Little Toft, Toft, Cambridgeshire

From: Google Satellite View

Little Toft no longer exists, there are no buildings there these days, but with a lot of persistence and with the help of the Internet and other interested people, it's been possible for me to work out exactly where this is!

Back in 2013 a photographer took a photo of Little Toft, Toft, Cambridgeshire and uploaded a photo to the website Panoramio - that was great as I had a photo ... of twigs.  The land is now a small corner of a field, which contains overgrown small trees, bracken and lots of twigs.  Luckily, I've just noticed that Panoramio will be closing down and a note to advise photographers to back up their data, so I downloaded a copy of the photo (not that it's exciting, but somebody took the time and effort to get it, so I didn't want to feel that was utterly wasted).

The photographer, going by the name of SkullTronXL also, handily, noted that s/he'd identified the site using the 1845 map of Toft village.  Great as I added that to my list of  "documents one day I will get round to obtaining", but of course haven't yet. Thank you for that information SkullTronXL - you understand what people are after when they look at images!

Over time I had guesstimated exactly where I thought Little Toft was located - but there was always the chance my guesstimate could be wrong!  However, in 2016 the Toft Village Group put together a walk and gathered information on old place names - and they mentioned Little Toft.  They put a 16 page PDF online which showed an old field map and a modern aerial photo - and Little Toft is named right where I'd guessed it was!  A small triangle of trees.

I've marked the location of Little Toft on a screenie I took from Google Satellite view.  It is at the end of a track, leading away from Main Street, Caldecote - close to Clare Farm, opposite St Michael & All Angels Church, which is where all the family were baptised, married and buried!

The map is on page 10 of Toft Village Magazine June 2016  Little Toft is located right on the border between Toft and Caldecote.

1881 Census: 
In the 1881 Census my great-great-grandmother Jane Wilson was living at Little Toft with her children. Widowed a few years before and having just spent time in Bedford Gaol (twice!), here she was with her family, including a new baby (my great-grandmother), who was listed as being born at Little Toft.  Living in the trees, it's nice to discover from the Toft Village Newsletter that there were some cottages on the site at some point in the past; I'd imagined they might have been tent dwellers at first.

Henry W Edwards was an illegitimate son Jane had before she married; the next five children are legitimate children from her marriage to William Wilson (died 1878) - and the final child was brought by the stork!  Who is the daddy? Well, that'd involve buying a CD of the Assizes for the area from the Cambridge Family History Society, just to see "IF" she'd been to court and named the father.... so an investment that might just yield nothing, so it's on the bottom of the list of things to buy.

The two elder boys, Henry and Arthur were working as Agricultural Labourers, I wonder if that was at Clare Farm, Caldecote?  It was called Clare Farm as it was owned by Clare College, Cambridge, who were major land and farm owners at the time.

The 1881 Census information comes from  p. 13, Piece/Folio 1656/79, The National Archives, Kew, Surrey; FHL microfilm 101,774,497.

Lessons to Learn: 
Family history takes you years - so it's important to continue to look for information that you looked for months or years ago - every day something new appears online and it might provide the full answer, or even another piece of a jigsaw you're trying to solve!