Dear Mr. Lee

I visited Aldbourne a few weeks ago and found some copies of Dabchick in the local library, from which I note that you are producing a millennium book I hope you will not mind my inquiring whether your researches have turned up anything relevant to a project of mine.

I am an author working on a book about Thomas Fairchild (1667-1729), a prominent nurseryman working in Hoxton, north London. He was born in Aldbourne but appears to have left there as a youth.

Not much is known of his family background except that his father, John Fairchild, was a 'yeoman'. His mother, born Ann Butt, seems to have been married three times, first to Thomas Shepherd, then to John Fairchild (both died quite young) and then to John Bacon.

Fairchild apparently had no children and bequeathed his nursery to his nephew Stephen Bacon, presumably the son of his half-brother, also called Stephen Bacon. The will of a John Bacon of Aldbourne, proved in November 1741, refers to land in Aldbourne 'known by the name of Fairchild', also to Lord's Mead and a street called Lottage. I wonder whether you know of any eighteenth-century maps of the village that show where these places were?

I wonder, too, whether you have come across the Fairchilds and Bacons in your researches for the Millennium Book? I have been through all the relevant birth, marriage and death registers.

I should be most grateful for any help. My e-mail address is mhleapman@email.msn corn, my phone number 0l7l 735 5l06 and my fax number 0171 587 1648.
Many thanks
Michael Leapman

Editor's note I have no answer to any of Mr Leapman's questions but am hopeful that someone reading the Dabchick may have. Please contact him directly if you are able to assist.

Aldbourne picture postcard village