Monday 14 Apr
After breakfast in the cafe next door, I made my way down to the town – it is really close to this
B&B, so will be no distance at night when I am tired.
Remembered
places & ways to places as I went, found the Info centre … at least, where
the Info Centre was! Retraced steps to near enough where I came into the town
centre down by the museum & library, as it is now part of the museum
entrance/shop. Picked up a map, but don’t think it is as good as my last one,
does not show many streets. However, ‘twill suffice for now.
Next across
to the library to see what they have, as nothing appears to be online. Other
than films of the local PR’s, and a good selection of old maps, ‘not much’
appears to be the answer. There is a row of locked glass-fronted cabinets full
of local books, many of which you can’t even read the spine.
So I looked
at a film of St Andrew Buckland christenings, and printed the half dozen of
mine. I had the dates for. I had planned to grab these at SLC, but wanted to get
into the feel of the Dover Library. Then someone asked to sit at the table I
had my notebook open on, who turned out to be a professional genealogist having
a day off – and after asking about my research, promptly took me around to see
the places I wanted to find, and made some notes to look up for me after we
parted. Now that is the kind of thing I hope we do for our overseas visitors at
the NZSG!
We first walked
around to Cowgate Hill, where Barton VENNER lived at No 3 in 1861, then went on to find a bus up to St Andrews at Buckland, so I could
see the church that some of my rellies were baptised and married in. (A seagull
with bad diarrhoea and a worse aim caught both of us while standing at the
bus-stop, but we decided to suffer temporarily … ) After a brief 3-4 minute journey we crossed the road and it was just around the
corner. It wasn’t open, and there was no notice anywhere we could find to get a key, but it was nice to see it anyway. Lyn is
frustrated that none of the local societies have done anything that she knows
of to record the MI’s before they all become illegible or are vandalised - as am I.
Then we caught the bus back as far as Morrisons (big complex), took some pics of 5 Albert St, (more VENNER rellies, this time Fred and Mary Ann SERGEANT) and
had lunch – my treat, obviously.
5 Albert St, Dover
After which
she went to visit with her niece, who had walked in, and I did a quick shop for
some cheese & crackers (tea), since we have a fridge in the kitchen. Did I mention that
we can’t drink the bathroom water in our rooms? Have to get it from the kitchen downstairs. I did not like to inquire just why we can't drink the water (especially since Leo's English is not wonderful), that is definitely a first for me in England!
The
next important job was to deal with the fallout from the seagull, but on the
way home I walked past an accommodation ‘shop’ which organises rentals, and there
was a picture of one of the houses in the
same terraced block in Albert St. Not my actual house, but still good to see what the inside might look like now. With pics of the outside and four of the
inside, what else could I do but go and ask nicely if I could have the sheet, since it would probably be coming down very soon anyway. The nice boy also
printed me off an A4 colour of the outside shot. It is No’s 17-21, and mine is
No 5, and he agrees with Lyn that they were probably built about 120 years ago,
so the family must have lived there when they were new, or as near as.
Finally got home & washed my trou, jumper
and jacket. Then relaxed with a drink (only coke, I don't carry alcohol, unfortunately) for half an hour, before trotting around
to Cowgate Hill and discovering that No 3 is one of a row of five or six terraced houses at the start of the road, & looks quite old
enough to be the same house where Barton Venner lived in 1861. Yay! It is a short uphill walk to the Cowgate Cemetery, now a wildlife
reserve, so everything is being allowed to grow, no MIs have been done …
fortunately I don’t think I have anyone buried here!
Home again for a very frustrating hour trying to get online. After which the manager reset the router, and I rebooted, and it comes up now & then for a few minutes at a time – very annoying. He did suggest that I might get a stronger signal in the kitchen ... So now sitting typing up the day, and keeping an eye on it so that whenever I get the chance I can finish downloading the stuff I got from TNA last week. Only one left to do …
Forgot to mention yesterday that before I left Ashford I got online & skyped Lloyd. Discovered that he was chatting to Mum, so he put her on speaker phone & we had a short catchup. Neat to know I don't have to miss out on my Sunday night phone calls if I just remember to skype him at 7.30am my time.
Reading:
Agatha Raisin & the Potted Gardner
Tuesday 15 Apr
I must say
that the trip so far seems to be going most beautifully slowly. I feel that I
must really have been here for at least a month already, so much seems to have
happened.
Today I
turned right out of the Alma onto Folkestone Rd and picked up the regular bus
service to Hythe. Wandered around the church again, it still blows me away,
then checked a couple of things in the library before consuming a delicious
vegetable soup and toasted sandwich.
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Back to
Folkestone, where I looked at the outside of the 12C St Eadwith (no open doors,
unfortunately), then found my way to the library. They have an excellent local
heritage floor, with lots of resources. However their street directories don’t
start until 1888, and my VENNER family were in town in 1861. Still, they
managed to find St Eadwythe’s Terrace on a map – quite a way from the church –
so now I know where they lived. The street no longer exists, but was in a
nearby area. I also have a photo of East St, where one of the children lived in
1863 when registering the death of his father.
The only mention of a VENNER on their name database was one Joseph Sidney Venner SMILES, who had what seems to me from the picture a large military funeral in 1913 – certainly larger than I would have expected for a corporal. I will need to find out who he is – maybe his mother is one of my girls – and then how and why he died, and why the big funeral. It is lucky that us genealogists are made of strong stuff, and don’t panic when one small find leads to three more questions. It happens so often that the thought of how exponentially those questions explode into more than the universe can handle should be terrifying.
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