Page 9. Part II: Reminiscences

Widdington – before yesterday!

I know I am not the oldest original Widdington village, but I do have some memories of years gone by which may be of special interest to some of those who have only recently joined what I have always considered to be a delightful community.
In 1909 I was born in Widdington in the house where I now reside.  It is called “The Cottage” and always has been, perhaps for want of a more original name.  I was destined to spend some 26 years of my early life in the village.  Subsequently I left only to return in later years and eventually to settle here, I expect for the rest of my life – what could be better?
Naturally my earliest recollections of village life are of the village school.  Indeed we had a village school situated then not far from the site of the new village hall.  The school is no longer there, but I joined the school in 1914 and the memories associated with it are still crystal clear, as it was the focal point of my life at the time.  Some of you reading this will remember our headmistress, Miss Perks, who lived at Bishops Cottage. We also had a teacher by the name of Miss Binks who I recall resided for some time at Bridgetts.  The school featured significantly in all our lives in those days, and I had some of my enjoyable years there until I left in 1924 when I was 15.  The teachers were strict but kind, and it was a style of life we all came to enjoy and looked forward to day to day.  We had no school meals or school milk but we do not seem to have suffered as a result.
Younger people will wonder what on earth we did with our spare time in the absence of radio, television, cinemas, cars, motor cycles and aeroplanes.  The answer is quite simple – the village green was the centre of children’s activities.  It is gratifying to see that it is often so today.  It was our meeting point.  We erected swings, had bonfires, and some of our parents even had washing lines strung between the trees.  I recall a wooden wash tub being communally used on the green by the children for amusement.  Of course then as today we took advantage of the lovely walks available to us in the locality.
Perhaps once a year we might have a school charabanc trip to Clacton – a highlight indeed.  Also after our parents had accumulated sufficient earnings from gleaning corn we would have the annual trek to Saffron Walden via feet and railway to replenish shoes and clothes for the forthcoming year.  Another wonderful annual outing.
My young life was centred to the chapel which embraced the Band of Hope, Magic Lantern displays, Sunday School, and of course the main chapel services which were and still are my particular following.  In those days we had two village shops, one which is still the Post Office and Groceries and another further towards the green which specialised in haberdashery in addition to food.  Also, of course, many tradesman called in the village selling a variety of wares to a captive market.  Horses were than a customary sight tethered and gazing on the green.
Although I have never been particularly interested in them we had two pubs at the time.  Mr. Rule, I recall, ran the Fleur and Mr Smith the Conqueror.  These places were important sources of communication for the male villagers among other things.
My life after school until I was 25 was mostly spent in service in the village with a prominent local family.  This association was very much in tradition with the times and afforded me many happy memories.
You may ask how I now see Widdington.  It still has its charms although I much prefer the old times when personal entertainment was the order of the day.  If we couldn’t  entertain ourselves there were always such characters as Stumpy Rickett who swept the roads to keep us amused with his stories (also with his wooden leg).
For one who has spent much of her life in Widdington I would not willingly change my present circumstances.

Florence Kate Francis, June 1980.

Page 9. 1946-1982 A review, not an obituary!

A village is the best place to live, if you can make it your extended family.  We all knew everyone when I first arrived (in March 1946, when I married Geoff Morris) and were more dependent on each other.  The Hoys baked daily fresh bread at the time (and you could put your joint or turkey in their oven at Christmas time).  Mr. Holgate at Wyses Farm delivered the milk – and when cream was rationed it was entered in the milk book sometimes as “1 lb. carrots”.  I can remember a haunch of venison brought to the back door after dark by Jack Dennison and shall never forget the sides of bacon hanging in my kitchen and the horror of making brawn and rendering lard when I was pregnant.  Brad Leys (my home) was painted one year for half a pig and the Fire Brigade from Newport came on an annual “exercise” to empty the cess pit and amuse themselves with hunting rats in the banks of the pond.
….Not many of you can remember the coffins carried on a handcart from the Chipperfield’s workshop by members of the Holy and Chipperfield families and Mr. Bert Chesham, the publican.  We had a red robed choir in church and various members sang solos at Evensong.

   Extracts from farewell by Anne Morris, September 1982.

Page 10. Reminiscences

I remember my grandfather telling me when I was a boy of the time when he walked past a field with a bull in it.  As he approached the gate he saw the bull pushing a piece of rag backwards and forwards.  He looked more closely and saw that the “rag” was a man lying on the grass.  He ran back home and fetched his gun and some shot and raced back to the field.  He peppered the bull in the rear so that it moved away from the gate and he then rescued the man.  The man lived.  The bull had to be destroyed.  The farmer who owned the bull complained bitterly about the loss of his bull.
My grandfather was head gamekeeper over Wimbish way.  He earned 12/6 which was more than a farm worker’s wage of 10/-.  He brought me a pair of boots each year.  They were polished on a Sunday before church and then had to do for the week.  My father was killed in the First World War so without my grandfather’s help my mother could not have shod us.  You should have seen our clothes at school; shorts patched and patched again and jackets that were hand-me-downs from adults.
I’ve always had dogs.  Grandfather kept his in a row of kennels attached to his home.  Chained they were.  Each dog had a bowl of water a day and a big, hard biscuit.  I’ve never known healthier dogs.  The biscuit contained dried horse meat.  There was a slaughterhouse at |Debden that dealt with worn-out horses.

    Doug Foster talking to M/H., December 1989.

Page 10. Christmas when we were kids

The afternoon we broke up for Xmas holiday Mrs Baillee Weaver, who then lived at Weft House, came to the school and as we filed past I gave each of us a packet of sweets.  Mrs. Moore Dillon from Pond Mead also came in and gave us an orange.  To say thank you the girls had to curtsy and the boys salute.
In those days money was scarce and as we only went into the town once a year, at harvest time, presents were bought at bazaars held in the village and the two shops which were well stocked with Xmas fare.
On Xmas Eve the village band under the direction of the Rev. James Court played carols in the Square and sometimes at the large houses as well.  Carol singers were round nearly every night knocking on doors for donations.  To have a chicken dinner on Xmas day was a real treat.  These more often than not were reared in the back garden for that purpose.
After Xmas were the parties.  In the evening at the school party the Rev. Court came to give prizes to children who had done good work during the year.  These were usually books, if you came top in exams the teacher gave you a penny which in those days was worth something.
Our headmistress who ran the Girls Friendly Society gave us a party at her home at Bishops Barn Cottage which was then two cottages.  As more girls joined us we were transferred to the Hut. Our school friends each in turn gave a party at their homes.  Always a whist drive and dance on New Year’s Eve.
At midnightmidnight church bells were rung to welciwelcome in the New Year.

Florence Kate Francis, December 1989.

