Dear Editor

When we bought the Weavers Cottage and outbuildings in Copse Cross Street it was obviously used for weaving in the long and distant past. Or was it?

I set out to unearth the truth. The cottage is surrounded in history. It will be a simple matter, this, finding out about how the weaving industry impacted on our home in Ross.

After all, I had all of the deeds. They were given to me when we exchanged contracts. Apparently, in this day and age of computers there is no longer a need to keep paper copies.

So, where do I start; with the oldest document I have and work forward. Lots of interesting facts but nothing concrete about weaving.

So, after a lot of digging, using Ancestry, Findmypast, and the internet in general; having bought half a dozen books on Ross and having visited Hereford Archives a couple of times, researched the Land Tax Records, looked at old maps, I concluded that weaving had never been undertaken in the cottage.

My feeling was that Edna Isabel Waller, who lived at the cottage for only 7 years around 1980, had heard about a Captain Jack Nutter, who had resided there and Jack was a textile manufacturer by trade. It seemed to me she referred to the place as “The Weavers Cottage”, not because weaving had been undertaken there, but because it was owned by a “weaver” in the past.

This reasoning all appeared very logical.

I decided to telephone the previous owner to extract some information regarding the various alterations that she had carried out to the property while living there. At the end of our dialogue she advised that one day a man turned up at the cottage and told her that he had lived there as a child, a long time ago and asked if he could take some photographs.

The man was about 60 years of age and stated that his father ran a weaving business from the premises. By my reckoning the man was born around 1950.

Returning to my notes, Captain Jack Nutter was living in the cottage from 1953 to 1973, and Jack was a Textile Manufacturer.

So instead of going back and back in time, searching for evidence of weaving in the dim and distant past I turned my point of focus to more recent history. I checked with Herefordshire Council and BINGO. Dated 12 January 1951, approval for change of use of sheds in Copse Cross Street for weaving. The planning papers that I saw stated that there would be three hand looms in use.

Jack sold the property in 1973, he was 60 years of age. His business ended as well. Jack died in Claro, North Yorkshire in June 1985 at the age of 72. His wife, Margaret, passed away 29 years after her husband, in January 2014; she was 91.

So, in conclusion Wye Valley Hand Weavers operated out of Copse Cross Street for a period of 15 years from 1953 to 1973.

If anyone can provide me with some additional information I would be obliged.

Dave Bullivant

Solihull