5. Lyth Cottage
The cottage now called Lyth Cottage in Lineholt was known as The Leith Cottage in 1914. It is situated close to the River Severn opposite Shrawley Wood and was part of the Ombersley Court Estate owned by Lord Sandys.
The Leith Cottage can be found along a track which leads down to the river beyond The Leith Farm; hence the name Leith or Lyth which means river, and was probably built around the 1860s.
We can assume this as the first mention of the cottage appears in the 1881 census which records the occupants as Maria Wood, a Chair Woman or Charwoman and Maria’s sons John and Robert Wood, both farm labourers.
The cottage was probably built as part of the Leith Farm to house the farm labourers, who worked on the land, by Joseph Moule, a carpenter who became the tenant farmer at Lyth Farm, and his father, who was a bricklayer.
In 1914 at the start of World War 1 we have to assume that the occupants of Lyth Cottage are now the Griffiths family as recorded in the 1911 census. We first learn about Alice Griffiths, aged 26 in the 1891 census. Here she is found to be residing with the Lamb family, Frederick Lamb, Mary Lamb and their one year old daughter Wilhelmina A. M. Lamb, with whom she is employed as a servant at Acton Farm, Sytchampton in Ombersley.
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