Ivy Cottage (top left)
Ivy Cottage was almost certainly built in the 1830s and is set back from the road on the coastal path to Clovelly. Like most of the cottages in the village, it was constructed of cob, with a thatched roof. In Barefoot on the Cobbles it appears as the home of Eadie and her family. Today known as ‘Crippetts’, the cottage, was occupied by the Harris family in the 1840s. They were followed by the Penningtons and it is likely that Eadie’s parents, Thomas and Ellen, moved in in 1874, the year after their marriage. They had nine children and although they did not all live at Ivy Cottage at the same time, the four rooms would have been very crowded. The family remained in the cottage for over sixty years and after Eadie’s father died, in 1938, it was taken over by Mr and Mrs Bergg. During the Second World War, the intrepid Mrs Bergg used to descend the cliffs on the end of a rope in order to destroy falcon’s eggs as birds of prey were attaching the carrier pigeons that were vital for wartime communications.
‘There were five girls in Ivy Cottage, where Eadie lived, the stairs leading directly on to the bedroom that she shared with her sisters.’
Barefoot on the Cobbles will be published on 17 November 2018. More information about the novel can be found here. Copies will be available at various events in the weeks following the launch or can be pre-ordered from Blue Poppy Publishing or the author.
More information about Bucks Mills can be found here.
The History Interpreter - Janet Few 