The Cottage, The Street, Burton

This article will focus on members of the Wright family and their home known as The Cottage, Burton. The cottage is believed to have been built in the mid C18^th. Although the front of the building was later re-built in 1810, as depicted in a dated stone above the front door.

The current resident of this property is Ann Wright who was married to John Wright, who sadly died in November 2024.

Ann recalls how she and John came to live at this cottage:

“In 1970 the cottage was in a derelict state of repair and only worth about £1,000 at this time. The cottage became unoccupied following the death of John’s grandmother Lottie nee Harris (from Bristol) and when his auntie Kathleen (also known as Lottie) married and moved to Sherston. At this time John & I were looking for somewhere to live, so John took me to the house to have a look around. John told me you wouldn’t want to live here, but as soon as I entered the house it gave me the feeling it was going to be right for us. John went to tell his father of our decision to live in this house. John’s father (Roy) told us we would need to get a grant to pay for the work needed and to pay-off other parties who had a financial interest in the property, which was done. John & I were both working at the time, and so for the next 3 years or so after work we went to the cottage each evening to renovate the it. A lot had to be done, the roof had fallen in at the rear, the floors had to be dug up and plaster hacked from the walls. The entire rear of the house had to be built up much higher to make room for a bathroom and to give the rear rooms higher ceilings. The stone used for re-building the main house came from demolishing the old extension, which had stored John’s grandfather’s car (as shown in the below photo) along with timber for the workshop next door. We moved into the house in 1973”

Written by Ann Wright

The below photograph features the house, believed to be around the 1930’s (based on the approximate ages of the persons and vehicle) The photo depicts the house owner Edward James Wright (Bn. 4^th Oct 1895) (on the left), grandfather of John, and his son Edward Royston (Roy) Wright (on the right) who was John’s father. The main part of the building is seen to the left of the photograph, a taller elevation and has a chimney stack. The remainder of the building in the foreground is an added extension which no longer exists. The only remains of that extension to the building, is a low boundary wall to the front, running from the cottage along to the driveway entrance.

 

The next photograph shows Lottie Wright (known as old Ma) at the front door of this cottage in the 1940’s. Notice the large step at the door, was this built as no pavement existed?

The photograph below shows the present day (2025) cottage for comparison and on closer examination you can see the outline of the old demolished building within the exposed stonework.

Census records for 1901 show the cottage was occupied by Isaac Wright Bn. 1864, Emma Wright Bn. 1864, son Herbert aged 13yrs, son Edward J aged 7 yrs., and a 3 yr. old daughter. The Census Register for 1939 shows Edward J, Lottie Wright & Kathleen Wright (now Purbrick) living at this house. This record also shows Edward was a carpenter and a Special Police Constable, his wife was recorded as being a First Aid Worker. 

A previous article featuring the family carpentry workshop (next door to this cottage was published in the March 2022 edition of the Bugle newsletter

The Bugle Editorial Team would like to thank Ann Wright for the information and photograph used in this article.

An earlier form of this article by Chris Bennett first appeared in The Bugle