Description:At the time of this photograph Boathouse Lane ran from New Road, Armitage, near to its junction with Old Road, down to the Trent and Mersey Canal. There had been a public house named The Boathouse at the canal end. This view has changed considerably as it is an access lane to Ideal Standard's Armitage Shanks pottery site's Lodge 2 and car park.
It is thought that the couple in the photograph are Frederick Hewitt, who is listed as a domestic coachman in the 1911 census, and his wife Martha. One of the Hewitts' immediate neighbours was the unmarried Sarah Jane Carthy. It is therefore likely that she is the person standing in near the pile of logs. The cottage's thatched roof is in very good order. The people probably dressed in their Sunday best.
This picture is from an album of photographs taken by Thomas Harvey Boycott (1876-1949) who lived with his widowed mother, Fanny Maria, whose family had lived at Handsacre Hall as farmers, together with his unmarried aunt, Sarah Elizabeth Harvey. Harvey was a Clerk at Lichfield District Probate Court and a skilled amateur photographer. The album was a parting gift from Harvey and his mother to the Rev. R.E. Grice-Hutchinson (1885-1976) who was Curate of Armitage with Pipe Ridware 1909-1913.