Joan Hill
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Joan’s Life
Memories of Ash Cottage
Summary of Joan’s Life
Based on an interview recorded on 20 April 2018.
Born in Shrewsbury in 1920, Joan Hill (née Randall) led a life that spanned continents and eras of immense change. After a happy childhood filled with sport and dancing, she met her future husband, Tom Hill, through a circle of friends who loved walking the Stretton Hills. When war came, Tom was called up from Barclays Bank and seconded to the Mahratta Light Infantry. They married by special licence in 1943 in Dorset, cycling to arrange it, and their son Nicholas was born the following year.
As an army wife, Joan’s life was one of movement and adaptation. In 1948 she and four-year-old Nick sailed for Singapore, living first on a rubber plantation without electricity or running water, served by loyal local helpers. Later postings took them to Kenya during the Mau Mau uprising — a time of both beauty and unease — and then to Norway, which Joan remembered as their happiest years together: peaceful, snowy and full of kindness from Norwegian friends.
When Tom became Colonel of the Herefordshire Light Infantry, they settled at How Caple, and later bought Ash Cottage on Common Hill, Fownhope, while stationed in Chester. They rebuilt it themselves, camping on site at weekends, and it became their family home for nearly fifty years. Joan helped found the Fownhope Garden Club and continued to play tennis, golf, and bridge well into her seventies.
Widowed after Tom’s illness, Joan moved down into the village, where she enjoyed life among friends at Fairfield Green. Always cheerful, active, and independent, she embraced technology to keep in touch with grandchildren and great-grandchildren across the world — even joining them on a Viking river cruise at 98.
“I’ve had a very happy life really,” she said. “Fownhope is a wonderful place to live.”
Summary of Memories of Ash Cottage
Based on an interview recorded on 1 September 2005.
When Joan Hill first saw Ash Cottage in the bitter winter of 1963, the snow was so deep she and the valuer had to walk up from the road — her husband Tom didn’t even see it before she bought it. The tiny two-up, two-down cottage had no electricity, no water, and no damp course, but stood in a beautiful position high on Common Hill. Electricity was eventually brought across the fields, and water pumped up from a well shared with neighbouring cottages. Until the mains arrived, Joan and Tom would walk down each morning to switch on the pump and return later to turn it off, careful not to waste a drop.
During the renovations, they discovered the cottage’s medieval origins — early 1500s, with original beams and joiner’s marks — making it one of the oldest timber-framed houses on Common Hill. For several years they camped there on weekends, cooking on an old range and digging a makeshift loo in the orchard, before moving in permanently in 1965.
Joan remembered village life as close-knit and practical. The postman, Mr Grant, walked his long daily route up Nash Bank and through the woods; milk came from Bartestree, bread from Peterstow, and meat from Pritchard’s. The lane, once immaculately kept by roadman Dickie Brooks, was wider and smoother then than now.
Her neighbours included familiar Fownhope names — the Littles, Terrys, and Harrisons — who helped each other with gardens and errands. She recalled the Orange Tree, once a cider house with its press still inside, and the old community spirit of Common Hill, where everyone knew one another.
Through Joan’s recollections, Ash Cottage and its surroundings emerge as a living link between Fownhope’s medieval past and modern village life — a cherished home, painstakingly rebuilt and deeply loved.