Page 10. ‘The house where I grew up’

The house where I grew up was just a cottage with three bedrooms and two downstairs rooms.  The bedrooms, one at the front, one at the back, and a small bedroom at the side.  There were seven children – six boys and one girl (me) and mother and father.  The boys had the front bedroom and side room.  When I was very small I slept in my parents room and afterwards had the little room at the side.
Downstairs was a front room with an open fire with a small carpet over a boarded floor.  In the kitchen was a brick floor, not very even, which we covered with coconut matting.  It had to be taken up when mother did the washing.  She had a big tub on the kitchen table and baths for rinsing.  The sheets were boiled in the old copper in the barn; it had a wood fire underneath to heat the water.  The washing water was out of the pump in the garden.  The drinking water was fetched in a pail from a standpipe at the end of the village.  We had a big earthenware pot in the larder.  The children had to take it in turns to fetch water.  The privy was up the garden in a shed with two seats, one small and one large, with lids.  The cesspit was emptied into a deep trench in the vegetable garden.
For cooking we had a small kitchen which was kept polished with black lead.  Later we had a Valor Perfection Stove which was filled at the side with paraffin, had two burners which gave a nice blue flame and a small oven We had candles to go to bed and oil lamps in the kitchen and front room.
We always kept a pig in the pigsty next to the lavatory.  An old fellow, Mr Hopwood, we called him Hoppy, from up the road used to come and kill the pig  He just cut the pig’s throat with a knife and the blood went into the drain.  The pig was then hung in the kitchen on the iron hook in the ceiling to drain.  My Mother cured the bacon in a leaded through with salt and saltpetre.  The hams were hung in the pantry and we could cut a piece off when we wanted.  Mother also cleaned the insides of the pig’s belly and made chittlings which were braided and fired. They tasted delicious.
When it was very cold we had a brick out of the oven and covered it with flannel to warm the bed.

Isobel Lindsell, September 1991.

Page 11. Reminiscences of Widdington

When my wife and I first came to Swaynes Hall in 1935 there was no main electricity (we put in a Lister engine and batteries).  Main water had only just been installed, and a Petter engine, which worked the pump for the well, had a pipe which ran up to a tank in the roof, and was still in place.
The boundary of the east side of the house of about 8 yards was fenced off so that Mr. Carmichael’s bullocks could roam around and into the barns of his, which we later brought.  He lived at Widdington Hall.
Mole Hall was next to us, and Mr and Mrs Nicky Bone and two daughters lived there – Thornton and Audrey who played the violin in an upstairs bedroom… There was, I remember, an enormous walnut tree, whose limbs of huge proportions spread out horizontally from a huge trunk.  Nicky Bone said woodmen had wanted it for its wood, but he would never sell it.  One winter a fierce storm devastated it and the old tree collapsed.
The Rev. court was our vicar, a most remarkable man, and a book could be written about him.  He was very old then, and sometimes the same hymns were given out twice, as he swayed in the pulpit.  You may recollect the stained glass in the Church of a sundial (very unusual) it was taken out in the last World War and kept in the Old Rectory in case of damage and put under a cushion.  One day, forgetting it was there, Court sat in the chair and cracked it, and so you see it like that now, but back in its former place!

Some Characters of the Village.

Pa Salmon as he was known.  I remember him skinning rats when the threshing machine operated at the barn close to the road at Mole Hall (now no longer exists) which had a brick wall base, so as the sheaves of corn were lifted off, the rats moved down, so did the mice, and so once down, could not easily escape.  He sold the pelts for fur coats, so he said.  Perhaps the furriers called them Young Mink!
Maury Holgate who lived at Wyses was another great character, who had a milk round and some nice Jersey cattle.  During the War cream was not supposed to be sold, but occasionally one did buy some and it was down in the milkman’s book as RABBIT.
Mr and Mrs. Meadley lived at Widdington House and I recall being asked to a tennis party, and she had that morning taken the honey from her hives.  This had infuriated the bees and we were attacked on the tennis court and driven indoors, and the bees flew like lead shot thrown at a window in their endeavour to get at us – end of party!...
Sammy the Widdington road sweeper had a peg leg.  He lived in the thatched cottage next to the Rectory garden, and it was known thus as Sammy’s.
Herbie Maxwell-Scott lived with his wife at Pond Mead, and was our air-raid warden.  When the red alert came on, via the telephone, he used to ride on his bicycle through the village with his tin hat on blowing his whistle. Such a nice man.
There used to be tow pubs in the village – the Fleur de Lys and William the Conqueror.  A village school, a Post Office and two shops.  I have happy memories of the Village Bakery, where the Hoy family baked delicious crusty bread.
May Children organised by Marjorie Camp used to come round the village every first of May with their garlands of wild flowers, singing their May Day songs.

Douglas Pelly, December 1992

Page 11. Memories of Widdington – 40 years ago

Looking back down the years, this charming little village was just a peaceful, out-of-the-way place.  In those days the villagers didn’t like it to be known that Hollow Road was a through road…
A dear old pair I remember well were Bill and Ada Dellow. They lived at Vine Cottage in the High Street, Bill kept the garden in good trim, and there was never a speck of dust in Ada’s cottage.  I have a vivid recollection of the winter of 1954-55.  It was very severe and the wind blew the snow from Newport over the railway bridge, making the road up to Widdington impassable.  We were cut off for three days.  All the men and boys were out digging until the snow plough was able to get through.  The schoolchildren had a marvellous time tobogganing down Spring Hill…
One could walk safely up the High Street in those days, for very few cars came along apart from the co-op van, the baker and fried-fish van.  The bus service in those days was only on Tuesdays and Saturdays to Saffron Walden and Thursdays and Saturdays to Bishops Stortford.

Joan Woodforth (nee Brooke), September 1994.

Page 12. Marie and John Hoy remember.

Then there was Mrs Corby who wore clothes to the ground and men’s shoes.  She lived in Corner Cottage.  She was so poor everyone gave her things, leftovers to keep her going.  She worked at the Rectory and she’d take home used tea leaves and make her tea with them and vegetable peelings, presents unopened.  All the things she’d got after she married untouched.  They had a furniture sale in her cottage and we bought a clock and a tea service she had.  Her son, Ernie, came down from Yorkshire to see to things and one day our Dad was there helping to go through things and he said, “Ernie, these corsets are rather heavy?” They opened up the corsets and what do you think they found?  She had sewn sovereigns all down her corsets.

