FIVE sisters, converged on Liskeard recently, from across the country to visit their childhood homes.

On October 21 Ian Browning, of Pendean on West Street, Liskeard, welcomed to his home five sisters, travelling from various parts of the country. They had all grown up in Pendean until their father, dentist Ian Busbridge, sold the house to Cornwall Council to become a Children’s Home, in 1967.

Ian Busbridge’s wedding to Gladys Hawken at the Wesleyan Chapel, Barn Street in 1947, was until recently featured in an exhibition in Liskeard & District Museum in celebration of the photographic career of local man John Rapson.

The Busbridge ladies also met museum volunteer Brian Oldham at Pendean, to whom they presented many original leases, conveyances and plans dating back to 1765, to be deposited in the museum in Pike Street.

These documents show when Pendean and Bosenvor, on Dean Hill, changed hands, as well as the owners and the purchase money they paid. For example, in 1844 Richard Langford, a Draper of Liskeard, paid £252 to James Lynn, an Innkeeper of St Austell, for the ‘Dwelling House and Garden’, now known as Bosenvor.

It was the grandfather of the five sisters, Christopher Egbert George Busbridge, a dental surgeon of Trion House, on Dean Street, who bought Pendean from the executors of the Albert de Castro Glubb estate in 1948 for £6,250. Two years later he purchased the adjoining Bosenvor from the same executors for £1,000. His granddaughters remember both properties well, two of whom later wrote to Brian: “It was great to meet you and Ian last week, and to look around our much loved family home and find out more about its origins. Please get in touch if you find out any more from the things we gave you.”

Brian added: “It was also great for Ian and me to meet the Busbridge sisters and hear their memories of Pendean and Bosenvor, and there’ll be plenty more we can tell them after transcribing their gifts to the museum.”

To find out more about Liskeard & District Museum visit liskeardmuseum.com