Hampshire Cottage (Harbour Grace)
Hampshire Cottage (Harbour Grace)![[Hampshire Cottage: Image]](017.jpg)
Harbour Grace folk history places the date of construction of the cottage as 1811. It has been impossible, however, to document this date. It is also believed that it housed British officers during the War of 1812 and the long windows at the rear of the house enabled the officers to keep watch on the enlisted men who lived in the barracks on a hill behind the house. The first official recorded date for the building seems to be 1845 when the cottage appears on Joseph Noad's map of Harbour Grace for that year. At that time it was occupied by a Mr. Bailey. According to Frederick Rowden Page's map it was occupied in 1857 by a Mr. E. E. Brow who was an MHA for Harbour Grace.
Exactly when the house came into the possession of the Godden family is not known since there are no records in the Registry of Deeds indicating when the purchase was made. There is record of Thomas Godden purchasing a house from Thomas Ash in March 1858 but it is not known if this was Hampshire Cottage. Newspaper advertisements, however, indicate the Godden family tried to sell the house in 1859, 1872, 1873, and 1891. Since there is no record of Bailey or Brow selling land to the Goddens it is possible that the earliest known occupants of the house were tenants of Godden, or perhaps Ash, if he was indeed a former owner.