We are sitting in the living room of George Hoy’s bungalow in Cornell’s Lane, Widdington. There is a bright wood fire going and the wool rugs that John has made are on the floor and George’s Finely stitched tapestries are on the wall.  You don’t get such characters and more, says Marie.  We miss them; They remember Billy Rickett, the road man, who would sweep the High Street every Saturday morning.  He had a wooden leg and as he worked he would keep that one in the gutter because he didn’t mind getting it wet.  And there was Nelly Canning who used to take a brick up to bed with her to warm the bed and in the middle of the night it would drop on the floor and wake up the neighbours.  Another neighbour never changed his watch for summer time.  He’d go by the starts.
They agree that they are talking about characters they knew when they were children and impressionable, but they feel that in the past the village was more inter-related, more connected, more of a community than it is now.  They say there were marked class distinctions then but they didn’t mind.  The old gentry gave us work.  The big houses –Swaynes Hall, Red House, Pond Mead, The Rectory and other – all had butlers, gardeners, and chauffeurs, parlour maids and cooks. This way of life came to an end after the Second World War and gradually over the years new people moved in.  In the 70s, they say, people came from outside and began to buy properties in the village and the ’professinals’ moved in and the character of the village changed.
But the biggest changes in their lifetime (they are both in their seventies) go back to an earlier period sewerage, water, electricity, the telephone.  Until the 70s, when the main sewer was laid, the little cottages by the Green had no inside toilets.  There were sheds at the end of the back gardens where four toilets were shared among seven families.  They were emptied into what was called a ‘bumby hole’ and covered with ashes.  Water came to the village in the early 30s.  Annie, the Hoy’s mother, was a water diviner.  People would call her in to find water in their gardens and they would dig a well in the spot and have pumps installed.
At about the same time electricity was installed in the village.  The hoys had their own generator along with a few other houses – Red House, The Rectory, Pond Mead – but Marie and John remember early in their childhood coming home from school and trimming the paraffin lamps.  The Post Office had the only telephone in the village and John remembers as children delivering telegrams for the Post Office as far as Waldegrave’s Farm.  The Hoys were one of the first families to have a telephone and people would come to their house to make calls.
The Hoys are an old family in the area.  Parish records in Elmdon show an entry in 1621 for the christening of Thomas, son of James and Mary Hoy… Two of Marie’s and John’s uncles emigrated to Australia where there are now 200 Hoys.  The Widdington branch seem to have been a very enterprising family.  Edgar Hoy, Marie’s and John’s father, did an engineering course and then went into the First World War.  Returning to Widdington he was the third person in the village, after Sir Claude Hollis and the Reverend Court, to own a car.  With this car he ran a taxi service for the village from Rose Cottage, Widdington, where the family lived at the time.
The Hoys ran a bakery from the cottage, baking bread in wood oven.  They set up a mangle room at the back of the cottage.  Here the villagers would come and do their mangling for a penny and hang their washing on the village green.  They had the black 78 records playing on a gramophone in the mangle room for atmosphere and the place went on functioning until the late 40s.
After the family moved to Martin’s Farm, Annie became a renowned pig-breeder.  The best in England perhaps the world.  The pigs were British Saddlebacks and were shown at all the big annual shows, winning prizes, and after the war were exported as far as Russia and Japan.  Annie, who was born in London, had been a court dressmaker before she married.  When she came to Widdington she bought her first pig and never looked back.
Martin’s Farm was therefore a working farm, with pigs and hens, and provided a number of essential services for the village, including at a later stage petrol from the petrol pumps installed outside the farm.  The taxi service was particularly valuable in a village, which had no doctor or dentist (the nearest were at Newport), There were no shops, apart from the Post Office.  The shops ‘would come round’ – The international stores, The Co-op, Mumfords – and people grew their vegetables in their own allotments.  The bread was delivered to nearby villages by the Hoys by pony and trap.  Since there was no public transport the taxi service was used to take people to church and chapel in neighbouring villages and the wealthy to destinations as far away as Wales.  It also ferried people to romantic assignations.  Husbands would be taken to see their ‘lady loves’ girls to meet their American soldier friends based at Debden.  ‘You see when you do taxi work, they pay their money and what they do has nothing to do with you/  ‘Discretion seems to have been the service motto of Hoys Taxis.
Remembering their own courting days, Marie and John say they met young people who were working in the big houses at the regular dances in the village ‘Hut’.  John says his mother didn’t like the girls he courted.  ‘I don’t like that one’, she’s say.  And so he’d drop them.  ‘I was in the sitting room one night with a girl and I was just going to make sure some coffee when my mother came down in her night-dress, took me into the yard and said ‘I’m not having that girl in my house.’  So I took the girl home. ‘He married a girl from Thaxted and his sister, Joan, married a farmer from Pelham.  George never married ‘though he had lots of girl friends’.  Marie married and went to live in London but she kept the closest ties with Widdington and when she was left a widow at a young age came back to Widdington to live until just two years ago.

Anita Sanders, September 1998

Page 13. Memories of Widdington

Widdington was my home around 1948 to 1950.  Aged only six I recall many happy times spent there.  My father worked as a tractor driver at Amberden Hall and we lived in a tied cottage down the lane.  The housekeeper at the Hall lived in.  She kept five white nanny goats and every day she would take them down the lane past our cottage to graze the verges.  I had to make sure I had picked all the choice dandelions first, as my father kept rabbits for food and it was my job to look after them.  There was a bullpen beside the entrance gate which is still there.  The grumpy occupier used to scare me to bits.  Every time I went by he would bellow and snort at me…

Sandra Poulton (nee Turner), December 1998.

Page 13. Life as a Rural G.P. in North West Essex

The advantages of being a rural G.P to my mind, as opposed to one’s urban counterpart are many, but are mainly due to the settled population one has to care for.  Town dwellers tend to move, country folk tend not to. . Therefore, families stick together, communities develop and look after each other, and above all, we as G.P.s have the chance and the time to get to know them.
In 1968, when I joined the Newport practice, the area we covered was still rural, extending in a circle around Newport from Great Chesterford, Radwinter, Stansted, Manuden, Berden, the Pelhams and Chrishall.  The population of nearly 8000 on our list was about 50% farming, 40% local industry and services and 10% commuters to Harlow, Cambridge and London.
Because of the distance involved from our main surgery in Newport, and the lack of transport (both public and private) in those days, branch surgeries were held 1-3 times a week in Clavering, Rickling and Langley.  Although not ideal for practising high powered medicine (the wooden examination couch in Rickling was a dangerous place to be on, due to extensive woodworm) these surgeries were much welcomed by the villages – fairly unique in the country, I believe, in that the ‘surgery’ was the saloon end of the bar and the ‘waiting room’ was the public end (separated by a flimsy wooden and not soundproof partition).  I even had my photograph taken there by the Sun newspaper.  (It didn’t appear on page three though).
Sadly these branch surgeries were closed down by the health authorities, in their wisdom, due to their lack of adequate amenities.
The daily routine in these days started with a morning surgery of 2-3 hours (20-30 patients each), followed by home visits and/or branch surgery in the afternoon, and an evening surgery of 1-2 hours There was a 1 in3 rota for night and weekend duties.
Home visits were a very integral part of the work then, partly due to the transport problems already mentioned.  I always found them very informative and useful in assessing the lifestyle of the patients seeing how they coped at home.  Mothers with small children for example, and the elderly with their increasing disabilities.  The idyllic rural setting that we lived in didn’t always include electricity, running water and inside loos.  ‘Sheds’ at the bottom of the garden were still in use until the early 80s.
Night visits latterly became a bone of contention with the medical profession, but because of our settled population I never felt these were abused unduly, and the vast majority of calls were for very genuine reasons.  That is apart from one occasion.  I was rang at 2am by an agitated father (always the worst) who stated that his 15 year old daughter had appendicitis.  Believing that it was my duty to make the diagnosis, on further questioning, it transpired that she had only had the pain for 5 minutes!  Therefore after suitable advice and reassurance, he was asked to ring back if she did not settle down in the next few hours.  At 5.30 am the same morning, I happened to be passing his house on returning from another call and thought it would be prudent to examine the young lady (Appendicitis is very difficult to diagnose in under 3 hours)  Father and daughter were rather miffed to be woken up!
Knowing one’s patients served me well on another occasion when I was woken at 3 am by a call saying “Doc, can you come – Rosie’s been taken bad” – end of message! Luckily I recognised the voice and indeed Rosie had been taken bad.
With nearly 8000 patients on our list, from all walks of life, the varieties of characters, personalities and symptoms complained of were endless.
One particular highlight was a 35 year old university lecturer – male – who announced to the full and very bemused waiting room that he was pregnant and coming for an antenatal.  The differential diagnosis in this case was between an excess of hallucinogenic drugs, or hypomania – and the latter proved to be the correct one.
Another concerned a charming but very elderly lady doctor who was attending the surgery for a medical examination for fitness to renew her driving licence.  Luckily my partner, whose room overlooked the car park had seen her demolishing a large part of the hedge which surrounded the car park whilst attempting to park her car.  He managed to persuade her to vie up driving.

