Bearley resident Derek Bull, 72, finds he can count Shakespeare and Lady Diana as distant relations as he traces his ancestry

Bearley resident Derek Bull, 72, can count Shakespeare and Lady Diana as distant relations. Here he traces his mother’s side of the family - including how they lived in local cottages with condiment-inspired names.

Until I started using Ancestry to investigate my family tree, I only personally knew my grandparents and one great-grandmother. Now I have 105,000 online ancestors combining my wife’s family and my own. It was possible to glean family information from my parents, using a combination of fact and folklore to paint a picture I can now verify.

My mother’s paternal family over the generations were mainly connected to the land, through farming, horticulture and agricultural labouring. With the maiden name of Sivyour, it was always thought there may have been a French connection, which has been traced back to Johannes Seviar from Rennes, in Normandy, who moved to Somerset in the mid- 1500s. My grandfather Wilfred Victor Sivyour was born at Fair Oak in Hampshire in 1900 and was a shepherd on his father’s farm when called up to fight in the First World War.

By 1921 the family had moved to Bourton Hill Farm near Moreton-in-Marsh, working for gentleman farmer Frank Atherton-Brown and then moving to Lower Brookend Farm at Evenlode.

My maternal grandmother, Ethel Maude Harding, was born in Mickleton in 1902 and her family can be traced to a long line of Bennetts from north Gloucestershire, Hardings from Sherbourne and Savages going back to Sir Charles Savage from Elmley Castle who was killed at the Battle of Culloden in 1746. Coincidentally, my wife Jean has King James IV of Scotland as a 15th great-grandfather who also perished at the same battle, but on the opposite side. Ethel’s father had been a professional soldier for most of his life, before having a small holding near Moreton. He was shot in the leg during the Boer War and received a bullet in the other leg in the First World War.

During the same conflict, a bullet ricocheted off his helmet which caused the chin strap to tear off his nose. Following surgery he grew a moustache to hide the wound.

In September 1923, Wilfred and Ethel married at St Mary’s Church, Chastleton, and shortly afterwards moved to Clifford Chambers, living in a bungalow made from corrugated iron, not far from Springfield House on the Shipston Road. It had the strange name of the ‘Tin Top Tabernacle’.

Their first daughter Emily was born in 1924 and my mother Frances was born in 1927. Wilfred worked as a shepherd for the Steele family from Clifford Forge Farm, managing a pedigree herd of South Down sheep. The work allowed the Sivyours to move to a larger two-up, two-down known as Pepper Box Cottage on the Campden Road and near the entrance to Cross o’ the Hill Farm. It was demolished in the 1960s, along with its neighbour the Salt Box Cottage.

Emily and Frances attended Clifford Chambers School.

With the cottage situated on the Campden Road, it was a busy route serving various military bases at Long Marston and Honeybourne. Emily befriended Arthur Ridgard who was stationed at the army camp at Long Marston and they married at Holy Trinity Church in 1943.

My father, Charlie Bull, was evacuated from Coventry after a bomb landed in the front garden of his parent’s house on 14th November 1940. His school was flattened on the same night and he moved to Marlcliff near Bidford.

On leaving school he worked on a farm belonging to Charles Grey at Cleeve Manor. Charles moved to Cross o’ the Hill Farm taking my father with him. As a youngster, he took to tractor driving easily and was often lent out to neighbouring farms, one farm being the Steele’s.

Ethel worked closely with Charlie and he often ended up staying for meals which he was most grateful as the only fare available at his digs was a slab of oven-baked cheese covered with Marmite, day in day out! A romance blossomed between Charlie and Frances and they married at St Helen’s Church, Preston-on-Stour, in March 1947.

In the mid-1940s the Sivyour family moved to The Stalls at Alscot Park, where Wilfred was shepherd and Ethel looked after the Jersey cows that supplied milk and butter for the West family at the ‘Big House’ – the Alscot Estate manor house.

There were many rooms at The Stalls, one being the front or best room which was used very infrequently, so that when a fire was lit, the walls ‘steamed’ it being so damp.

Emily and Arthur lived for many years at Lodge Gates, divided in two, with the living room, kitchen and cellar bathroom on the left-hand lodge, whilst the right-hand one housed two bedrooms.

Charlie and Frances later moved to the Line Bungalow, situated on the embankment above what is now the Shakespeare Marina. It had been a pre-war holiday chalet, flimsily constructed from timber and covered in ‘pebble-dash’. It had a well beneath the sink to draw fresh water, no electricity and it housed a family of rodents that continually scurried between the walls. It was lit by paraffin lamps and the radio was accumulator-battery operated.

With the cottages named after condiments Pepper Box and Salt Box, one wonders if there was a Mustard Pot or Vinegar Jar?

About Derek

MY wife Jean and I met 65 years ago at Rowington CofE Primary School. In the early 1970s we both worked for Land Rover at Solihull; we continued employment until we took early retirement just over 20 years ago.

Jean worked in the service department, specification and latterly the shipping department. I started work as a draughtsman in body, trim and hardware drawing office and ended my career in the advanced design department at Gaydon.

We married 50 years ago at St Lawrence’s Church, Rowington.

Our interest in Hidcote Manor Garden led us to volunteer there from 2005 to 2021. Jean helped out in the office and I was a garden guide. A spin-off led me to raise funds for the restoration of the garden to its 1930s heyday, by giving illustrated talks to clubs and associations.

We share an interest in family tree research, gardens, wild birds, Scotland and old cars.

Our home for the last 39 years has been in Bearley, where we have been involved in a number of organisations, such as gardening, local history and raising money for our local church and the air ambulance, arranging dances and films shows.