How Your English Ancestors Lived

The Life Story of James Ivall, 1745-1809

You Turner-Packs will love this, since James is your ancestor! Remember this photo from our trip, of the row of Ivalls buried in Bentworth under a huge old yew tree (possibly about 9 centuries old), who were given footstones as well as headstones?

Click on the title to see & read the full blog. There are pictures of the two homes James & family occupied, and they are so cute! What happened was that James, at 15, learned the wheelwright's trade in Wield, a village that neighbored the one he grew up in, Bentworth. Later, he took copyhold tenancy in Wield of some manorial property, including a wheelwright's shop and a house, and the family stayed there and farmed as well. After 4 children, they moved back to Bentworth, where James was from, and he leased another farm (and wheelwright's shop too, I think). The Bentworth house still bears the family name, even though there seem to be no Ivalls left in the village any more.

From what I gather, there are probably a couple more homes with the name of Ivall in Bentworth, and maybe succeeding generations put their stamp on these. They are interesting but not quite as picturesque as James's.

They all tend to have been built around the 17th century, but modernized, of course!*

James's Bentworth home

James's daughter Mary married a William Norgate, and they were the great-grandparents of my maternal great-grandma Amy Sophia Norgate. You can read about his will and see how James leaves a part of his inheritance to Mary and William's family. We don't know where William N. came from: who will help me find out??

*The house Granny Jessica Jeavons Turner, my mother, grew up in in Bighton, Hampshire (and Granny and Grandpa, themselves, lived in it for a while later on) also had its origins way back 4-5 centuries, but the Norgates entered the village only around 1820 (Michael, son of Mary Ivall & William Norgate).