My overall impression of these years, though, is an admiration and respect for the resilience, patience (when kept waiting), friendliness, generosity, humour and especially the fortitude of the patients when faced with the hardships and illnesses that unfortunately do occur.  I feel it is a privilege to have known them.
By 1900 the area was changing and developing fast (now being classified as semi-rural), with many more commuters and less farming.  A new GP charter was introduced then, with the accent more on preventive medicine and lifestyle improvement.  This unfortunately led to a major increase in paperwork,  the dubious introduction of the computer, vast numbers of routine screening medical examinations.  It is not my remit to discuss the pros and cons of these ideas: but it has meant less time for, and I believe, and erosion of, the traditional form of family doctoring.
One of the new ideas was to conduct annual medical on all 75 year olds and over – to assess their social as well as medical needs (a very worthwhile idea).  One splendid elderly lady, who lived alone in a very derelict house down a remote county lane was asked whether her toilet facilities were adequate.  She replied; “I’ve been bucketing it and chucking it for years – and I’m not changing now!”
Another well known character had a “lifestyle assessment”.  He reported to me later that, quite rightly, he had been reprimanded severely about his cigarette and beer consumption – but added that luckily he hadn’t been asked about his whisky consumption.
On my retirement last year, my wife and I gave a small drinks party for a few friends (and patients) to mark the event.   One local wag on arriving and seeing the assembled group of 20 odd people, announced in a loud voice.  “John, when I joined your list in 1971, you said you had over 2000 patients.  Is this all that is left?”
Perhaps a suitable epitaph for my years as a rural GP in North West Essex.

John Glennie, September 1999

Page 14. Jeremy Dillon – Robinson: Memories of Widdington

In the weeks before he died Jeremy Dillon-Robinson, though seriously ill, had several conversations with Peter and myself.  He was sitting up in bed at his home in Priors Hall.  He talked about his life as a farmer in Widdington since the 1950s, about general developments in farming nationally, and about this memories of Widdington as a child.  He reflected on the village as it is today.
This is an account in Jeremy’s own words and speaking voice of his memories of Widdington.

I was born on the 16th April 1932 at Pond Mead.  From here I can see the window of the room in which I was born! It was on a Monday.  I know that, because Snowflake Laundry used to deliver on Mondays, in those large wicker baskets, and I am told I gave out my first bawl as the basket was being carried through the house.  Also it was raining.  Our gardener, Victor Ketteridge, was a great pigeon shooter, and he said “if it hadn’t been raining I’d have taken young master out pigeon shooting today”

