A Family History

Edward and Nancy Eason’s Cottage 

In the 1920s Edward and Nancy Eason bought their family on holiday to St Margaret’s Bay several times, staying at Reach Court Farm, the White House (now Queen Anne’s Thimble) and the Granville Hotel.  Eventually they decided that they would like a permanent holiday home, so Edward bought several plots of land in Foreland Road and built Enes Cottage (so called by amalgamating their initials). At the time, there were no other  houses on the road and the site of the present tennis court at Enes was two courts at right angles to ours and  belonging to the Granville Hotel.

Edward designed the cottage  to accommodate his growing family of sic children and their sbsequnet families. Downstairs there was a maid’s room off the kitchen. Once the cottage was built to his design, the family stayed here for the first time in 1928.   

The plot was surrounded on three sides by pine trees, no sycamores then. The garden was laid out with several flower beds, a rectangle (discernible at the east-end of the house) full of spring bulbs, another long flower bed this side of the laurel hedge and a rose pergola leading to the tennis court (post holes still a trap). The macrocarpa trees were cut as box sentinels and it was possible to see the sea looking east down the valley. Originally the two tennis courts were known as Old Bird’s Garden, but were later converted to the one court, now remaining, and a thriving vegetable plot. There was a lattice fence from the kitchen door to the shed behind the garage and gates on all of the entrances. 

Edward and Nancy and their dog Chirps came down from London most weekends from June to September. They would always have haddock and spinach cooked by Nancy on arrival. They would be joined by a variety of their children with families or friends and some of the grandchildren would stay for up to six weeks in the summer with their mothers and the schoolmaster fathers, Keelan and Quin. Other fathers & husbands came at the weekends.

There was always a domestic helper in the maid’s room, sometimes a maid alone, sometimes also the butler, Honor. He had a small dog called Lion, but a non-speller in the family read it as Loin and so it was to the family…

Traditions grew out of years of visits. There were progressive height marks of the Eason children & grandchildren on the dining room wall between the windows, until they were painted out in 1965. There were also height marks on the garage. Granny always had a jar of sweets available when needed, which was known as ‘General Consumption’.

Games Afoot

Many parties of young people took place; Teddy & Bim and Phoebe & Bob came down after rugby on Saturday evenings in Autumn. Drinks were served out of the dining room window to those in the garden.   In the evenings there were  jigsaw competitions (some of these jigsaws can still be found in the sitting room), games and  sometimes 15 people playing Racing Demon round the dining room table.  Outside tennis matches were a regular occurrence.  The umpire sat on the grass slope by the net.  If there were only three people available to play then it was 2 versus 1, rotated each set. Keelan was an excellent player, taught the children a lot and could easily beat and exhaust any of them, simply by standing completely still.  There was always cricket or bowls in the garden and the greatest of all Cottage games was Nurkie.  Nurkie was an esoteric form of Kick the Can and anywhere in the garden was a fair hiding place, but never in  or through the house! Up trees or hiding behind moveable objects such as dustbins, was, however, perfectly legitimate.  This game is the inspiration for the picture in the dining room ‘ I  Nurkie Archie’.

Beach Activities

Outside the property there were long cliff walks in both directions and of course bathing in the sea, every day, by everyone.  Before the war there was no sea wall or breakwaters in the Bay, but there were cottages built under the cliff, and bathing  huts belonging to the Excelsior Hotel. The Coastguard was there too, then known as The Green Man.  Visits to the pub were a special event when we had visitors and of course children had to stay outside.  Jimmy the Fisherman sold his fresh catch on the beach every day.  Later he took his fishing boat as one of the little ships to Dunkirk. 

Bathing was better at high tide and there was a raft moored in the Bay which became the first target for developing swimmers. Later you were acknowledged as a swimmer when you could swim far enough out to sea to see the Dover Patrol memorial above the East Cliff, success signalled by yodelling before swimming back to shore. The rock pools were explored and prawning on an outgoing tide frequently produced a garnish for a meal. The end of a bathe was always celebrated with hot chocolate – the Channel was never warm!

On rare occasions in the summer boat trips were arranged to the South Goodwin Sands Lightship, whose name was painted on the side of the ship.  Until quite recently the masts of ships wrecked on the sands were visible at low tide, though they cannot  be seen now. In the past, cricket matches were played on the sands, Bob played in one. The light ship is now automatic. Other wrecks can be seen below the cliffs at low tide on the way to Dover, including the Preussen, wrecked full of grand pianos, which were rescued up the Smuggler’s chute, visible on the cliff walk to Dover.

The next door plot, bought by the Upjohn family who also owned The Pines, was never developed but used for grazing of goats. Gradually other houses were built on the Foreland Road. A short way further along, towards Dover, the old lighthouse and the windmill were on the cliff when Enes was built, the new lighthouse was built in the 1920’s and is famous for being the first Trinity House electric lighthouse. Its light and foghorn were regular accompaniments to the stays at the cottage and many children remember with pleasure the light beam swinging across the bedroom ceilings  at night – three flashes and a gap, then three flashes again. The lighthouse ceased to be used when the coastguard moved from the old buildings by the Dover Patrol Memorial on the East Cliff to the new building on the cliff above Dover Harbour. The cliffs have  gradually eroded and the garden of the old lighthouse fell into the sea.  There used to be a terrifying walk along the cliff path from the beach road by the Napoleon wall up the cliff edge to the front of Peter Ustinov’s house (now Miriam Margolyse’s house) on the cliff top (it  was a terrifying walk) but parts of it have now fallen into the sea and it is now closed. 

