Podgers House

This shows the house I was born in, Podgers House in Cad Road. The picture is definitely pre-second world war but may be 1920s rather than 1930s. Note the trees behind the house. They were necessary because the house stood on a kind of plateau - the gravel works behind had lowered the ground level. Note the rough grass in front. This extended to Podgers Lane and belonged to no one! There was free land in Ilton as late as that! Why?

Because it flooded every year.

Eventually our neighbour (in the rhs house) planted a hedge around it and used it for his chickens, leaving the two other houses a strip of cinder path to the main Cad Road. Time went by, no one objected and the land became his. I had left Ilton when, in the 70s, a bungalow was built on it, but no one was surprised when it was flooded.

Helen Baker