I would describe our home as rural middle-class.  Widdington was different from the other villages around in that it did not have a big house.  Unlike Quendon, where you had Quendon Hall.  Sir William Foot-Mitchell, the MP, lived there.  He ran his own cricket side.  If you wanted a job as a gardener at Quendon Hall you took up your cricket bat first.  And unlike Newport, where the Montagues lived at Shortgrove, or Debden.  So Widdington did not have a big house.  Widdington House, where the Collecotts live now, was called Red House then.  It was not called Widdington House until Sir William and Lady Rowley went to live there.  Before that it was called Red House.  Before being called Red House it was called Aberystwyth House.  I have seen that on old Ordance Survey maps.  I do not know why it was called Aberystwyth House.  In the same way Fruit Hill, up Cornells Lane, was called The Mount before that, and before that Drumtochty, because the people who lived there came from Drumtochty.
In Widdington you had Spring \Hill, Pond Mead, The Rectory, Weft House and Red House, as well as the farms.  The farms would not have employed much domestic labour.  We were privileged in being able to have domestic staff.  I say it was a privilege.  I was also a responsibility.
I was the third child in the family.  My eldest sister was born in 1926, and the next sister was born in 1929.  My younger sister, the fourth in the family, was born in 1939, by which time we had moved to Spring Hill.  Before my father there had been five generations in the Church, and so my father was not particularly well off.  He had been invalided out of the Navy, which was a tragedy for him.  Then he went in with an elderly uncle and became a hop merchant.  My mother had a small private income.
We had a Nanny who looked after the children.  Her name was Florence Mills, and she came from Newcastle.  She stayed with us all through.  She was in her young 30s when I was born, I suppose.  When we brought Priors Hall she had her sister came to work here and they looked after my grandmother.  They lived in a Rectory cottage nearby.  Afterwards they went to Cambridge and finally went back to Newcastle.  We always kept in touch.  Nannies are something special.  She had no children, and so when she died she left a small amount of money to me.  I brought that picture behind you with that money.
Then there was a nursery maid, May Sell, who helped Nanny to look after us.  She married Joe Chipperfield, the gardener/chauffeur.  Then we had a cook, a scullery maid and a housemaid.  I do not remember who they were.  I was only six or seven when we left Pond Mead for Spring Hall.  We went there in 1938 or 1939.
Outside, we had Victor Ketteridge, the gardener, and Joe Chipperfield, the gardener/chauffeur.  They lived in the village.
Perhaps two or three of the servants lived in at Pond Mead, in the staff wing, though Nanny would have had her own room.  But the rest lived in the village. We could probably sleep about 12 to 14 people at Pond Mead.  I saw more of Nanny and the nursery maid and the cook then I did of my own parents. I would probably see my parents for half an hour after tea each day and have lunch with them on Sundays.
In those days I would go off for tea with Nanny, perhaps to one of the cottages, perhaps to Joe Chipperfield’s mother.  She used to make wonderful crab-apple jelly.  I felt just as much at home with them as with my own family.. There was a very strong bond with Nanny, very close.  Obviously as I grew up the bond with my parents became more important.  One lived with Nanny in the nursery.  That was for the first five or six years of my life.
I always felt utterly at home going out into the garden with Victor Ketteridge.  I would go out and have my mid-morning break with him and Joe Chipperfiled, and they would share their cheese sandwiches and tomatoes with me.
Then came the move to Spring Hill and the war.  My father was drawn back into the Navy, working at the Admiralty in London.  For some extraordinary reason my parents decided it would be better if we went to London.  We went in September 1941, at the very time when the blitz was on. We took a double flat, tow flats joined together, in Dolphin Square.  I remember my father taking me out after a bombing raid as soon as the all-clear had gone: I still remember the frightening sight of London bombed.  We only stayed three days, and then we children were all evacuated out to Wiltshire.  My three sisters and I all went with Nanny, while our parents stayed on in London.  But then they came back to Spring Hill later.
During the war we rented Pond Mead to the Maxwells Scotts, a delightful family, related to the Norfolks.  They took it for the duration of the war.  Just before the War, in 1938, the Tugendhats came to live at Weft House.  They were refugees from Austria.  It was through the Tugendhats that we came in touch with two Austrian woman who came with us to Spring Hill.  One was Stella Kelvin.  She was a marvellous piano player, and I think she was married to a professor.  She came to cook for us.  And there was another woman who might have been a member of Stella’s staff when she lived in Austria.
The Tugendhats were always grateful for the way in which Widdington accepted them.  When Christopher Tugendhat became a peer he called himself Lord Tugendhat of Widdington.  About three or four years ago his mother died and her ashes were placed in the churchyard here.  The whole family came, and Veronica, the youngest daughter, told me that she still looked upon Widdington as her home.
Before the was the village Post Office was run by the Holgates.  I still remember the lovely jars of Trebor sweets.  The Village Hall, ‘The Hut’ was the centre of our social activity, especially after the war when the village was building itself up again.  The Waishes were at the Post Office after the war.  The Post Office had the most incredible array of goods.  Mr Walsh used to go up to London regularly in a white van, and he brought back all sorts of things, like nylon stockings. The Post Office sold sweets, groceries, bacon, and so on.  Not bread, because the Hoys baked bread.  If you wanted anything Mr Walsh would get it for you. The Walshes were very much involved on the social side.  Village organisations were very strong. Like the Women’s Institute and the Mother’s Union.  We had whist drives and dances.  The Walshes did not stay very long, however.
Many people stayed n the village all their lives in those days.  It was great excitement for us to see a removal van.  Mrs Moore-Dillon bought Pond Mead exactly 100 years ago.  There are very few families that have that sort of continuity nowadays.  There is such rapid change.
In 1941 I went to Prep School in Herefordshire, just the other side of the Malverns.  It was a Quaker foundation. Not a religious foundation as such.  The Cadburys were closely connected with it.  I was there from 1941 to 1945.  I used to come back to Spring Hill for the holidays.  I did not see much of my father at that time.  At Spring Hill there was my mother, my three sisters, Nanny, Mrs Kelvin.  I was the only man in the house.  We still had the farm at Pond Mead.
In 1945 I was sent to Radley school, just outside Oxford.  I did not enjoy public school.  I do not think many people did.  Conditions were absolutely appalling.  At seven every morning we had total immersion in a cold bath.  1947 was that very cold winter, and we did not have total immersion then only because the water was frozen in the pipes.  It was all very austere.  I left Radley in 1950.
After the war my parents went back to Pond Mead.  They brought Priors Hall in 1950.  While I was at school I would come back only for the holidays – 3 weeks at Easter, 4 weeks at Christmas, and 6-8 weeks in the summer.  But this was home.  Every time I came back I would get into my old clothes and rush over to the farm at Pond Mead and see Jack Lindsell and everybody at the farm.
I did my National Service for two years and then I was at Cambridge from 1952 to 1955. In 1955 I became engaged to Gilly was 21 and I was 25.
Widdington had not changed very much during that time.  There were two public houses – the Fleur-de-Lys and William The Conqueror.  There was the Men’s Club, which had originally been George Clausen’s Studio: that is where the new part of the Village Hall is now.  There was still the Post Office/village shop, and another shop owned by Mrs Taylor, where the Jones used to live, at the top of the village green.  But that was already running down.  There was the Chapel as well as the Church.
The atmosphere in the Village Hall was marvellous.  There used to be shows put on, dances, whist drives every week or fortnight.  People who had not been before were amazed by the singing.  I remember Mrs Robertson, Mrs Briner and Mrs Bass singing Shenandoah and Oh My Darling, Clementine: they had tremendous voices and the high notes used to bounce off the tin roof.
I went to the pub quite a lot – before I got married, of course.  And I supported the whist drives and shows and the dances.  We were all very much part of the community.
As I say, we were rural middles class.  It was not as much of an upstairs/downstairs world as in that television series. Every year we held a Harvest Supper, with 15-20 of us all being present.  Our workers would come and their families.  We would sit down to an enormous meal – hams and turkey, vegetables, puddings, mince pies and so on.  We uses to hold it in the largest room at Pond Mead.  A lot of beer was drink.  Then after the meal the tables were cleared away and we played games.  The one I remember most is “Are you there, brother John?|” You would be blindfolded, and you would hold on to a person with one hand and you would have a rolled newspaper in the other.  You would ask “Are you there, brother John?”, and the other person would say yes, and then you would try to hit them with the newspaper.  It was really vicious!  But you can imagine my mother being hit by the kitchen maid with a newspaper!
On Boxing Day we always went out ferreting for rabbits.  We used to keep the ferrets in a box.  We would put the down a rabbit hole and have nets on the other holes or else shoot the rabbits as they came out.  It was a great sport on a cold morning.
There were some wonderful characters in the village.  There was old Pa Salmon.  He had a wife and quite a contingent of children.  He lived in Rose Cottage, where the Harrises live now.  If you needed a pheasant he could always get one for you.  He was a poacher.  Not like the poachers nowadays, who clear out a whole wood.  Just a bit on the side.  His customers used to collect his pheasants from the pub.  William The Conqueror, but they village policeman never saw any pheasants going in or coming out! I once did him a service and he wanted to do me a favour in return.  “Do you like asparagus?” ‘Yes, I love asparagus’.  And a few days later I had a bunch of asparagus.  About ten days later, when I was walking by one of his neighbours gardens I realised where this asparagus had come from! He did his poaching in the surrounding woods.  All the woods around here used to be keepered – Shortgrove, for example, and the Debden Hall.  Debden had an enormous shoot that went right out to Henham.
Next door to Pa Salmon lived old Polly, who used to take in washing.  They said she smoked a clay pipe but I never saw it.  She used to hang her washing out on the village green.  Mrs Medley, at Red House – she was married to a solicitor – used to graze her goats on the village green in order to keep the grass short.  One goat caught old Polly’s washing on its horns.
Old Rickety Wooden Leg lodged with her.  I used to call him that because his name was Ricketts.  When it was raining he used to stand with his wooden leg in the gutter, and then he would take it off at night and hang it up to dry in front of the fire.
The Church Fete was held every year on August Bank Holiday at the Rectory.  That was tremendous fun. Everyone got together not just to raise money but to have a good day.  The WI had a stall, everyone had their own stall.  Jimmy Court used to be hoarse by the end of the day.  They used to have bowling for the pig, and the prizes really was a pig, a newly weaned 8 week old pig.  Plenty of people in the village used to keep a pig at the back of the garden to feed it on scraps.  There were all sorts of side shows, cakes and teas.
Before the war there was always a marquee in the garden, and the village band would play during the Fete.  ON the evening before the Fete there would be a church service in the marquee, and the Band would play the hymns.  My father told me that at one service in the 1920 someone looked out of the marquee and saw the Rectory on fire.  They all rushed out and tried to put it out with buckets of water and someone sent for the Newport Fire Brigade.  They only had hoses, and so by the time the fire engine arrived the fire was virtually out.  And then the fire engine got stuck in the gate.  People started to go home and Jimmy Court got in a panic because they had not paid their collection.  So he gave my father one collecting box and he took the other. He stood at the back gate and my father stood at the front gate, and nobody got out without paying!
The Fete was a great day out for all the village.  It was a good time to have it, before everyone got caught up with the harvest.  The Fete went on throughout the 50s and into the 60s.  But gradually it lots its appeal.  Fewer and fewer people were interested in running it.  Inevitably it all fell to just a few of us.  After the Rectory was sold as a private house we used to hold it in different gardens, and of course we had to clear up afterwards, and sometimes there would be just four of us to clear up. So people just got fed up with it.  then we did not have an annual fete any more, just now and then when we need to raise funds.
Village society has really changed.  In the past we used to know everybody.  One was interested in people.  It was not a question of nosiness.  We all shared a common life.  It will never come back again.  There is not the same understanding of the countryside nowadays.  Then Widdington was a rural farming village, and many people might have a few chickens in the back garden.  After the harvest the gleaners went in to the fields and they would pick up some straw with some ears of wheat left on and they would use that to feed their chickens throughout the winter.  There was a lot of casual work too – potato picking, harvest work and so on.
The first combine in the village was on this farm.  Before that all the wheat, barley and oats would have to be stacked.  First of all you would go round the edge of the field with a scythe, and you would make sheaves out of the cut straw.  The binder would go round the field about four times, and the sheaves would be stoked up to dry in lines.  When they were dry they were taken to the stacks, and the stacks would be thatched and left to settle alongside each other in pairs.  We would keep a stack of loose straw from the previous harvest to thatch the harvest in the following year.
Local contractors would come round with the steam-driven engines.  We children would have fetched coal from Newport Station the previous week.  You would hear these wonderful machines coming, trundling down the road and we children rode down on our bikes to meet them.  There was this marvellous smell of steam and oil.  The engine would have a drum and bailer behind.  The engines had wonderful names, like Pride of Essex and Dancing Dolly.  They were used right up to the 1950s.  Jim Sell himself was a marvellous character, very hardworking.  While his men rested for lunch he would move the engines from one stack to another.  I went to his funeral: it was a rainy day and one farmer said to me: ‘One thing about Jim Sell: he never did waste a goody day!’
Drage and Kent from Chrishall had slightly more powerful steam engines which had a drum of wire under the belly of the engine.  You would have one engine on either side of the field and wire went across the field and cut the crop.
I really feel I want you to know how much together we were in the village.  A lot of what we did would be regarded as patronising nowadays, but it was not.  You might hear that children in a certain family were ill, and some rice puddings and lumps of coal would find their way up there.  It was not patronising at all.

