Sue Hewitt writes from Australia:
Have just been trawling through your most interesting website. So informative.
It started with a google search for an image of The Royal Oak. In the section about the Whittlesford Charity Farms is a paragraph relating to a tenant James Moore and Joshua Brazier. Joshua (my 3x great grandfather) is the ‘natural born son by Mary Brazier’ according to James Moore’s will of 1837.
And from South Africa, Mike Mortlock has found us as well. He writes:
My great uncle’s father, Charles Mortlock, was born on Lilekilew Farm, (or probably called Tilekiln Farm?), Finchingfield. He was baptised on 1st November, 1840. They moved to Prentice’s Farm, Hempstead in 1846. Prior to this, his father (born in Hempstead) was a steward to a Mr Fane at Bull Bridge.
At the age of 18 Charles went to work for a Mr Reynolds, a miller, on the Sampford road. (1858 was also the year of the Great Comet (Donaty’s) when the folk were afraid to go out at night!).
In the 1890’s my grandfather and 2 of his brothers and his sister all emigrated. The men to South Africa, their sister and her husband to the Falklands
From the Land of the Long White Cloud, Russell Bailey writes:
My wife’s late father George Warner was the son of Captain Warner of the Church Army who ran the training farms at Hempstead and he came to NZ under the scheme in 1922. I and George’s grandchildren would like to know if you have any information in your archives relating to George and the Warner family. My eldest son is a pharmacist and hopes to come to England when he retires. It would be nice if he had contact in Hempstead who could show him the properties managed by Captain Warner and see where his grandfather came from.