Date of info: Millenium Report
House Name & Number: 18 Keld
Year of Moving in: March 1956
Name of Occupants: Barbara & Douglas Evans
Occupations: Retired. Douglas was a Bevan Boy during the War.
When Doug and I were planning to marry we were fortunate in buying a plot of land from GB Schwinge a local architect, he bought it for his own use but would have been unable to practise from this address owing to covenants in force. He also designed Emsgarth (No 12). The first part of the house was complete at the beginning of 1956, we moved in about March. At the time the road was just a track and as we were the last house in the original road it was decided now was the time to make it up. Mr Wynne (number 7) called and acquainted us with this fact, it would be costed on a by-foot basis. This was a bit of a shock as we had sunk most of our money in the construction of the house.
In 1961 the house was extended and again in 1972.
At the time we moved in there were beehives on the ground, we had difficulty in finding who owned them, possibly useful for the fruit trees in the nursery at the end. Lady Hargreaves-Brown who lived opposite enquired through her gardener as to whether we would like to borrow gardening tools, at the same time her garden included what was to become 17, 19, 21 and 23. We had been in the house for about one year – enjoying the fruit blossom of the nursery beyond, when it became known the ground had been compulsory purchased with a view to building Mowbray School.
We cannot remember if there was a boundary marker between our property and Simpson’s Nursery for we freely walked through our back garden into the nursery. There were the remains of the old Elm trees which were taken as the boundary line. Immediately arose (for SCC) the problem of building a fence rather than going to the expense of removing the trees and our new boundaries were moved outwards and thus we gained 5-6 foot of ground. Screening trees were planted of the conifer type by SCC. The Elms were eventually felled due to Dutch Elm Disease.