Anita Sanders

Page 18. PART III: PORTRAITS

C. Henry Warren

After serving in the First World War and before he took up writing as a full-time career.  C Henry Warren lived alone in a cottage at Wood End, Widdington, and taught English at Newport Grammar School.  He disliked his first name and never used it and was annoyed when the boys at the school found out what it was.  Goodness knows what he would have thought had he lived to know his books were entered on the Essex County Library index cards under WARREN, CLARENCE H.!
He played the Church organ for services occasionally and gave us voluntaries we had not heard before, and would have taught any promising youngster who could find, firstly, the time to practise, and secondly someone to work the handle to blow it.  His love of music and singing led him to start the Madrigal Society.  At the weekly evening meetings in the school he played the piano and led the singer of old English songs and ballads and musical settings of English poems.  This was a novelty as far as the ladies of the village were concerned, because the Church choir was composed of men and boys and the Brass Band was similarly restricted in its membership.  It always seemed that the Rev .JW Court was little interested in providing recreation and entertainment for girls.  The Madrigal Society did not entirely meet with his approval, maybe because it was a rival to both his choir and his band.  However it came to an end when Mr Warren left the village to live in a cottage near Finchingield.  His impressions of Widdington and the Rev JW Court are charmingly conveyed in an article he wrote for “The Countryman” (Spring 1957) – “Two County Parsons” – the second being the Rev. Conrad Noel, vicar of Thaxted.  He contrasts the idyllic quality of Jimmy Court’s backwater parish, apparently unaffected by the economic situation and political unrest, with the sense of involvement evident in Thaxted Church, as evidenced by banners, Red Flag and Sinn Fein Tricolour, and on festive occasions enlivened by flowers and music under the guidance of Gustav Holst.
His first book, “ A Boy in Kent”, describes his early life as a baker’s son, riding on the delivery rounds with a horse and cart, and later, his journeys by cycle seven miles to and from Maidstone Grammar School.  All his books… show his love of the county and his keen powers of observation of country people and customs.  Many will remember his readings of prose and verse about the countryside broadcast by the BBC.  His last work, “Content with what I have”, was published in 1967 shortly after his death….

Ernest T Wilson, March 1983.

