On 6th June, 2009, I visited Tyntesfield, near Wraxall, www.nationaltrust.org.uk/main/w-tyntesfield with my daughter and three grandsons, the fabulous Boothroyd Boys, aged 3, 2 and five months.

When I visit a place I always like to know a little about the inhabitants and though the history of the Gibbs family en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tyntesfield is well documented, I could not resist delving a little for myself.

On the night of 2nd April, 1871 when a census of England and Wales was taken there were two little visitors to Tyntesfield, Cyril Gurney aged 3 and William Hampden Gurney aged one. How appropriate - did they scamper, whoop and career about like our two elder boys? Did our boys' games echo those of the two ghostly boys, near enough to them in age, but separated by 138 years in time? Did they run their nursemaids ragged, romping in the lovely grounds, hiding among the daisies in the meadow or get lost among the rhododendrons and then laugh?

But sadly not. There was no fun in that April of 1871 for Tyntesfield was a house of mourning. The boys' mother, Alice Blanche Gurney, the daughter of William and Matilda Gibbs had died less than three weeks before on 12th March, aged 27.

Listed at the Tyntesfield house on census night were William Gibbs, the guano magnate, aged 80, his wife Matilda, much younger at 53, their son Anthony, Alfred Gurney, their son in law with his two orphaned boys, Miss Low, a cousin and a clergyman. Alfred Gurney had hardly registered the shock of his young wife's death, for he was recorded as "married" rather than "widowed". The family was looked after by twelve servants, starting with a housekeeper and ending with William White, quaintly titled "odd man."

By the time the next census was taken ten years later, Alfred Gurney was the Vicar of St Barnabas, a fashionable parish at St George, Hanover Square, London. He had not remarried and lived at the parsonage with his spinster sister. His two sons now 13 and 11 had been sent away to boarding school, at Mortlake in Surrey.

Cyril grew up, married Margaret Trotter and became a "West Indian Merchant". By 1901 he had his own three children aged 5, 2 and one month old. I have not located William Hampden Gurney in censuses after 1881, but know that he died in 1903, in London, aged 33 years.

By 1891, Anthony Gibbs, now a magistrate, uncle of Cyril and William Gurney, and his wife Janet were living at Tyntesfield. They had nine children at home, from teenagers to two babies, Janet aged three and Lancelot aged one, who must have played in the lovely gardens. Perhaps their Swiss nurserymaid pushed the tiny ones around in the ancient high iron pram we saw amongst the heaps of lumber piled high in the stables awaiting cataloguing and refurbishment.

Incidentally, when doing this small piece of research, I was pleased to see a name I could add to my "Kingswood Index". In 1861 when the Gibbs' family was living at 16 Hyde Park Gardens in London, among the resident servants was Mary Haskins aged 21, born Bitton, Gloucestershire.