Finding Sites the Older Ways (2) Broadwoodkelly

Cornfield near Broadwoodkelly
Photo Julie Sampson

Phew! I've reached the marker point of the second section of my ancestral family-wheel, which turns this blog clock round to my paternal grandfather and his predecessors. Jane Harris married Samuel Sampson in Chelsea, in London, but the couple soon returned to both of their roots when they built and set up house in mid Devon. Samuel's family were born and bred in and around Broadwoodkelly, over at least four centuries. And so, I have no problem making a big feature of that place.

The text which follows was written and compiled following a trip down to the parish. Taking more or less the same 'format'  as Finding Site the Older Ways (1) Otter Valley Land of the Luggs, which marked the beginning of the blog family-wheel, it's a layered piece which, beneath the surface embeds faintly the names of Samuel's parents, John Sampson and Nancy Earland - and their parents.

The piece is made up of a backcloth of impressionistic description, which sets the scene; early drafts of as yet unpublished poems about a couple of women in the same Sampson ancestry (Susannah Weekes and Ann Lang); and an imagined bit of dialogue taken from a fictional piece written some years ago.

Continuing to Turn the Ancestral Family-Wheel - Wildridge

Continuing to turn the ancestral family-wheel, our paternal grandmother Jane, who - though she like her siblings, was born and brought up in London - had Devon parentage on both sides (mother's in East Devon and father's roots in and about Okehampton), and after marriage to Samuel Sampson returned with him to find and link up again with both of their ancestral home-zones in mid Devon. After a search around the area looking for a suitable house for their 4 - soon with the addition of my own father - 5 children, the couple decided to build their own house back in the vicinity of both Jane's and Samuel's roots. I'm not sure why they settled on North Tawton. Perhaps because the Sampsons from nearby Broadwoodkelly already owned land there. I'm not yet sure. But the house our grandparents built in and around 1910, high on the red ridge above the town, their children's and our childhood home and our cousin's sometime holiday home, has become locked in my mind as a presence the central lodestone of childhood life and beyond. That is why it features here, in another layered piece of writing, which is part of a longer text. Next door Grandfather's brother John built Wildridge's twin called Highcroft and that became home to the other branch of Sampsons of that family.

Sampson family at Wildridge circa 1920.

Wildridge Lych-Gate 1963.

The following poem written some time ago and published in the online, but I think now non-existent magazine Cyclamens and Swords, was inspired by Wildridge's lych-gate.

copyright Julie Sampson

And so to Okehampton - Harris and Sprague families

So now we're under Dartmoor, in Okehampton. Jane Harris' father's family were rooted in the district for several  - perhaps many centuries. I wanted to mark the route of that family prior to her grandfather William Harris' leaving his home-town and settling over in East Devon.

Following a recent visit to the town I decided to write an underlayer of 'description' conjuring the moorland, which here appears half visible beneath a poem I wrote after finding the graves of Jane's ggrandparents (and my generation's great great grandparents) Richard Harris and Jane Sprague (who probably spent their lives in Okehampton), in the graveyard of the church high above the town.

Path leading up to Okehampton Church

Richard Harris and Jane Sprague -
gravestone
at Okehampton Church
Photo Julie Sampson

A slightly different version of  'As We Climbed the Slope' was published by Helen Ivory online, in Ink Sweat and Tears

Best Blog Post to read before this is Land of the Luggs

Jane Harris first on the Wheel

OK. So, though there are still many gaps in her tree, this shows four generations of Jane Harris, my father's mother's parentage.

You can find my own Finding Sites the Older Ways exploration of Jane's family beginning in this Lugg post.

Jane Harris Sampson 1876-1951

I recently drafted a poem which contains a fragment about Jane; our life-paths only just crossed. Here are a few lines from the poem:

I don't know why, but then I

think of the granny I didn't know,

how our lives had crossed

the day after, in my cradle,

     I'd cried

my first six months away

and, coming alive,

Jane, grandmother,

     died.

Then, I recall her forbearers from these parts,

their fossil traces

must litter the sandstone landscapes of this place.

Copyright Julie Sampson

Finding Sites the Older Ways (1) - Land of the Luggs

My family wheel begins in east Devon, in what I call the 'land of the Luggs'.

It was only a handful of years ago I found that the maternal branch of grandmother Jane  (father's mother) side of the family, the Luggs, were rooted in and around the Budleigh Salterton district, at Colaton, Harpford, Otterford and other nearby parishes. Jane's immediate ancestral names will appear on the next blog post.The piece below is a layered superimpostion of pieces inspired by the area near the estuary of the river Otter, which weaves into and through the Lugg family's homelands. I wanted to try and capture the essence of the landscape.

There are also fragments from drafts of poems I've written about people on that tree, with the names of Jane's parents, Elizabeth (Lydia) Lugg and Richard Harris (who I think must have met in the area of East Budleigh, or perhaps Bicton, where Richard's father William was for some years Farm Bailiff) standing out (see a draft of another poem about William on this post).
 
Why can't you read all  of the piece? Well, this representation is for me the best way of illustrating how I see genealogy. There are multiple complicated levels of a life-journey for each individual on a family tree and each of these is complexly interwoven with the equally intricate life-trails of the others on the tree. How ever much we find is only partial; much will remain lost or invisible and as a writer this kind of document reflects the frustration and intrigue of the process of research and documenting the family-tree.

Copyright Julie Sampson