1/26/2024 0 Comments Drawings of memory pictures![]() ![]() The stables, cottages and small wooden gates depicted speak of the rural nature of the Preston Village of Mrs Avis’s youth. I like too the quizzical expression on “cows grazing in the fields belonging to a farmer who lived in Rose Cottage Farm” and the “horses grazing in Fellingham’s field”. I can almost smell the coal and steam so immersed am I in the vintage world Mrs Avis depicts. ![]() The line is protected by a “five feet high wooden fence”. In fact, an alternative name for the Rock Gardens is The Rookery named after a mansion house nearby called The Rookery, now demolished.Ībove the Rookery or Rockery is the “railway line from Brighton to London” where the life of a busy rail line is depicted showing a steam train puffing smoke, its cabin and driver, train door, guard’s van, Preston Park Station and Booking Office and the subway to Claremont Road. To the left, the hilly green slope of what became the municipal Rock Gardens in 1935, a wildly drawn place with crazy-looking trees crossed by “winding path to railway line and Brighton” and bordered by a countrified “hawthorn hedge and blackberry brambles”. ![]() In this picture Mrs Avis takes us further afield and we are flying above Preston Manor looking down in a westerly direction. Looking down onto Preston Village Looking down on Preston Village from the past The position of trees and paths are clearly recorded, as is a “high wall with broken glass on top to stop burglars.” The gates were the original entrance opening to a “gravel drive to Manor.” Mrs Avis draws a car and a van on the turning circle showing its vehicular use and marks the circular “grass lawn, mounting block and stone steps” to the house. They are shown on either side of the iron gates that remain today. Much of its value is in showing the position and style of two buildings that were demolished in the 1930s the Manor’s gatehouse lodge and butler’s cottage. This first picture works like an aerial view looking down onto the north façade of Preston Manor and, like all her illustrations, is drawn from memory. I don’t know the age of Mrs Avis in 1979, but she writes, “I lived in Loder Road in 1916” and “in 1924 I was nurse to two little girls in Lauriston Road,” so I am guessing her date of birth to be around 1900. Mrs Avis quotes Ellen Thomas-Stanford who told her, “your granny Margaret, Dear Old Nurse, was nurse to my sisters, the twins.” The twins were Diana and Lily Macdonald, Ellen’s half-sisters who were born in 1866. Her grandmother, also called Margaret, was employed as a domestic worker inside the house. Four generations of her family worked there, beginning with her great-great grandfather Thomas Gorringe who was a gardener. Mrs Avis had family connections with Preston Manor when it was a private house belonging to the Stanford family. Avis who I can’t help but like enormously. This proves the importance of drawing to memory and speaks much of the character of Mrs. Mrs Avis’s letters are packed with valuable historical fact, but even better, she illustrated her letters with cartoon-like drawings. During the summer of 1979 Preston Manor’s curator Mr David Beevers corresponded with a Mrs Margaret Avis living in Surrey who remembered the house before it became a museum in 1933. In previous blogs I’ve looked at hand-written letters from the Preston Manor archive, and here is another with a story to tell. It may contain some formatting issues and broken links. This is a legacy story from an earlier version of our website. ![]()
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