Page 18. Sir George Clausen

Sir George Clausen was born in London on 18th April 1852.  His father was George Johnsen Clausen, a Danish decorative artist, and his mother a Scott.  He was educated at St Mark’s College in Chelsea until the age of 14, when he joined the drawing office of a firm of decorators in Kensington.  He attended evening classes at the National Art Training School in Kensington, which became the Royal College of Art, and won a national scholarship there in 1873.
Three years later he travelled to Holland and Belgium, and one of his pictures from that visit was his first work accepted by the Royal Academcy for their annual exhibition.  He was working both in oils and watercolours, and beginning to achieve recognition in both.  He made regular visits to the continent from then onwards, gaining in confidence and being influenced by many contemporary artists, particular Bastien-Lepage in Paris.  He was especially drawn to working out of doors, depicting rural scenes and people, characterised by their strong light effects.
George Clausen married in 1881, and after moves to Childwick Green in Essex, Cookham Dean, he came to Widdington in 1891 as a tenant of the Smith Family at Bishops.  He was drawn to the farming landscapes and people, and to the dramatic effects of light particularly achieved in the great barns of district.  He had five children to support, three sons and two daughters.  During his time in Widdington, between 1891 and 1905, his sons attended Newport Grammar School, where William Waterhouse was then headmaster, of whom Clausen painted the portrait which still hangs in the school library.
Clausen’s years spent in Widdington were very important in his development as a painter.  He travelled widely on the continent and began exhibiting again at the Royal Academy, after some years of disenchantment with its current policy.  He taught at the RA Life School, and by 1904 was Professor painting at the RA.  His lectures were enormously popular and overcrowded, because he gave such down-to-earth practical advice to his pupils.
He was described as ‘quite, modest, kindly and of courtly manners’.
At Martins Farm in Widdington there is a room with a large north-facing window, and it is believed Clausen used that room as a studio.  He also had a wooden studio in the garden opposite Bishops which in 1905, the year Clausen moved from Widdington, he donated to the village as a Reading Room.  There had been a Men’s Club in the front room of Brick Cottage, owned in those days by the Canning family, but at a ceremony on 15th November 1905 the new Reading Room was opened on a new site where the Village Hall now stands.  The green wooden Men’s Club as it became is still remembered by residents in the village.
The Reverend James Court was the Rector of Widdington then, whose portrait was also painted by Clausen and remains in the village in private hands.  Clausen used his family and other local figures as models for his portraits and rural scenes: Miss June Francis, who lives in Widdington, knows that her great grandmother was one of his subjects, and it seems certain that Priors Hall Barn was an inspiration for his many pictures of Essex barns.
Because of his increasing commitments in London, and his daughters schooling, Clausen moved to St Johns Wood in 1905.  By then he was exhibiting one-man shows in London, Chicago, Brussels, Vienna and Munich (he was elected RA in 1908)  He nevertheless continued his visits to our district right up until the war… A fine picture of a Clavering landscape hangs in the National Museum of Wales, in Cardiff.
In 1917, when Clausen was pushing his bicycle up Duton Hill near Dunmow he noticed a house for sale, then called Hillside.  Having recently sold some pictures profitable  he brought the house, and spent as much time as possible there in the following years and became much more involved in watercolour painting….
In 1918 the Ministry of Information commissioned him to do a large commemorative was painting at the Woolwich Arsenal.  His ‘In the Gun Factory’ was an outstanding result, depicting once more the dark cavernous interiors he had learnt from his 20 years developing his techniques in ‘gloomy barns’ as they have been described.  He was then 66.  After this success he received other commissions on the grand scale.  In 1927 he was invited by the House of Commons to paint a mural for a section of wall in St. Stephen’s Hall.  His meticulously researched subject was ‘The English People Reading Wycliffe’s Bible’which was regarded as Clausen’s most successful achievement, he was knighted shortly after it’s unveiling in 1927.
Clausen continued to draw and paint into his old age, exhibiting watercolours at the RA in 1942 and 1943.  He died at the age of 92 in November 1944, eight months after the death of his wife.  A self-portrait, painted in 1918, is in the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge, and several other of his works cans be seen at the Tate Gallery in London, including ‘The Girl at the Gate’ which is today perhaps the best known of his rural landscapes.

Jenny Brooke-Smith, June 1998

tomtomorrow 

Page 20. The Rev. James Court’ Spring 1957: Extract from an article by C Henry Warren.

‘Widdington in Essex, where I lived in early twenties was a place where change came slowly.  It was a village with an entrance, but no exit: it led nowhere.  It was two miles from the nearest main road.  Its 400 inhabitants moved always a pace or two behind their neighbours and obviously liked it better that way.
…. The force around which the village was held was the Rev. James Court almost as much because of him common humanity as his position as rector.  I had known him at Newport Grammar School nearby, where he taught Latin to the senior boys and scripture to the juniors.  Nobody, least of all himself, would have claimed that he was a scholar; nor was he a disciplinarian.  We all knew from the laughter and shouting that came through the open windows when Jimmy was in class. But the laughter was good-tempered and the shouting mere animal spirits; both master and boys were enjoying themselves.
If Jimmy lacked discipline when he wore his gown in the classroom, he lacked it no less when he wore his surplice in church, but the same qualities that triumphed over his disadvantage in the one served no less in the other.  He was of the type, saint as jester.  Coming up the aisle from the vestry at morning service, he would back a little off course to say to one of the congregation.  “Nine across, six letters, what is it?  For the crossword was coming into fashion and Jimmy was an addict.  His sermons lacked any sort of shape; they rambled, their sense, like their sentences, got tired up in knots; but they were comfortable short and they spoke from the heart to the heart.  The village school was his, no less that the church.  It was one of the last church schools to remain so in more than name.  Over the door, carved in a slab of stone, were the words, ‘Behold, I will teach you the fear of the Lord’ (Now placed in the wall of the Churchyard, after the Church School was pulled down). Every morning Jimmy would run across from the Rectory to give a token scripture lesson before hurrying back to finish his breakfast and than race his rackety open car down to Newport, late as usual for the first Latin period
I think he put more work into the village brass band than into any other of his activities.  It was his pride and joy.  In winter the weekly band practices were held in the school and in summer on the green, but summer or winter, indoors or out, the noise was equally penetrating.  Even Newport heard it if the wind was in the right quarter, and Widdington itself compulsorily stopped paying attention to anything else.  Louder than the brass was Jimmy’s own voice as he bawled his injunctions to the performers.  He knew little about music, as he cheerfully admitted, but somehow he managed to get fair results; at any rate, it was not only because there was no other brass band in the vicinity that Widdington’s was in considerable demand for summer fetes and flower shows, where in handed-down uniforms and with mugs of beer at their feet the men blew their loudest and best … His tiny backwater parish was his sufficient world and he ruled it like a father his family… Widdington may have been backward as far as social responsibilities were concerned: I only know that it radiated contentment”.
So ends this article by C Henry Warren.  There are still some of you in the village who remember him, even longer than my wife and myself.
We have his portrait painted, as a young man, by the artist G. Clausen, 1894.  Jimmy Court had a simple oak cross in the churchyard which had deteriorated,  with inscriptions on it, including that of his wife.  I have asked Jack Chipperfield to restore this as best as he can, and this is being done.  So well loved and interesting a person should not be forgotten, and I felt that his picture should remain in this area for all time.

                    D.G. Pelly, June 1987.

