Barony Buildings, Nantwich One-Place Study

My father, Geoffrey Blackburn, was born in 1918 at 2, Barony Buildings, Nantwich. He lived there until he left school and then lodged in Crewe while training as a carpenter. He was brought up by his grandparents and five maiden aunts. The Blackburns filled no. 2 and its two bedrooms to capacity. Geoff’s grandmother, Mary Jane (Billington) had been brought up in 15 Barony Buildings and there was another enclave of Billingtons in no. 9.

Given the concentration of close and not so close family in this small area it seemed a worthwhile notion to study it through the census records I had access to.

Barony Buildings is a small row of tiny houses accessed by a lane rather than a road. Fifteen houses, consecutively numbered (15 is no longer there) and built some time in the ten years before the 1881 Census, so there are five censuses and the 1939 Register to explore.

At around the time I was running out of census returns to collate I learned of One Place Studies and this will enable me to develop a more rounded and complete impression of the place.