Appendix 4.  The Houses and People in Bush Street in 1911
 
While we were trying to find the location of Green Dairy in Bush Street we photographed the first seven cottages in the street which all still had their original frontages.
On the 1911 census these comprised Nos. 1, 2 & 3 Church View Cottages, No.1 Bush Street, Green Cottage, Nos.2 & 3 Bush Street. We discovered that No.4 Bush Street had disappeared under the turn off to Bowling Green Crescent when the vicarage was demolished. Nos.1,2,3 and 4 Bush Street were all shown on the 1885 OS Map and were built around 1851.

Church View Cottages did not appear on the 1903 OS map, so were built between 1903 and 1911. Unfortunately the name tile on the front has no date The date tile on Green Cottage gives us 1892 as the build date. Strangely Green Cottage does not appear on the 1901 census.

The 1911 summary census return for Bush Street, from the third Church View Cottage as far as Ye Old Bush Inn Public House.
We can see who was head of the household, and how many males and females lived in each house. On this summary census return we can see The Green Dairy between nos. 2 and 3 Bush Street.

Another useful source was a memoir on the historywebsite.co.uk History of Darlaston written by Alice Hall which described life at No.4 Bush Street, a typical 2 up/2 down cottage, and tells us about the Green Dairy around 1914:

No. 4 Bush Street had two bedrooms and the family were Granddad Owen (also known as Captain Owen), Granny Owen, their daughter, her husband, their granddaughter Florence (known as Floss) and me, plus two men lodgers.

There was one room downstairs with a back kitchen which flooded every time it rained. Upstairs there was a four poster where Granny Owen and her granddaughter Floss slept at the top and I slept at the bottom. Floss's mother and father slept in the other bedroom and Granddad Owen and the two lodgers slept on chairs downstairs.

They cooked on the fire and washed in bucket or bowl of cold water which was fetched from the one outside tap, shared by the other two houses in the yard. St George's Church, with its very overgrown churchyard, was opposite.

There was a family called Jones who lived in the Dairy, two doors down from us. This house is still there now, no longer a dairy but called 'The Dairy's Still'. Mr Jones, an old gentleman, used to come into the street with a big ear-trumpet. He would put the trumpet to his ear, listen and say "Them's over" (meaning the German planes!) I remember sitting on the gutter very late at night and listening for the zeppelins.

This photo shows the frontages of the three Church View Cottages built between 1903 and 1911 and not on the 1903 map. These butted up against No.1 Bush Street, a 2 up/2 down house built around 1850 and which originally had a second house behind it, still occupied on the 1901 census.
Below is a photo of Green Cottage with its double gate access to a sizeable yard.

The build name and build date of 1892 is on the tile over the front door.

This is a photo of Nos.2 and 3 Bush Street next to Green Cottage and on the corner of Bowling Green Close. In 1911 there was a large court next to these cottages which included No.4 Bush Street fronting on to the street.

This photo shows the alleyway between Green Cottage and Nos.2 & 3 Bush Street. The alley leads to Green Dairy.

“The Dairy”, looking back up the alleyway across The Green to the houses ( Jubilee Buildings) on the other side of the main road. The infill between Green Cottage and the Dairy is modern brick. (Photo Dennis Parker).
The site used to be called Court No.1 and there were up to 7 houses with workshops on there early in the 19th century which I assume included 4 houses behind Nos. 2 and 3 Bush street ( Now No.21). The present owners of the dairy think that nailmaking may have been going on there due to the large number of nails evident in their garden.

The view down the alley is looking at a terrace of five 2 up-2 down cottages called Jubilee Buildings named after Queen Victoria's Jubilee in 1897, now numbered 1 to 5 The Green. These have been coloured, but the one on the extreme left is still natural brick. There is a commemorative plaque above Nos. 4 and 5 The Green.


This row of cottages can be seen on the 1903 OS map.
The commemorative plaque above Nos. 4 and 5 The Green.
   
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