Thomas Burton moves to Sandy Lane

By 1891, my great, great grandfather, Thomas Burton was in his sixties and had moved 14 miles away from Monkton Farleigh to the village of Sandy Lane, Wiltshire, which has at various times been voted the prettiest village in Wiltshire. Its rows of stone-built, thatched cottages are the finest in the county. Click on the map below to see Sandy Lane's proximity to Monkton Farleigh



Here's a typical house in Sandy Lane


By 1901, Thomas and his wife Martha were in their seventies and had moved to the villiage of Rowde, some four miles southeast of Sandy Lane. Here, Thomas tells the census worker that year that he was a "retired farmer." I suspect that Thomas and Martha moved to Rowde because their son Albin was living there and farming. Here's a piece I found on the web about Rowde:

"Rowde seems to be one of those communities that have existed for over a thousand years but in many ways do not have a great deal of recorded history. Its name comes from a Saxon word meaning a reedy place and there was certainly a village here in late Saxon times. In fact there was a settlement to the north-east of the village, near Rowde Farm in Iron Age and Romano-British times and, although it is pure speculation to suggest it, there could have been continuous occupation from then through to the recorded settlement in the early 11th century."

Thomas Burton died in 1902, presumably in Rowde, so I hope to be able to find his headstone in a churchyard there. His wife Martha didn't die until 1913, but the district is listed as Chippenham, not Devizes as was true with Thomas. It will take more research to determine where my great, great grandmother Burton was buried.