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My great-grandfather, William Salthouse, with his daughters Janet and Lucy, and Dolly the pony, outside their smallholding at Ditton, near Widnes, Cheshire. Was this farm on Green Lane, Ditton? |
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Taken about the same time as the first picture, this is the Salthouse family at Ditton again, sitting on what appears to be a home-made garden swing. A slightly enhanced close up of the family is in the Salthouse Gallery |
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Jim Salthouse 'Jim the Ploughman' is written on the back of the picture. We are sure that this is Ditton, near Widnes, now dwarfed by the better-known Hough Green. Does anyone recognise the vista? This is quite a large field; the photographer might have been standing near the house, looking across the field to a row of at least 5 cottages going towards the left of the picture and another row of cottages ending in what might be a farm at right angles to them. The two rows of cottages appear to be on opposite sides of the same road with the cottages on the left facing the field and the cottages on the right backing onto the field. The horizon on the left is mainly a row on leafless trees with a sparse hedge in front. We think that this could be Green Lane Farm, on Green Lane, where Cheshunt school is now. Does anyone remember the farm before the school was built? Please email me if you know where this was! |
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A photograph of Widnes Secondary School, Champion House 1910. The winners were Rural House. Jim Salthouse is first on the left, front row, he was 13 years old. Do you know anyone else in this picture? |
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This is a recent picture of a farm at the bottom of Green Lane, Ditton. Architecturally, it seems to have the same details as the farm in the pictures above, so it was probably built at the same time, but was it called Green Lane Farm c1912? Probably not, as the next picture shows: |
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I am sure that in this picture, Jim is standing in front of the family home, the smallholding on Green Lane, Ditton. Just off the picture to the right is a large outbuilding and I have heard from people who think that they remembered that building until about the 1950's or 60s. In the centre of this picture is the house, the back of which, where Janet and Lucy were photographed in the trap with Dolly the pony, is facing towards the right of the picture. To the left of the picture is a row of terraced houses - these can also be seen in one of the other family pictures taken in the garden of the house. According to the 1849 maps, the farm would have been the only building on Green Lane, so the terraced houses postdate the farm. They, too, have since been replaced by more modern housing. |
