History Of Peacock Cottage, Cleeve Prior

A Memory of Cleeve Prior.

In 'Spring Onions' the autobiography of farmer and market gardener Duncan McGuffie, published by Faber & Faber in 1942, the author rents Peacock Cottage. This is the quote from p 49:
"Peacock Cottage overlooks the green. It has a noble yew 'peacock' which, it is laid down, shall be clipped once a year in the early autumn. (We) went through the kissing gate, up a path paved with fossiled stone, and through the open front door into a spacious, low, beam-roofed hall with an enormous open chimney which gave me a view of the evening sky and an eyeful of soot."
Later he writes of two memories of the house and village that "always bring a lump to my throat" p 54.
"One is of the hall on a summer's afternoon with soft warm sunshine playing on the old timber of low roof and yellow plaster walls, shining brass and copper warming pans beside Cotswold stone fireplace, rush mat on stone-flagged floor, an old round table in the centre with bowl of summer flowers and I imagine myself seated on the cushioned settle enjoying a cool moment's rest from the dust and heat of the yard."
"The other memory is of the view from the bedroom window in the early morning, with village hall and thatched cottages across the green, the gardens of several cottages ablaze with colour and sparkling with dew, and the square church tower with buttressed corners and dark clock face with gilt figures and hands and the sun rising through the trees to the left."