Hoare Family, Woolstaplers House

A Memory of Cirencester.

While exploring my British Roots in 2003 with my then 80+years-old mother we were blessed with the opportunity offered by the owner of the Woolstapler House, pictured in the lower right foreground of this photograph of Coxwell Street, to tour the house and landscape. I have a photo of this exact perspective, except mine is from ground level, and I am delighted to see Coxwell Street from this end of the street. Interestingly, a cousin of mine in England tells me of her experience visiting the street a number of years earlier. A very small and quite elderly lady stopped and spoke with her as she stood in front trying to take in her family's experience. The little lady told her that the street, at one time, dead-ended at this corner, which I have not been able to verify. The remainder of this photo is absolutely identical to my own, with the exception of a number of colorful automobiles parked on the street today. This photo could be of the street from the Thomas Street corner as it looks today.

My mother's family lived and worked on this property for four generations, beginning in the early to mid 1700s. The first generation born and raised here was of 9 children, 8 boys. This photo shows the front garden to be filled with rose bushes, it appears. By the time we were there it had been returned to a more period and formal landscape style, with small squares of boxwood shrub borders surrounding large pots filled with lovely flowered plants, colorful wood surrounds around pots holding trees, stone walkways.

The back yard was similarly period, stately, quiet and lovely. The property, overall, appeared to have been maintained in its historic state, rather than remodeled into modern style and function. The kitchen, for example, appeared to be generally as it would have been 100+ years ago. There was no replacement linoleum or wood flooring, for example, and the storage appeared to be old. There was, however, electricity {chuckling}. The barn on Thomas Street still held the upper floor with a large 'hole' in it through which to move the wool on its way to its next step in processing.

It was a remarkable experience of what life in The Cotswolds in the wool trade might have been in its prime. I feel blessed to have had the opportunity to experience it. This photograph brings that treasured memory back for me.

Linda Anne