Old Photographs of Mons Hall, Dowland, Devon

Over the years there were occasionally visits to my grandparents at Mons Hall by people who had known the farmhouse decades before. One was a Mr Letheren, a very old man from, I believe Hatherleigh, who remembered the farm as it was before the Great War, perhaps even well before that, if he were in his 80s and visited in the early 1960s. I believe he walked in from what we knew as the kitchen, and was amazed how different it all was: the location of the door, the insertion of windows on the south side, the new staircase.

It was a later visit when 'the Canadians' came. They were descendants of the Hooper family who lived at Mons Hall a hundred years ago, and who changed its name from Mousehole as well as adding the kitchen and the new staircase and making all the other improvements such as the front porch which is still there. I believe 'the canadians' are the two young women in some of the photographs.

I wonder if the young man on the right of the first photograph is the young Hooper for making pregnant my aunt, sister of my uncle Norman. Of course she was disgraced while he was unscathed.

These copies are very poor quality, as in the 1960s it was difficult to copy items; the technology was still in its infancy.

Three generations of the Hooper family in front of Mons Hall.

'The Canadians': family members who visited in the 1920s. This is just inside the gates that approach the front of the house.

I guess this is 'the Canadians' with their grandfather, Mr Hooper, in front of the front porch.

A view of the farmhouse from the south.

I believe this is the view from the garden in front of the porch.

I imagine this is Mr and Mrs Hooper in their Sunday best.

'The Canadians' with presumably their grandmother and a great aunt.

A poor photograph of the front of the farmhouse.

Some sheep on the farm.