("Basket Factory" in the Appreciation)
(Grade II listed in the Appreciation and described as "an attractive little building")
(Grade II listed in the Appreciation and described as "an attractive little building")
According to Dave Stevens' book of Abbotsbury views, the little building is correctly known as the Spar House, because it was the workshop of Mr Dunford the the thatcher, and spars are the lengths of split hazel used to hold the thatch in position. According to Judy Nash ("Thatchers and Thatching", Batsford 1991), a spar-maker could make up to 2000 spars on a wet day (when thatching was inadvisable), while one man once made 250 in 40 minutes for a competition.
Basket-making, though, was a spare-time occupation for thatchers, and a 1920 card in the Dave Stevens collection shows Mr Dunford at work on a large basket in front of his "factory". According to the Appreciation, back in 1973, "next door in no.11 lives a man in his seventies whose father was a thatcher and used the little workshop for basket making."
Was this where Moses Cousins lived ? It could be: it is described in the listing as 18th century, so it was here in his time. Moses Cousins was imprisoned for smuggling in 1833, and appealed to Lord Ilchester for help, following previous unsuccessful appeals to the Vicar and other gentlemen of the village, on the ground that this was a first offence and that he had been driven to it by a life of grinding poverty. The appeal seems to have worked, as he was released 17 days later.