High Street, Little Shelford drawn by Fanny Wale

11 High Street, Stearn’s House, Mrs Cooper’s School, Little Shelford

History of 11 High Street Little Shelford

Listed Building:

Cottage, late C17 with slightly later bay added to road end. Timber framed, plaster rendered with steeply pitched roof of interlocking tiles, originally thatched.

Fanny Wale’s drawing shows, from left to right, the Chapel, Ellom’s thatched cottage, Stearn’s House, Butlar’s house and shop, Elbourn’s house, King’s Farm.

Fanny Wale, c.1908, writes:

The small house (in which the Stearns now live) at the end of Camping Close, near the Congregational Chapel, was once inhabited by Mr and Mrs James Cooper and their children, John, a daughter who emigrated to Australia, another girl married John Keeth the bootmaker, Charles who was born deaf and dumb but learned to talk and understand other people and worked under his father who was head gardener at Old Shelford Hall, and subsequently was house boy in the new house.

Mrs F Cooper superintended a girls’ school for Miss M F Wale.  Mrs Lewis George still living at Hauxton, was one of the girls trained at the school and gave the following information. There were always thirteen little girls who came to learn needlework and reading with Mrs Cooper, from 9am to 12pm and again from 2pm to 4pm, they made frocks and undergarments with materials given by Miss Wale, who also at Whitsuntide gave each girl a frock made of stout blue cotton with a white or yellow sprig upon it, and white capes over their shoulders and new straw bonnet with blue ribbon trimming and strings.

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After the Coopers had gone down under their memorial stone, their cottage became two dwellings, the larger one near the road was inhabited by Mr and Mrs Brand and daughter Elizabeth, who lived till 1910, when after a long absence from Shelford she returned n whilst staying at the Plough Public House, died there.