5 Mill Terrace

A Memory of Bersham.

As a young child, I lived at number 5 Mill Terrace. It was my grandparents' house. Their names were Stanley and Alice Timberlake and they were able to rent the house because my grandad had worked for a local landowner by the name of Fitzhugh. My mother, Jeanette, was born in that house. We moved to the midlands when I was 5 years old but continued to visit until the mid-70s when Nan and Grandad moved to nearby Rhostyllen. There was no bathroom there for many years and I remember taking a bath in front of the fire with water heated up on the stove. I remember the rooms were icy cold in winter and I would stay in bed waiting for my grandad to light the fire before daring to go downstairs. I also remember doing the washing in the backyard in a metal tub, using a dolly pin and a hand mangle. Monday was my favourite day of the week. The toilet was also outside and we used chamber pots until, finally, the luxury of a bathroom was added to the house. I never liked that new bathroom much. My grandparents called the kitchen - the back kitchen and there was a long cold scullery alongside it where milk, butter and eggs were kept. I used to collect the milk from the shippon across the road and was great friends with the Thomas family. They let me 'help' on the farm whenever I wanted to. I also collected eggs from the yard at the side of the farmhouse. Milkchurns were left on a bench across the road and I loved watching the cows go back and forth from shippon to field twice a day.
My grandad grew lots of vegetables in his garden at the back of the house. He was a gifted gardener and invariably we ate food from the garden at teatime. Lettuce and tomatoes were always fresh. We planted some apple pips together and over the years watched that apple tree grow. There was also a gate at the end of the garden, so you could get out and cross the river over to the fields at the back of the house. It was an idyllic place to spend your childhood.