2 Willoughby Road, Bourne
2 Willoughby Road (just off Eastgate), Bourne, Lincolnshire
The house to which my grandmother Emma Parker (later Emmie Taylor) moved at the age of two (via an interim house in Coggles Causeway) from the house in North Road, Bourne, where she was born in 1895. In the picture are Rex Needle (left, the historian for Bourne) and Kenneth Taylor (my father, and Emmie Taylor' s son) on his first ever visit to the town on April 3rd 2008.
From Bourne to Horwich
From here, my grandmother, aged 12, moved to Horwich in the North West of England when her father, Thomas Hughes Parker, Minister of Bourne United Reformed Church, became Minister at New Chapel in Horwich. When she was 21 she married John Taylor, a local man who was Joint Managing Director of W.T.Taylor & Co. Ltd, once the largest towel manufacturing company in the British Empire.
Related entries: (i) Childhood at Bourne, (ii) Emma Hester Parker, (iii) Emma Parker's grave, (iv) 4 North Road, Bourne, (v) Bourne United Reformed Church.
hi patrick, i am the current owner of 2 willoughby road and i am slightly confused because the house has a date stone of 1901 so it wouldnt have been built when your grandmother was 2. do you have any further information as i am trying to amass as much info on the house and adjoining shop as possible. do let me know anything you know that might be relevant. thanks. best wishes, sally
Hello Sally. It's Rex Needle who told us this was the house. He's very well informed, although I can't remember everything he told us about it during our visit. If you're looking for information about the house and the shop next door I'd recommend you get in touch with him. He's very helpful. There's a link to his email address at the bottom of this page.
I've now been in touch with Rex again and he wrote this:
"Sally is right. Emmie did not move there until after her father married Ethel Branston in 1905. The house was built for them by her father, John Branston. I have done some research on Sally's shop which was originally Branston's store next door, now being converted into a house."