James Haylett, the last basket maker in the parish, lived here till the early 1940s when he and his wife, both well into their 90s died within a few hours of each other. James usually made bushel skeps for agriculture use, and baskets for the fishing industry at Great Yarmouth, using local grown osiers.
Billy, one of his two sons, spent all his life as a marshman, and with his father mowed Sutton High Fen, conveying all their sedge and litter into the northern dyke of the staithe, and stacking it there for transportation. Carrying his quant and oars up and down the road daily, he usually had his 12-bore shotgun under his arm, and possibly shooting most things that flew, as his brother Jack died with a bone from a plover in his throat.
He used to walk to Cangate, Neatishead, every Sunday, twice in summer time, courting Susan Dye. He never went indoors there, and was still a bachelor when he died in his sixties. James’s workshop can still be seen tucked into the corner of a garden a little further up the road.
The Haylett family lived at Hayletts in Staithe Road. The following is taken from John Yaxley’s description in his A Jam Round Barton Turf:
James Haylett at work.
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Billy Haylett near the skeleton mill.
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The Haylett family’s association with Barton Turf has been traced back to John Haylett from Happisburgh who married Mary Hewitt in Barton Turf in 1823. The family was later linked by marriage to one of the Cox families.