Hannah Hauxwell

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Hannah Hauxwell

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Florence

Joined: 15 Mar 2025
Posts: 608

Posted: Thu Apr 16, 26 6:59 pm Post subject: Hannah Hauxwell

Does anyone remember Hannah Hauxwell?

She was left to run a smallholding in the Upper Dales after the death of her parents. Life, it seems, was very basic without water or mains electricity and very little money. Upsizing was getting mains electricity.

Wonder how many others there were like her. We certainly wouldn't downsize that far now.

I wonder how many of us would have thought of living like that or downsizing even that far in the 1980s? I've lived some places but not that spartan.

gil
Downsizer Moderator

Joined: 08 Jun 2005
Posts: 18449

Posted: Thu Apr 16, 26 9:57 pm Post subject:

Yes, I remember her. I think that kind of life was not quite so rare then as it seems from now. Many of those cottages/crofts away in the hills or on the islands were abandoned and left to go derelict. Local councils built rural housing for agricultural workers whose housing on-farm was deemed to be uninhabitable.

I nearly went to live in a cottage with a well and no mains water or electric back in the late 70s. Quite glad I didn't; it was a long way from uni, and apart from commute by bike would have taken a lot of daily work to do basic cooking and washing me. Suspect I would have been blagging baths from friends and staying over in town.

Mistress Rose

Joined: 21 Jul 2011
Posts: 17212

Posted: Fri Apr 17, 26 3:27 pm Post subject:

Not as late as that, but used to visit friends of my parents in Kent who didn't have electricity or an indoor toilet. They had mains water by that time, but the well was outside the door under a heavy metal cover. They used oil lamps and for some reason never explained to me the outside toilet, down a grass path, and probably a cess pit was called the 'Mormons Hut' by my father. That was in the late 1950s/early 1960s. It was a smallholding but when they got older they moved to a more modern bungalow in the village.

My husbands grandparents didn't get electricity in their house until the 1960s, but they did have gas and used gas light.

When I was young I might have considered a house without all mod cons, but not now. We still have a wood burner, which although it is only really for heating, will do for cooking on, and I do use it in the winter for things that need a long cook.

Florence

Joined: 15 Mar 2025
Posts: 608

Posted: Sat Apr 18, 26 3:44 pm Post subject:

Took a ride out on the tourist bus that goes round the main attractions on the Hadrian's Wall up here (use of the bus pass). Very rural indeed. Very thin in farm houses. Looks as if they all have electricity from the poles (will blow down in gales at a guess). Mostly LPG or bottled gas but not mains. Internet is Starlink. Didn't see wind turbines. Mainly I think due to landscape protection.

No signs of cottages like Hannah Hauxwell had.

Mistress Rose

Joined: 21 Jul 2011
Posts: 17212

Posted: Sat Apr 18, 26 3:53 pm Post subject:

I would expect that they either have back up generators or they may just manage without if the electricity goes. Candles and oil lamps and don't rely on electricity for cooking or heating.

Although I live in a fairly suburban part of southern England, there are still villages here that don't have mains gas. They rely on oil, LPG, wood or coal. One got pretty close to being cut off one winter since we have been doing firewood, and we were asked to try to deliver an emergency load to the pub. We got through eventually, and met the oil man who had just managed to get through the other way. That village was cut off in the winter of 1962-3.

Florence

Joined: 15 Mar 2025
Posts: 608

Posted: Sat Apr 18, 26 3:58 pm Post subject:
Gosh yes, remember that winter and digging ourselves out from the farm to the roads. We were on wood and coal for cooking and heating. No gas supply. Days before the internet. Landline phone.

Florence

Joined: 15 Mar 2025
Posts: 608

Posted: Sat Apr 18, 26 6:13 pm Post subject:
Thinking about it, there's a village up road without mains gas. I believe there's a lot of LPG there. And we aren't really rural. Bit out of the way but not rural - I mean on a regular bus route, with travelling library, supermarket deliveries, within easy reach of schools, mostly internet access off ducts (digging long since done).

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