Visiting Hankerton
A Letter to my Children : Visiting the ancestors in Hankerton. 2 Dear Children, Today I went to Hankerton, in Wiltshire. It’s a hamlet, a scattering of houses and a tiny church set in the Wiltshire countryside. It’s where my granny was born and raised, and is full of family history. It is your history too, so I will tell you about it, because one day you might visit on your own. Granny was born in Pear Tree cottage. She lived there with her parents, Mark and Mary Woodward. Mary washed clothes for the surrounding houses, and there was a well in the back garden, and a wash house next to the cottage. Mark was a busy man. I think he built part of the roof for the church, so maybe he was a builder. Mainly he was busy, because, it was later discovered, he actually had two families – my granny’s mother and another wife and children in the nearby market town of Malmesbury. Not sure which one was first, and therefore the legal wife. I have no idea what became of the other fami...