On this day in 1620, Walter Prescot was appointed Cowherd and the first Cowherd to have a house on The Common. ..

Another view of the Cowherds for the good reason that it was on this day in 1620 that Walter Prescot was appointed Cowherd. Walter was significant in that he was the first Cowherd to have a house on the Common.’…a little piece of wast ground neare the Brickhouse (now The Hawthorns) is graunted unto him to build a house upon whereby he may more commodiously attend to the Common’.

Of course the existing building is not the one built by Walter (it dates from 1760) and Walter seems to have not been a very good Cowherd, being frequently presented at Court Leet for being ‘an unfitt and disordered fellowe’.