Here is a fascinating article from a long time ago that depicts life at Hunsett Mill.
Take a look- I have typed out the actual article below as it is difficult to read.
Memories of Hunsett
By John Starling
“I think I must know more than anybody else about the original Hunset Mill Cottage. I lived there as a child from 1920 to 1930, from the age of three to thirteen”, wrote Mr Starling.
“My father worked at the farm at the top of the mill loke as we called it, those farm buildings and house now being desolate.
I loved living in that little house, but we had to move away after twice being flooded out. The river banks were full of rat holes in those days, and the winter tides would rise and swamp through the holes. Still, that is not the point. At that time, there were three bedrooms, one had been parted off to make two, there was one big room downstairs and from front to back, there was a large pantry.
The stairs wound round at the marsh end of the building over a wall oven and a lovely open fireplace, I can see it now.
Outside at the marsh end was the lean-to, outside loo and at the mill end was the wash house with a copper and another little fireplace.
The floor was originally made of bricks, but after the first flooding, several inches of concrete were put in.
The farmer offered my father the cottage for 50 pounds, but that amount of money was a lot in those days. Now it is on offer for £225,000. (at the time of his article). As Mr Worthington suggested, it was probably an eel setter’s cottage once, because when we moved there it was called Hunslet Mill.
The road from West End Farm was nothing more than a deep rutted cart track, reeds from the marshes across the river were brought over and stacked where the electric pump house now is, and then carted by wagon to the railway station. In no way is it an island opposite the cottage. We would go over by boat and walk along a dyke wall into Barton and then get a charabanc to Norwich just once or twice a year, and in those days all the riverbanks were open to everyone. The surrounding land and woods belong to Mr Edward Durrell, and he sold it all to Mr Sands after he left.
They were my happy days, so long ago, but very vivid in my memory.”
Thank you, Mr Starling from Stalham, for sharing those memories with us.
(John Starling is the little boy in the sailor suit. his sister, Ivy Starling is top right.)