The Boulder near to the lily pond

On this boulder and its plinth are several names and some dates. See if you can find them!

On the top we have James and Lily 1869-1899.  These are James Dixon Fawcett and his wife Eliza Martha, known as Lily. They lived a short distance away at Whirlow Court. 

James and Lily were married in 1869 so this boulder commemorates their thirtieth wedding anniversary. There is a circle carved into the top which could have housed the base of an urn.

The other names that you may be able to spot are their six children:

Ernest, Alfred, Percy, John Noel, Lily and James Wortley.

It was Percy who bought this land from the Duke of Devonshire in 1908 and had Whirlow Brook built.

His sister Lily (whose pet name was Madge) married Sir Walter Benton Jones and they moved in to Whirlow Brook in 1919 when Percy moved to Dore.

We think this boulder would have been removed from Whirlow Court before that house passed out of the family’s ownership in 1903.  But where it was between 1903 and 1908 is a mystery!