The Linhay

Date: 1934 [unknown]
Location: Braunton, Devon

This page has been accessed 66 times.

This was the home of John Ernest and Sophie Frances Gladstone when they moved from West Hill, Llandaff to Braunton in North Devon in 1934.

Susan Grievson (granddaughter) wrote here memories of The Linhay in August 2017:

Probably the Linhay would be smaller than I remember! There was a decent drive as you approached the house and went in the front door. There was a long corridor which went the length of the house. As you came in, Grandfather's study was on the left and the drawing room was on the right with Grangran's desk just inside which held toys that we were occasionally allowed to play with. That was where the photo of the family was taken on the occasion of their Diamond Wedding and Gran father died very soon afterwards.

On the occasion of their Diamond Wedding, March 1954

The next two rooms were the kitchen on the left and the dining room on the right which always smelt of apples because they left them on the window cill to ripen.

There was then a door in the corridor and through that was their bedroom with a spare room opposite and there was a very small bedroom which I slept in on the right. The bathroom was past these rooms across the end of the corridor.

I think there was what we thought of as a secret passage that ran from Grandfathers study, along the back of the kitchen and might have ended at the back door.

All along the right side of the house was the garden which is, I think where Pamela and Squirrel's photo was taken.

Squirrel Brown and Pamela Gladstone, c1935 at The Linhay on the occasion of their engagement.

I presume Mummy sold it when Grangran had to move out soon after Grandfathers death because she had dementia. Uncle Gerald was in the Far East at the time. The house was always freezing and Grangran who had very bad arthritis, used to sit crouched over a fire in the drawing room. Grandfather never allowed you to turn on any lights in the corridor and as a little girl, I used to be very frightened of going backwards and forwards to the bathroom!