Tag: Blaco Hill

Blaco Hill Cottages

Blaco Hill Cottages (car and phone lines removed in Photoshop).

On Monday my sister Linda and cousin Kathleen joined Barbara and I on a short tour of some of our Bell family history locations north of Retford around Sutton-cum-Lound, North Nottinghamshire.

John Bell

Blaco Hill Cottages, between Lound and Mattersey, was the home of our great grandfather John Bell, a gardener, born 1842, and his wife, our great grandmother, Helena, nee Whitehead, born 1845.

Helena Bell

It was the birthplace of my grandfather, Robert Bell, and several of his siblings.

Our thanks to Victoria of Blaco Hill Farm for giving us a guided tour.

Linda, Barbara, Kathleen and I at Blaco Hill Farm, photograph by Victoria.

The Grade II listed farm house is currently being renovated. During re-roofing they found straw, a form of insulation, stuffed beneath the slates.

Blaco Hill Farm

Victoria sent me a photograph of an oil-on-canvas painting of the farm.

Continue reading Blaco Hill Cottages

Joe & Jim, Nellie & Hannah

bell family members

A smelter, a cook, a domestic servant and a chauffeur. Joseph, Hannah, James and Helena – my great uncles and aunts – stand alongside my Grandad Robert on the back row of the c.1904 photograph of the Bell family of Lound, near Retford, Nottinghamshire, which I’m currently researching.

The handwriting that I’ve added is that of the 1891 census enumerator for Lound, John Wragg, 54, Certificated Teacher at the School House, Sutton-cum-Lound Church of England School.

Continue reading Joe & Jim, Nellie & Hannah

Sarah Bell

Sarah Bell

My Great Aunt Sarah, was born in the year that the Penny Farthing Bicycle was invented and died in the year that the first man walked on the moon. She lived to celebrate her 97th birthday, but sadly although she lived just up the road from my Grandad Robert Bell, her younger brother, I don’t remember ever having met her.

Blaco Hill
From the 1871 census
Continue reading Sarah Bell

The Bells of Blaco Hill, the booklet

Bells of Blaco Hill family photograph
Booklet

I wanted to share my colourised Victorian photographs with my cousins in Sheffield so I’ve put together a ‘story-so-far’ booklet based on my recent blog posts.

Reading through the text again I’ve spotted one misnamed character, so it’s been worth doing it from that point of view but also seeing it in print helps me in considering the story that I’m hoping to tell.

In booklet form information isn’t just floating about in blog posts or stuffed into files, envelopes and albums distributed around my studio and the attic.

Great Aunt Eliza in the booklet

The Bells of Blaco Hill

Colourised in Photoshop

My grandad Robert Bell’s family: the Bells of Blaco Hill, Mattersey. That’s grandad, back row on the right.

diary, Christmas Day 1972

According to my diary (above) Grandma gave me the photograph 50 years ago today when we called at Sutton-cum-Lound on Christmas Day 1972. My dad’s elder brother, Uncle Fred, was also there.

Robert Bell
Robert Bell

Grandad and Grandma had such large families that my father claimed that he could never sort out who all his aunties and uncles were. Somewhere I’ve got a key to the photograph but until I put my hands on it I’m as clueless as my dad was.

At least I know that this is my great grandfather, John Bell, born 1842, an agricultural labourer, later working as a groom at Blaco Hill.

Elizabeth Bell

And this is great grandma Helena Bell, born in 1845.

Look forward to finding out more about the Bells and my grandma’s family the Bagshaws as I’ve been so involved with the other side of the family, the Swifts and the Trueloves of Sheffield.

Link

Blaco Hill

Blaco Hill Cottages – looks like the perfect location for a Bell Family reunion!