Photos of the Eastwood 'Pest House', Essex, UK 1897 to 1920s and COWAN family???
Urgently seeking photographs (and any other material) of the Eastwood 'Pest House' (near Southend-on-Sea) in Essex for the period 1897 through to the early 1920s.After marrying in Thundersley, in 1896 my grandparents Henry Richardson COWAN and his wife Fanny Esther (nee PATTERSON) Essex moved to this old house (originally a 'Pest House' and re-named by Henry to 'Pleasant Place') in Princes Road, Eastwood, Essex about 1897. Here Henry Cowan was the local Wheelwright and Blacksmith and early motor car repairer. Henry died in 1920 and his two elder sons Frederick Henry & Ernest William Robert helped run the business for a few more years. In the late 1920s Fanny Esther Cowan moved into a shop called 'Earls Hall Stores' in Princes Road, Prittlewell and operated this shop until 1938. & family lived there until about 1925. In all there were 10 children, the second youngest was my mother, Edith May BELL nee COWAN (born 1915). She lives in Australia and is the last remaining of her siblings! I have no photos of this family group during the early years of this century and would dearly love to learn more about them and the Pest House itself.Does anyone have ANY material at all, especially photos of this family? Maybe even photos of the shop? I would dearly love to present my elderly mother (now 92) with some wonderful reminders of her early years. I feel sure someone who descends from (maybe my distant cousins!)a person who was a neighbour or some other connection may be able to please help me?? If anyone does in fact have photographs (either of the family or even the house/environs/shop etc) I will of course pay all reasonable printing/labour costs etc... Cheers, Rob Bell, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. My e-mail address is: [email protected]