The Church dynasty

Lodge Farm and its surrounding glass houses are the last sign of the market gardening business built up by Joseph Watts Church. He was one of a family of 'gardeners': his grandfather, another Joseph Church (c.1769-1842), married Hannah Moore in Bracon Ash in 1803 and had 17 children baptised here between 1804 and 1824, with father's occupation 'gardener'. Some of these children continued the family business in Bracon Ash and surrounding villages.

One daughter of Joseph & Hannah was Mary (bap. 1808) whose son William Church (born 1833) later became a prominent market gardener and florist (= flower grower) in Mulbarton. Mother and son were living with Mary's younger brother James in 1851.

This son of Joseph & Hannah, James (b. 1818), married Harriet Flood in Bracon Ash on 15th October 1844. James is listed in 1861 as 'farmer of 46 acres' living in School House Lane (now Hawkes Lane). By 1869, and again in 1877, he is listed as 'market gardener & farmer' (Kelly's Directory), and 'Farmer 125 acres employing 6 men 3 boys' in 1871. By 1881 he is listed as 'widower, farmer & fruit grower of 140 acres employing 7 men & 3 boys', including his son Joseph Watts Church. In 1883 the fruit-growing business of James Church & Son is shared by James Church living at 'The Beeches' and Joseph Watts Church at 'The Vineyards'. By 1891 James had retired and his son Joseph was expanding the business. 

In the 1891 census, Joseph Watts Church and his wife Bessie Helen (nee Gayford) are at the Vineyards with 5 children, a governess and a servant - they had a total of 10 children baptised in Bracon Ash between 1882 and 1900. This was the time that they built the large house now known as Lodge Farm for their retirement. Under his son and partner in the business, James,, Bracon Ash came to have one of the largest greenhouses in the country (above) and grapes even featured on the village postcard. But James also came to see the collapse of a business due to European competition that forced the family out of village and finally out of England....

Joseph Church with family 1902 - Church Family 1902:
Back row: Kathleen, Sidney, Ella, Dorothy.
Middle row: Marjorie, Aunt, Joseph Church, Bessie, Helen, Hubert (standing).
Seated at the front: Norman and Gilbert.

His Great-Granddaughter Linda takes up the story:

The family history reads that in the first decade of the 1900s, after the Boer war, there was a great depression in England and Europe, at the same time France and Germany had begun to increase their vineyards and Joseph lost his market for grapes. After a failed attempt to recoup his losses by investing in the flower conservatory, he went bankrupt in 1904/05. Everything was sold to cover the debt, and the family moved to the Greater Yarmouth area, by the sea, where Bessie opened a boarding house. This turn events was quite devastating for great-grandfather Joseph and he never fully recovered from this terrible blow. It would have been quite a come down as they had been quite affluent when they lived at Lodge Farm, employing several servants, including a cook and housekeeper, a governess, a gardener and other employees working in the vineyards.
The oldest son, Sydney Church, emigrated to Canada in 1905. He wrote enthusiastic letters home of all the opportunities in Canada so following a dream of re-creating his wealth, great-grandfather arrived in Canada in 1910.
Most of the children, who were by this time grown up, followed Joseph and Sydney to Canada, and Great-Grandmother Bessie followed with the two youngest children in 1913. The family spent some time in British Columbia and Saskatchewan, but finally, most of them settled in the area of Stavely, Alberta.
One of the daughters, Dorothy Church worked as a governess all of her life, being employed in New York by several wealthy, well-known families, including the Rothschilds, the Astors and the Rockefellers.
Joseph Watts Church died in Stavely, Alberta in 1925 and is buried there. My Great-Grandmother Bessie Church returned to England to live out her years, dying in 1940 in Birmingham, England.

Joseph's son Sydney was farming in the Winnipeg area; Joseph is recorded as working as a gardener in Vancouver in 1911. Bessie emigrated in 1913 with two of their children (Marjorie & Norman) and joined him and their son Hubert in Westminster, BC. When Bessie returned to England she lived with her daughter Helen Kate (now Sanderson) in Birmingham until she died in 1940.