Pictures

This early photograph of 1858 shows the south side of Broadgate Villa in Pilton with fourteen of the family of Henry Desborough who lived there until his death in 1862.

Broadgate Villa was built as the dower house to the nearby Broadgate House. It was in Broadgate Villa a few years later that Hector Hugh Munro (born 1870 and also known as Saki the noted short story writer) spent his later childhood with his paternal grandmother and two maiden aunts Charlotte (Tom) and Augusta after the death of his mother.

Sometime before the end of the First World War Broadgate Villa was divided and sold as two separate houses - Fairfield on the Bradiford side and Fairmead on the Bellaire side. In this state the houses were listed Grade II at the end of 1973. About this time Fairmead was further divided into a number of self-contained apartments but was then bought by the Bluett family in 1979 and returned to being the single family home it is today. Fairmead has been renamed 'Wuthering Heights'.

A Desborough family portraiture is also include in The Pilton Story archive. Follow this link to learn more about them: http://vimp.thepiltonstory.org/picture/The-Desborough-Family-at-Broadgat...

Many thanks Zandra Houston, great grand-daughter of Harriet Burnell, for the copy of this early photograph and to Howard Bluett for information about the later changes to the Villa.