from the 1939 Registration that the occupant of Greenmore Cottage was George Harwin, an 83 year old incapacitated gardener, whilst Bramble Cottage was home to a branch of the Lammas family. Sidney, who had been born in Tasburgh, was one of the sons of Edwin Lammas, a tea dealer and draper, who had moved his family in 1871 from Norwich to The Beeches on Church Hill, then called Grove Cottage. In 1939 Sidney was described as a retired draper and warehouseman, so probably had operated as a wholesaler, and his 26 year old daughter was at the time a draper's shop assistant, possibly working for her uncle John Lammas who, with his son Philip, ran a grocer's and draper's shop at Commerce House. Sidney and his wife Sarah also had two sons, Barnard known as Bernie and his much younger brother Bertie, who in 1939 was working as a railway kitchen porter but served with the Norfolk Regiment in WW2. Bertie Lammas, who never married, returned home after the war and following the death of his parents, he continued to live at Tas Cottage, as Bramble Cottage was then known, until his own death in c.2012.