English and American Cousins
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Europe 2005 Home
Parr Home
Dinner with Pris' fourth cousins: from the left, Pris Parr, Sylvia Daw, Rich Parr, Martin Webber, Ian Bruce, Joan Bruce, John Hodges. It's 10 pm and still light out! We stayed with Pris' fourth cousin, Joan, in the middle and her husband Ian, on the right. We met their friends for lunch on Friday at a tea shop in Dorchester after a morning of genealogy. Rich and the friend had to sit at another table. It was a cute place and we went back on Monday to eat but it was closed that day. Here's afternoon tea in Sylvia's living room, called a lounge. She collects brass. Ian's leg is sticking out and his tins of goodies are on the table. Ian made them in Hull before traveling to South Perrott. Sylvia lives in one of the original Daw cottages in South Perrott. Rich and Joan at a bridge in the South Perrott area. Read the inscription on the plaque carefullly. I guess they got a little upset when people messed with the bridges in the old days.
This is the baptismal fond in St Mary's Church in South Perrott. Philip Daw, father of Joseph Daw who immigrated to Michigan, made it in 1845. It's signed by him on the inside. The original copper cockerel at St Mary's church in South Perrott was made in the 1700s and restored by Elias Daw in 1947. It is filled with dents from people using it for shooting practice. It now has its own niche inside the church. This is the inside of the Mosterton Church, which Joseph Daw's (the immigrant) grandfather Ellis Daw built in 1833. Notice the tractor in the stained window, in memory of a generous farmer. Each pew of the Mosterton church has beautiful kneeling pads, made by the local ladies. They all have red in them. The men on the left are playing cricket. Sylvia's father was a local carpenter, wheelwright, blacksmth, painter, handyman, etc. The workshops are at the back of Sylvia's property and in a pretty dilapidated state. There are some real gems in them, though. This is the form for making a wagon wheel. Sylvia is showing a wheel for the minature wheelbarrows her father made.
Found on the wall in the shop: a certificate for Sylvia's father Guy for perfect attendance in Sunday School; a newspaper article about South Perrott with Guy in the bottom right picture; and other pictures. Guy was also the local undertaker and made coffins. This is a pattern for one. One time Guy had to take down an old sign and found enough letters from it to make a sign for himself. The W is really an upside down M. The door to the workshop fell apart last year so Sylvia and her uncle Ben Daw cut it in half, and installed a plywood door at the bottom. She has a big old skeleton key to open the bottom, ducks under the top and unlatches the top from the inside. Sylvia's garden in the back of her house. She is an avid gardener. More teatime! That's Ian's sticky lemon cake on the table. Notice the cups on the mantle, they are commerating the royal family. Rich's cousin Robert has some of the same ones. It must have been the "in" thing to do for their mums.
Ben Daw, 87, lives in South Perrott, never married. He heats his house with coal. He always has his coat on when we see him. On Sunday morning in the rain we piled into Ian's car to visit Ellis Bowen Daw and his sister Maureen at Ellis' Dartmoor Wild Animal Park. This is Ellis' gravestone. When the park is sold, the stone is supposed to stay and his ashes scattered below it when he dies. Ellis and Rich in his house (really a mansion with many, many rooms and too many mementoes to even count!) Joan Bruce and Martin Webber in the house Ellis had a newspaper article about the sale of the park.
Ellis had so many objects with tigers, such as paintings, rugs, stuffed, books, and statues. Notice the pelt on the railing. From the left: Martin Webber, Ellis Daw, Joan Bruce, Sylvia Daw, Rich Parr. Maureen Daw has her back to the camera. We looked at the tigers through the rain and fog. Boy were they hard to take pictures of! The jaguar kept staring at us the whole time we were walking by him. Look closely through the rain and fog. This wolf came to Ellis and licked his hand. Sylvia Daw, Priscilla Parr, Joan Bruce in the backseat of the Bruce car on the way home from the animal park. Here was our English breakfast while we stayed at Shepherd's Farmhouse in South Perrott. Eggs, English bacon, sausages, browned tomatoes, and mushrooms.
The owners of Shepherd's Farmhouse with their dog. They are quite busy in the summer with people who walk the River Perrett Trail to the ocean 50 miles away, stopping each night at places like this. Rich's third cousins: Rosemary Spedding Wells, Pris, Rich and Robert Spedding. After the River Cruise we went back to England where we stayed with Rich's cousin Robert Spedding. This was the house that his mother and father bought when they retired. Robert has retired also and spends a lot of time in Madeira. Robert Spedding <br />is quite the cook. The dessert on the right is a wonderful pudding while the cake on the left was most delicious. Robert's sister Rosemary Spedding Wells joined us for a day. We ate our lunch at a park close to Leigh called Pennington Flash.
The minute the geese saw the boy on the right with bread in his hand they all ran towards him. This one's got a piece of bread and is hoping to eat it before it's taken away. Are the Parr Brothers related? Who knows, but Rich did find some treasures about the Parr family while were there. We went to Smithills Hall, a historic home close to Leigh and Wigan. Wigan and Leigh archives were in this building. These heads were on the outside of an old cotton mill in Wigan. We had a most interesting demonstration of the spinning of cotton thread. http://www.wlct.org/Tourism/Wiganpier/wiganpier.htm
Last year when we visited Wigan Pier it was closed so we were glad to find it open this time.<br />http://www.wlct.org/Tourism/Wiganpier/wiganpier.htm