Warwickshire and Family History

I have been unwell still today and ended up not going into work and spending most of my day in bed!! I've got such a rotten cold, I've been sneezing everywhere!

So stitching has been tricky!! Feel a bit better now though.

Thought I would show my Warwickshire Map as it was last week and explain why I choose to do this particular county chart.

At the moment it only has place names, trees, rivers and boundaries sewn. It will then have symbols to represent building etc and the County Emblem.

As I have been tracing my family history for years I have found many connections to Warwickshire on my dad's side of the family, so it was something I always wanted to stitch but only bought the chart last year.

In the early 1800s my family were living in Warwick, by the mid 1800s they moved to Stratford Upon Avon. My great grandad was called Walter Freeman he was born in Stratford and married an Annie Clarke. Her family had lived in Knowle for years (Also on the map) The picture of them must date back to the 1920s or 30s.

Walter and Annie had 14 children who all survived into adulthood (2 of which are still alive) they moved to Lapworth about 1910 when Walter became a Lock Keeper on the canal. With the job came a barrel-roofed cottage which is still around today and we often have a trip to Lapworth in the summer to walk along the canal to see the cottage. At the time it had no electricity or running water etc and they bought up most of their family there!!

This is a picture of me outside "LockHouse" in 2006. Walter and Annie lived there until just before Annie died in the 1960s. My dad remembers many a summer holiday spent there with his nan and grandad. It is a lovely cottage very unique to that part of the world. I hope we go and visit again this year as we never managed it last year and it is only about an hour away by car.

On my stitching I want to add a little symbol to represent Lock House but I will add that near the end. I think it'll be great when it is done but it isn't the most interesting stitching I am doing because of the lack of pictures and colour.

I am missing my daughters lots... they called tonight and Laura has come down with this cold too, so she was feeling a bit sorry for herself. I think they are missing home too but they are enjoying the experience.

Well I am going to continue with the map now.

Ginnie x