Can you see France?

If you can, it’s going to rain. If you can’t, it is raining!

Of course, this is not true, the views of the Channel, are stupendous. The character of the shipping has changed, there used to be far fewer ships and much smaller cross channel ferries and in the summer there were plenty of cross-channel swimmers.  These hardy souls left the beach, covered in grease and accompanied by a small rowing boat. There was an annual race, usually France to England, where the fastest swimmers caught the tide and would land in St Margaret’s Bay, or on the shore below the cliffs between the bay and Dover; but if they missed the tide, they could be swept as far as Folkestone – a much longer swim! 

After the war the Channel got busier, with Hovercraft, Seacats and bigger ferries, carrying lorries as well as cars, but of course there were fewer swimmers. 

Surprise picnics were held on the cliffs above Dover harbour and children sat for hours watching the cross-channel ferries coming in, manoeuvring in the harbour, docking, unloading cars and caravans, reloading and going out again. Very few lorries in those days.  Later there were hovercraft to see, travelling much faster.  Now there are many more berths, the traffic is almost all lorries and an occasional cruise ship sails from the western dock. 

The road map of St Margaret’s Bay on the beach near The Coastguard shows Enes Cottage – the only named property on the map.

The Village

The family knew the village shop keepers well and food was delivered to order. Sadly none of these are around anymore, but there was Laming the Grocer (now the house next to the supermarket); the butcher next door,  Jones the greengrocer (now a private house opposite the church) and the current supermarket was Madge’s the newsagent.  The Knoll Estate Agent was a garage and a shop selling ice-cream. A walk to the village occurred frequently and coffee was taken in the Green ‘Widows’ (windows) which is now the old folks’ residential home.

When people left, the normal road route was turning sharp left at the end of Foreland Road. The youngsters amongst those remaining would run up the steps from the path to the left of the back gate to try to beat the car to the top of the hairpin unmade road, for a second farewell wave. They usually did!

War Scars

The family was in residence when war was declared in 1939 and had to leave.  The Cottage was requisitioned by the Army. The cliff was covered with defence equipment, the bases of metal posts which held barbed-wire can still be seen. There are also several shell holes on the surrounding cliffs. A fragment of one shell broke a dining room window, damaged the dining room table and made a hole in the front of the dresser. These signs of damage are retained as part of our history. The Village also suffered and the beach cottages were used for target practice. The sea wall was built. 

In 1947 the cottage was returned to the family and the summer holidays at Ene’s began again, as before, though there were fewer big parties, and as many of the traditions as possible were re-established. Edward was unwell and sat in one corner of the living room endlessly doing jigsaws (some of which he had previously cut himself) and smoking.  Their visits were for several weeks, but not for as long as pre-war. The previous outings and activities were resumed – cliff walks to Dover past the Smuggler’s chute, to Kingsdown and the Rising Sun pub (now The Zetland Arms ), excursions to Dover Castle and Bleriot’s Plane, outings on the Romney, Hythe & Dymchurch Railway  which still runs to Dungeness, and of course, the picnics on the Langdon Cliffs above Dover Harbour, watching the shipping and cross-channel traffic – an endless source of fascination to new generations of small children. In her later years, after Edward’s death, Nancy found life too hard and came to Ene’s less often so the Cottage was let for holidays. It had been Edward’s particular wish that it should be rented to the clergy at a sympathetic rate. 

The Cottage has had its mishaps, pre and post war;  it was shut down, water drained off and closed for the winter, but increasing the visits spread into the late autumn. Bob and Phoebe came regularly in November and loved the autumn colour and stormy seas. Sometimes the water was not drained, so inevitably there was an episode of a burst tank. The water was heated by a coke boiler which was a continual source of frustration to some who found it hard to manage so it went and was replaced with night storage and immersion heating. In 1976 the gales blew down some pine trees and one came through the west end of the Cottage, so then the roof had to be replaced then.

There have been other changes, Mike & Jenny planted an orchard in the old vegetable patch. Some of the younger members of the family had Christmas  and New Year holiday parties, living in coats around the log fires, which resulted in the installation of night storage heating. Then in 2018 we changed to gas central heating,  removing the storage heaters but sitting room and dining room log fires continue to add cosy warmth on colder evenings.

The plumbing has been upgraded and increases. The kitchen was completely refurbished twice, most recently in 2024, but still retains many original features including the laundry creel and shelves full of green Beryl crockery. The Cottage is now let on a wider basis and many of the tenants return year on year, a reflection of the Cottage’s unique character and charm, as well as the nostalgic magic that the place has to offer. 

Family Time

Family ownership has continued, passing from Edward and Nancy to some of their daughters and now through another generation to some of the grandchildren and great-grandchildren. Each of them has brought their own children and grandchildren to Enes Cottage, which continues to be a special place for the family to spend holidays and weekends.

By Carol Kirkpatrick, daughter of Bob and Phoebe Gladstone and granddaughter of Edward and Nancy Eason.