User:AnemoneProjectors/Rooks Nest House

History and residents
Lily Forster also had a friendship with the Jowitts: William Jowitt, rector of Stevenage and his wife Louisa, who had nine daughters and a son, William Jowitt, who was too young to be friends with Morgan. It was through the Jowitts that Lily became friends with Charles Poston.

Description

 * Hall dominated by a big ingle-nook fireplace
 * Door to left led to drawing room, large and live with French windows to the garden
 * To the right a passageway by the central hearth led to the dining room, smaller and illuniated by a window.
 * Another passage from the hall led to the kitchen with kettle on an open range. ledge above with candles, and far corner had 6 black bells connecting each *room to the kitchen to summon maids.
 * 1st floor landing led to 3 main bedrooms
 * middle room morgans nursery
 * small room at end of landing, they used to store apples and preserves
 * the smell mingled with that of open fires to give the house a distinctive aroma
 * unexpected protusions and uneven floors where rooms had been added or altered in the past or where the original fabric had been worn smooth by successive generations of farmers
 * When the Forsters moved in:
 * Vine-covered front porch
 * Hall with loose floorboards
 * Smoky drawing room fire, nursery, bedrooms, attics.
 * Garden meadow ouside, Rooks Nest Farm's garden was separated by a "straggling" hedge


 * the garden
 * The front garden mostly consisted of a large lawn sloping down to the hedge separating RNH from RN Farm
 * Between Lawn and hedge a boggy depression known as the "dell-'ole" or "dellow"
 * narrow flower beds and borders either side of the garden and under the front windows
 * a driveway ran past the front of the house, between the house and the lawn, laeding to the stables and paddock at the back of the house
 * at one point the driveway skirted around a large tree. Morgan found pigs' teeth embedded in the bark
 * Lily established it was a wych elm, and locals told them of a belief that toothache could be cured by sticking a pig's tooth into a wych elm's bark
 * back of house - veg garden and fruit trees
 * grass path between them
 * a passage led to a small shrubbery, then an orchard which merged into the boundary hedge
 * Lily also rented 2 fields that came with the house, one for her pony and one let to Mr Franklin for grazing
 * Lily took to making a garden, tending to flower beds, hoped to fill the dellow to provide space for shrubbery with spring bulbs beneath them, but never completed
 * She planted rambler roses and tulips
 * The dellow had snowdrops
 * Morgan loved the dellow and hoped it would be a water garden
 * They had an aquarium with tadpoles and water snails
 * Lily planted roses in borders, but was expected to spend time away with family as they were due to flower
 * Morgan had his own patch of garden by the back door, he grew poppies
 * Also in the garden = raspberries, gooseberries, currant bushes, large cherry near kitchen
 * RNH garden with apple trees, pear trees, cherry trees, Lily made preserves from them
 * Lily turned the front lawn into a tennis court, despite its slope that gave one player an advantage.
 * Wych Elm felled 1960s

Forster Country

 * Poston asked Forster to help in the campaign to save the countryside there.
 * Williamson continued the Forster Country campaign.