Woods Lane

AT THE TIME of the war there were only a few houses on Woods Lane (or Lawyer's Lane as it was then known). Hall Farm was part of the Wood family's Melton Hall Estate that was sold in 1936. The farm was demolished and Hall Farm Estate was built in its place. Two other large houses along Woods Lane were Fern Hill and Long Spring.

Fern Hill is thought to have been built in the late 1820s. When the house originally came up for sale in 1831, it was described as a comfortable, domestic residence, together with walled kitchen garden and eleven acres of lawn and plantations. In 1900, Harry Filmar Sulivan and his family moved in. During the early 1950s, the house was heavily damaged after a fire and now only the lodge house remains.

Long Spring was built in 1901 for Hugh Stowell Scott, a novelist, who wrote under the name of Henry Seton Merriman. The tithe maps for 1837 show that there had previously been a windmill on the site. In November 1903, Hugh died from appendicitis and is buried at Melton Old Church. A stained glass window in St Andrew’s Church commemorates his life. His widow, Ethel, continued to live in the house until she married George Cobbold in 1912 when she left the village. Long Spring then became home to Bateman Hope and his family.

Click on the blue heading to see the people who lived in this part of Melton.