Taas Ford

Although the name of this property looks as if it has been mis-spelt, the River Tas has had several different spellings over the years, including this one. The reference to a ford is not to the one near Tasburgh Hall, but to a ford which used to exist at the bottom of the garden of this property, with a track or public footpath down the right hand boundary linking Low Road through to Hapton Hall and beyond on the other side of the river. The ford and an adjoining footbridge were clearly marked on the OS map for the area published in 1906. Quite when they ceased to be used isn't known, but the footbridge would almost certainly have been destroyed in the floods of 1912 which were so great that damage to the bridge in Newton Flotman left a gaping hole, making the Norwich road impassable for all but pedestrians.

The land on which this property stands and its garden were part of the village common land granted under the Enclosure Award of 1818 to Charles Dye, together with the site of the adjoing properties on either side. Charles Dye built what is now The Old Horse Shoes as a house for himself and his family but died not long after, in 1820. The Tithe Apportionment Award in 1840 shows that his son, Samuel Meadows Dye had inherited his father's properties but that he had let his father's house and was living next door in this house. The 1841 census return records that with him were his wife, Mary and six children, and that he was trading as a wheelwright having taken on a young apprentice, who was also living in the house. Samuel's age was given as 30, so he would have only been 9 or 10 when his father died and it is fairly safe to say therefore that the house would have been built in about 1830, with the left hand end being his workshop.

By the time of the next census in 1851 Samuel and Mary had had three more children but one of their children seems to have died in the interim, and their eldest son, Israel, was working as his father's apprentice. For whatever reason, by 1861 Samuel with his wife and two youngest children had moved to Gaywood near King's Lynn, leaving his sons Israel and Robert in the house, both working as wheelwrights, and being cared for by a housekeeper. Samuel died in 1866 and the 1871 census shows that both his sons had moved, Israel being recorded as a farmer at Bracon Ash. The house was by then occupied by another wheelwright, Francis Abbs his wife Pamela and their young daughter, also Pamela, and all three were still there ten years later. Whether they were tenants or had bought the property following Samuel Dye's death itsn't known, but in any event by 1891 the property was home to Robert Rix, youngest son of John Rix who was the tenant of Manor Farm in Saxlingham Lane. Robert was described as a carpenter and wheelwright and was followed by Arthur Fuller, a 30 year builder and wheelwright from Tharston whose wife Ellen had been born in Tasburgh, but for whatever reason in 1907 his business closed, with the Norfolk Chronicle and Norwich Gazette advertising a sale by auction on 24th September of the "valuable stock in trade" of a builder, blacksmith and wheelwright, Mr Arthur E. Fuller.

Albert Matthews then took over the property and remained there with his wife and family for over 30 years. The census return of 1911 records that he was a builder, carpenter and wheelwright from Bixley but with his skills as a carpenter, he also acted as the village undertaker. The property had been bought by Sir Charles Harvey in 1878 as part of the Rainthorpe Estate from the executors of The Hon. Horace Walpole who perhaps had acquired it following the death of Samuel Dye in 1866. In 1920 Sir Charles offered it for sale by auction and although not named, the property was described as a wheelwright's shop and dwelling house with one and a quarter acres of meadow down to the river, let to A. Matthews at a rent of £20 a year, so it seems possible that Albert Matthews was the purchaser. William Moore, in his memories of growing up in Tasburgh during WW2, says that Mr Matthews retired in about 1940 and the premises were acquired by George Waller. His younger son, Leslie, ran a haulage business from the property, and in 2023 still lives there.