Late last year I needed to climb in to the attic to retrieve a couple of old suitcases. The attic is poorly lit and dividing walls and narrow walkways make it difficult to move around. To reach the suitcases I had to wobble past the water tanks, climb over a one metre high dividing wall and jump down into the boarded area where the "junk of ages" is stored. As I approached with only the dim light from my headlamp and its drained batteries I could hear a distinct buzzing. 

As I reached for the suitcases I noticed hundreds of dead flies and assumed that the buzzing I could hear was from their still living relatives. Where on earth had they come from? As I grabbed the suite cases I came under attack and realised that some of the flies were in fact wasps. As I beat a hasty retreat, beating my own personal record for climbing the wall and clambering down the loft ladders I was stung on my thumb. Hatch closed I decided I wouldn't be returning in a hurry.

One of the suitcases was full of dead flies and a few stunned wasps. I rushed through the house and dumped the case out side. At this point I still hadn't seen the nest.

Later in the year I put into action my plan to renew/replace the loft insulation. The current insulation no longer met the recommended standards and I was keen to reduce my energy bills. Given the awkward nature of our attic and the arguments I had with the Webmaster about the best solution we decided to call in an expert. He arrived and duly surveyed the attic only to descend and announce that first we needed to get an infestation of woodworm treated. He could see it had been treated before but it needed doing again, before we did anything with the insulation.

We got in companies to quote for treating the woodworm - you don't want to know the cost - but there was no alternative, it needed doing. We engaged a company, booked a date for the treatment and were told we needed to completely clear everything including the insulation. By now I had forgotten about the flies and wasps and none of the surveyors had mentioned them.

In February we donned face masks, head torches and gloves and set about clearing the attic. It was as we argued about the best way to proceed and what to do with all the junk (or as the Webmaster calls them his old precious things)  that the narrow beam from my lamp lit on the nest.  I nearly screamed. I couldn't make it out and I'd been watching a recorded episode of Dr. Who the night before. Aliens were living in the loft.

The local common where we walk our dog is known as 'Marshes Hill'. My grandmother used to claim it belonged to our family once upon a time, before it was lost to another family through death and a second marriage. For years I could find no evidence of any such connection despite easily tracing my Marsh family ancestors to the local area. Earlier this year I finally found probate documents showing that in the early nineteenth century one of my Marsh great-grandfathers occupied property - Burnfields Farm - on what is now known as Marshes Hill and also a newspaper report indicating he received an allotment of land under the Enclosures Act 1814.

Maybe there is something in my grandmother's claims after all. When I have time I will make an appointment at the Staffordshire Archives Library and look up the maps relating to the enclosures, but I'm not sure I'll ever know if his name and the name of the hill are connected or a mere coincidence.

My walk over the hill takes me past the farm where 5x great grandfather William Marsh lived until his death in 1829. Through his will he left all his property, including land, in equal shares to his children, most of whom were minors, so the farm may have been held in trust or sold. By the time of the first census in 1841 there is a family of a different name living there and I have not (yet?) been able to establish if there is a connection.

Yate's map of 1775 shows there are houses on the site of both the Sticks and gg-father Marsh's farm. Maybe some of both original buildings survive today although after extension and modernisation it is difficult to tell. When I look out over over the fields, woodlands and moorlands from the top of the hill, across the roof of the farm where he lived, I wonder how much has changed since he might have stood in the same spot taking in the view 200 years ago.

The 1775 map identifies Marshes Hill as Brown Edge and what is now the village of Brown Edge is noticable by its absence, but apart from the obvious development of the village at the southern end of the hill, little else seems to have changed. The same farms are still there, few new farms have appeared.