Overgrown Phoenix House

The very overgrown site of where Phoenix House once stood, right opposite where the Pheonix Foundry & Ironworks also stood.

Family member by marriage and historian of the Ferrabee family; H.B. Randall, writing in1952 asks "where did they (John Ferrabee  and his family) live?"   Randall states that Phoenix  House, and an old cottage and  then Thrupp Church were along the road, and it was possible John Ferrabee lived here. (Since it is nearest to the Foundry and bares the same name of the Foundry John created) 

The 1834 county electoral register lists John Ferrabee as resident  "freehold" at Thrupp Mill.

In Clive Gravetts book "Two Men Went To Mow" he identifies Phoenix House as possibly the site for the first Lawnmower trial.   Logically speaking, the House and cottage are the nearest domestic dwellings to the Foundry and site of manufacture of the first lawnmower.  

The apocryphal story of Edwin Budding testing the prototype lawnmower at night and causing a noise nuisance  could be true as at night the quiet valley sides would certainly reverberate any noise, after the cacophony of the Fulling stocks, forges  and Mills running by day.

Testing at night  in secrecy can also be explained to be a prudent move as the various "clothier" entrepreneurs were constantly copying each others designs, notably in the sphere of textile machinery improvements.

Lawns before the lawnmower's invention were certainly maintained by the Scythe or large country house lawns by Sheep.        O.S. maps show a small domestic area adjacent to the  house on the south west side, as the north east side was very close to  the bank of the modern road, which was built prior to 1824 as shown on Bryant's Map.