Holly Tree Cottage (formerly Corner Cottage), Grove Lane

In 1772 Robert Wright, the owner of Rainthorpe Hall, commissioned a map of his estate. The original is held in the Norfolk Record Office (Ref. WLP 10/32) and shows that the site of Holly Tree Cottage formed part of a 3 acre enclosure called Pond Pightle, which now also encompasses Grove Cottage, The Maples and the Grove Lane council houses. The pond, which gave the land its name, was located in what is now the garden of Holly Tree Cottage on the boundary with Linden. Pond Pightle was sold as part of Rookery Farm in 1791 to Thomas Kett, and in 1802 he sold it, by then known as Park Piece, to Simon Rayson, after having built Grove Cottage on part of the land.

Simon Rayson, who was a wheelwright by trade, had previously owned and lived at Commerce House on Low Road, and in due course he built a new house, Holly Tree Cottage which he sold to a shoemaker, Stephen Alexander, as mentioned in the Manorial Court records for 1807, which refer to "a piece of land containing by survey 1 acre, part of Park Piece, together with the cottage or tenement, shed and other outbuildings thereon lately erected and built". The cottage fronted on to Nethergate Green towards the north, and under the Enclosure ward of 1818 the area of common land between the cottage and the road was given to Stephen Alexander, thereby establishing the current extent of the property. He was still recorded as the owner of the property at the time of the Tithe Apportionment Award in 1840 but the Award map shows that he had by then erected a building in the north-west corner adjoining the road, perhaps serving as his shoe making and repair premises. The building was still there when the 1906 OS Map was prepared with a fence or hedge around it as it is shown as separated from the garden. The census returns for 1841 and 1851 list him and his wife Elizabeth as living at the property, although at some point before 1841 he had divided it into two dwellings, with the other half being let. Elizabeth Alexander died in 1855 and Stephen in 1858, when the property was sold by two of their sons as executors to George Youngs, a farmer from Long Stratton, who continued letting it as two cottages.

George Youngs died in 1865, and the Manorial Court records show that the cottages were then bought by The Honourable Frederick Walpole, the owner of Rainthorpe Hall, but at the time of his death in1876 the property, with others, was mortgaged to Reginald Walpole and Andrew Knight and as the payments under the mortgage were outstanding, the mortgage holders foreclosed in 1877 and took possession. Accordingly the cottages weren't included in the auction of the Rainthorpe estate by Frederick Walpole's executors in 1878. The 1881 census return shows that one half of the property was occupied by John Sutton, a 48 year-old carpenter, and his wife Mary Ann, who came from Little Ellingham, together with three daughters. By 1891 John Sutton had died, as Mary Ann was described in the census that year as a widow, and she was still living there in 1901 and 1911, when the census returns show that the two cottages had been re-united as one under her occupation, and that she had been using the land as a market garden, so perhaps by then she was the owner. By then, the mortgagee owners had enfranchised the property in 1893 by paying £52, 2 shillings and 8 pence to acquire the unencumbered freehold from the Lord of the Manor, presumably with a view to selling the property, perhaps to Mary Ann Sutton herself.

From about 1936 Holly Tree Cottage, then known as Corner Cottage, was owned by Herbert Joseph Kirby who, with his wife Louisa, had previously run a grocers and drapers shop at what is now The Limes, as his parents had before him. Until 1904 his uncle, George Kirby, had been the postmaster at Old Post Office Cottage. According to William Moore in his memories of growing up in Tasburgh during the War, Mr Kirby hanged himself but his widow was joined by her youngest daughter, Olive Beaumont and her son Robert from 1942 to 1948. At the time there was no mains water or electricity, so water was pumped from one of the two wells in the garden, the house was lit by gas lamps, and there was no bathroom, just an outside toilet. Louisa remained in the house until about 1953 when, following a stroke, she went into a care home in Swainsthorpe where she died in 1955. The house was bought the following year by David and Pearl Banham who had a building and funeral business, and was then sold again in 1959 for £1800 to Edwin Thurrell, a farmer from Carleton Rode.

He kept it until 1966 when the house was purchased by Tony and Pearl Howard from Stoke Holy Cross for £2,300. They moved out to Australia after selling the property for £8150 to David and Joan Preston in October 1971. He was a market gardener and also ran a fruit and veg. shop on the Ice House precinct in Long Stratton. Their ownership coincided with a period of high inflation in the housing market, as a result of which four years later the house commanded a price of £18,500 when it was bought in 1975 by the current owner, Lyn and her husband Jimmy McKinney who died in 2022. Jimmy worked for Anglia Television as a sound engineer, before joining others to set up an independent recording studio, and Lyn worked for the BBC in Norwich, in both television and radio.