Sarah Fardon (nee Green) was born in Didbrook, Gloucestershire in 1793 and baptised there on 24 March. She married James Fardon at St Peter's Winchcombe on 4 June 1819. James was also a native of Gloucestershire, having been born in 1793 in Temple Guiting, but he had moved to Warwickshire in 1814 in order to work at Stoneleigh Abbey. Presumably this was when James Henry Leigh had moved from Adlestrop to take up ownership of the abbey after the death of the Reverend Thomas Leigh in 1813. Thus would begin over a century of service to Stoneleigh Abbey by the Fardon family. A family document dated August 1916 notes that James carried on working here until 1865, and that afterwards the work was continued by his son Edward Langley Fardon and "is now carried on by [grandson] Charles Langley Fardon".
Between 1820 and 1825 the couple's address was simply Stareton, but later was more specifically Mary Lodge, where James was described as a blacksmith.
Sarah had four children between 1820 and 1832, but, sadly, she died shortly after giving birth to Catherine, who was born on 10 September 1832. Sarah died on 19 September, probably from complications after the birth, and her daughter was baptised on 7 October.
The words on Sarah's tombstone have a particular poignancy:
My husband dear I bid adieu,
On earth we lov'd, our love was true.
Now I am gone pray pity take
Upon my children for my sake.
Baby Catherine died shortly after her mother, on 2 February 1833 and was buried at Didbrook, near her father's family at Temple Guiting. James remarried in 1839 and went on to have a further four children.
