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Home Cottage, Windmill Road, Brentford, early 1900s

The name plaque 'Home Cottage' is over the front door and the four window boxes are full of flowers.

In 1891 Home Cottage was occupied by John T Ambrose, a policeman aged 33 born in Battersea, and his wife Alice, also 33, born Chelsea, and their family of two sons and a daughter aged 8 to 11: the youngest, Frank, was born in Brentford, the ten year old Battersea, suggesting the family moved to Brentford around 1882. The census shows Home Cottage sandwiched between Russell Cottage and The Manse, and the latter is shown on the 1894 OS Map, a little to the south of Boston Park Road on the western side of Windmill Lane. Home Cottage was very close to the site of the Great West Road and was probably demolished when the road was constructed.

The building appears on OS maps from the 1860s and the name plaque comes from the era before house numbers were common, also evident in the address the card was sent to:
Mrs H N New
Orchard Lodge
London Rd
Isleworth

The message reads:
Dear Rose and Harry
Intended coming over this week but have my cousion coming for a day or two, so will you and Harry come over either Thursday or Friday You could come early. Am off out for the day. Both very well and hope you are
Love to all.
Yours Bessie

The 1901 census shows Henry and Rosetta New at Orchard Lodge with daughters Rose and Eva, age 16 and 14. Harry was a foreman at the Pears soap works and the next property enumerated was the rooms over the stables at Pears soap factory.

Published May 2014