By Noreen Evans
My great grandparents Frederick James and Eliza Ann Evans worked and lived at Trengwainton approximately from 1900 to 1905. Frederick was bailiff for Squire Bolitho, also my grandmother Mary Evans worked in the dairy (see photograph dated 25.5.1903) she would have been 18 years old at that time. After leaving Trengwainton they all moved to Somerset where Frederick was bailiff to Neville Grenville at Butleigh Court.
The following are memories from my cousin Derek - his grandmother was the youngest sister of my grandmother, Mary Evans. There were five sisters, Mary, Ellen, Dora, Lillian and Mariah.
When I was a lot younger, and my parents were living in Cornwall, I remember visiting the Trengwainton estate with them and my Gran (Mariah), who was staying with us at the time. It was would have been in the late 60s or early 70s.
As my great grandfather used to be the Bailiff* there, we got permission to look over the (then empty and disused) buildings that were part of the estate, one of which was their home when Gran was a girl, and the ‘garden’ of which I remember was completely overgrown. Looking around the empty house, Gran took us into the room that used to be the ‘parlour’ and went straight over to the window, where she was excited to point out to us a small but clearly visible curved dent in the bottom of the wooden window surround. She told us that she clearly remembered the day that this was damage was caused, apparently because ‘father’, having just discovered that one of the girls - a sister of Gran’s - had been ‘seeing’ one of the grooms, became so angry that he brought his stick down with great force against the woodwork, frightening the girls out of their wits! I wonder if that dent, or indeed the same window surround, or even the house, are still there?
* Collins dictionary definition:
Farm bailiffs exist on landed estates. The farm bailiff is employed by the proprietor and his managerial duties can include collecting rent, taxes and supervising both farm operations and labourers. Historically, the estate would typically include a hall or manor house, a home farm managed by the bailiff, several smaller farms occupied by tenants and possibly a tiny village (a collection of small cottages) in which the farm labourers lived.
