Orchard Cottage, Saxlingham Lane

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When this property became a Listed Building in 1981 it was described as a 17th/18th century range of cottages. The internal timbers suggest that one end of the building is older than the other forming two dwellings, and indeed one hundred years ago what is now a single extended dwelling, in fact housed three separate families. The difference in the roof line is thought to have been the result of a rebuild of one end following a fire which seems to have been quite a common occurrence in thatched properties around the village. In the wooded corner by the driveway entrance there was also another pair of thatched cottages which burned down in 1948, and the land between Orchard Cottage and Rainthorpe's back drive was an orchard. Although both sets of cottages are shown on a map of the Rainthorpe estate prepared in 1772, they were not at the time part of the estate. The map also shows that the back drive to the Hall wasn't then straight, as it is now, but curved, cutting the corner of the current garden and that there was a pond between it and the lane, next to where the back drive now starts. However, at some point before the 1818 Enclosure Award map was prepared, the cottages had been acquired by John Gay, the owner of Rainthorpe, the pond had been filled in and the back drive had been straightened.

Nothing is known of the occupants until the 1841 census at which point the cottages formed part of the tenancy of White Horse Farm, and one half of Orchard Cottage was occupied by Henry Leverett, an agricultural labourer who was presumably working on the farm. He and his wife Martha had four children living with them aged from 17 down to 1, but the age range might suggest that there might have been others in between who had not survived or had left home. One of the children, Robert, was also shown as an agricultural labourer at the age of just 12, perhaps working alongside his father. The other half of the property was home to Elizabeth Points, a 39 year old widow working as a charlady and with four children, the two oldest of whom, aged 17 and 13, were also farm labourers. Ten years later at the time of the next census Elizabeth and her son 23 year old son, James, were part of the resident staff at Rainthorpe Hall, she as a domestic servant and he as the gardener, while the rest of her family occupied the both halves of Orchard Cottage.

However the Rainthorpe estate was sold a year later and the auction particulars record that although William Points was the still tenant of one half, the other half had been let to Richard Quantrill who had previously been living in the next door cottages which were later burned down, and the rent for each was £5 a year. The purchaser of the cottages was a Mr Murton but they were subsequently repurchased by the next owner of Rainthorpe, the Hon. Horace Walpole M.P. Although the Points family had moved away, Richard Quantrill who was an agricultural labourer, was still living there in 1861 with his wife and two of their children, but lodging with them was William Risby, a 21 year old farm worker, who four years later was to marry their eldest daughter Elizabeth and move to Manor Farm Cottage, although at the time she was living on a farm near Loddon, working as a dairy maid. Richard Quantrill remained in the property until his death in 1888, with the other half over the years being home to various employees linked to Rainthorpe Hall, which by then had been bought by Sir Charles Harvey following the death of Horace Walpole in 1876.

At the turn of the century the village policeman, Arthur Green, lived in half the property with his wife and young family, to be replaced ten years later by his successor P.C. Frederick Bone, and the pattern seems to have carried on, because William Moore who was brought up in the house during WW2 refers to it in his booklet as previously having been split into three, with the local policeman occupying the middle and a schoolmaster at one end and a welfare officer at the other. After Sir Charles Harvey died, the Rainthorpe estate was again offered for sale in various lots in 1929, but neither the Hall nor any of the cottages and farms along Saxlingham Lane sold and it was not until five years later that they were all acquired by the Hastings family.

William Moore had been born in Flordon but after his mother died in 1937 he and his father came to live with his grandparents, William and Alice Moore, and his uncle who occupied the larger part of the property, with a Mrs Filby being recorded in the 1939 Registration as living in the right hand end. Grandfather William continued living in the house until his death in 1958, and the property was subsequently let to Dick Ramm and his wife. He worked on the Rainthorpe estate as the woodsman and they had two children, Max and Bridget, who later moved to Manor Farm Cottage after she got married.

Following the death of George Hastings in 1993, Rainthorpe Hall was sold but Mr Ramm continued working for the new owners for a while. However, after he retired Orchard Cottage was sold to Michael Holland and Regina Nickel who embarked on a programme of restoration, and added the modern extension to the rear of the property.