Page 20. Will Rickett

Some of the older inhabitants will remember Will Rickett,  the man with the wooden leg.  To those of us who spent our childhood in the village he had always been a familiar figure, and if we wondered how he came to lose his own leg below the knee, we never asked anyone.  He lived with other members of the Rickett family on the top side of the Green, in the house with wooden cladding.
For most of the year he worked as a roadman, trimming banks and verges and generally keeping the roads and paths tidy.  In the days before roads were tarred, they were laid the original Macadam way, with granite pieces, about the size of hen’s eggs, and gravel.  With water added, the whole was rolled with a steam roller until a firm level surface was obtained.  In winter, sand worked its way to the surface and mixed with soil from the wheels or farm carts making the roads very muddy.  It was Will’s job to scrape the worst of the mud to one side of the road with a long-handled scraper like an outsize hoe.  When spring came and the mud had solidified somewhat he shovelled it up on to the banks and hedge bottoms.  In the winter, when snow had fallen in the night, he was out early with the same scraper to clear snow away from the most used footpaths in the centre of the village.
At harvest time he worked at Priors Hall Farm ‘driving away’ the wagon loads of sheaves from the fields to barn or stackyard.  Hot dry summers caused cracks to appear in the ground and in some fields the cracks were so wide and deep that he was afraid he might catch his wooden leg and be thrown headlong and be in danger of the wagon wheels passing over him.
He had two wooden legs, one for workdays and one for Sundays and holidays.  The former had an extension on the outside for the thigh up to the waist where it passed behind his leather belt.  This one was shod with an iron ring.  For church on Sundays he wore lighter type concealed inside this trouser leg, except for the lowest few inches where it was polished black like his Sunday boot.
It was said that sometimes he would come home last at night and take off his wooden leg in his bedroom and lean it against the wall.  Occasionally it would slip on the polished floorboards and slide to the floor with a mighty crash which could be heard by the people next door.

Anonymous, December 1985.

Page 21. Henry Dellar

My Uncle Henry Dellar was a man
of thirty-five, of good old-fashioned stock
With sturdy frame, blue eyes, a skin like tan
and rugged features as though hewn from rock.

Like others of his kind he could not write
Or read, Indeed he could but dimly think.
He went to bed at dusk, had little light.
And rose at dawn; had little taste for drink.

What thoughts he had were good, his speech was slow,
He clung to what he got into his head,
Not quick to wrath, would never give a blow,
Was not unlike the cattle that he fed.

He’d iron muscles and a stalwart arm.
In Winter he would have rheumatic pains,
He worked as labourer at Bishop’s Farm;
All told twelve shillings were his weekly gains.

The harvest money came to six pounds more:
On boots and clothes and coal this quickly went
or to the grocer, clearing off a score.
He looked towards the pig to pay the rent.

Daphne Bridgeman, December 1985.

END

 Page 21. PART IV: Village institution and customs 

Widdington Men’s Club

The Club started in the late 1880s when the men of the village had a reading room in Brick Cottage, owned in those days by the Canning Family.  There was also a billiards table in a room in the outbuildings of the Old Rectory, where woodworks classes were also given.  The following is an account of how the present day Widdington Men’s Club started.

‘November 15th 1905. Opening of the Parish Hall.

Through the generosity of Mr. G Clausen ARA and the interest in the matter by the Rector, the Rev. JW Court, a Parish Hall and reading room has been provided for the Parish of Widdington.  The formal opening of the hall was observed by a supper on Saturday evening, when about 60 sat down to an excellent repast.  The company included the Rector, who presided, Mr Clausen, Mr Mackinnon, Mr Muir, Mr F Holgate and Mr T Hunt (Newport).  The Rector, explained that Mr Clausen, on leaving the village, offered him his studio as a reading room for the village club.  As Chairman of the Parish Council he accepted the offer, and the room had been removed and re-erected upon a site kindly granted by Messrs, Watney Combe & Co, at a nominal rent, but without cost to the ratepayers, as he (the Rector) had a fund in hand out of which the expense of removal and re-erection had been paid.  He proposed the health of Mr Clausen and a hearty vote of thanks to him for his gift.  This was seconded by Mr Holgate and passed with musical honours.  Mr Clausen in reply acknowledged the kind reception he had received and said he was glad to think his old studio had been put to such a useful purpose.  A feature of the evening was the singing of four hunting songs by Mr James Wright, a parishioner who is in his 93rd year’…..

In the 1920s a full size billiards table was installed in the club room under the auspices of Mrs Moore-Dillon, Mrs Court and the Rev JW Court.  Shares in the table were sold, but if dividends were ever paid is uncertain at the minute book for 1905-1948 is missing.
The Club remained the same from the 1920s to the present day.  Many entertainments were held by the committee e.g. Bingo, Whist Drives etc, and visiting teams were invited to play snooker and billiards matches.  The members also visited other clubs.  The Club was re-roofed in the 1950s by Mr Joe Chipperfield and Mr Jack Chipperfield……..
In the 1950s the Clausen Shield was introduced to be played for at billiards and snooker, and in the past two years league snooker was introduced for members.  This was worked on a point and average system.
By the time you read this magazine the old studio will be gone.  The end of another chapter in village life – 74 years November 15th 1905 to August 17th 1979 . ..The Men’s Club will continue to meet, as a club, at locations to be decided by the committee.

Alan Calver, September 1979

Page 26. Widdington Brass Band

A few years before the First World War, the Rev, JW Court formed a brass band, because it was said he liked the music the touring German bands played and wanted to have a village band for Widdington.  Memories of that pre-war band are scanty and its members are no longer with us, but enough returned after the War or remained in the village to form a nucleus and restart a band.  Mr Court conducted practice in the school on Monday and Friday evenings and another session for beginners on Tuesdays.  One thing he didn’t have to teach us was to read music.  We had been taught this at school.
The youngsters were indeed keen and turned out for the Tuesday practice in all weathers, including one cold, snowy night, when the first two to arrive had been rewarded with sixpence by Mr Court who was surprised and pleased that anyone would turn out that night.  As others arrived he looked amused and exchanged knowing glances with the rest as he had to find more sixpences to hand out.  Sometimes the sounds produced were not very pleasing..and he couldn’t think of a word to describe them, but if reminded him of the limerick:-

There was a young man named Zorobabel
Who played with a big indiarobabel
The robabel bust
Zorobabel cust
And the language he used was indescrobabel.

When the result was fair he likened it to a curate’s egg

The August Bank Holiday fete held on the rectory lawns, with coconut shies, bowling for the pig, hoop-la and other money-making side-shows, was a regular home engagement for the Band.  Marches were the main items in the music book, with selections from the classic symphonies and airs from operas such as Roberto Devereaux, popular at the time but not heard now, and arrangements of popular melodies of the day – the famous waltz ‘Destiny’.  The Valeta, Baby Tank and Felix kept on walking.  These supplied music for dancing on the lawn in the evening.  As darkness fell the fairy lanterns were lit up, and the way night-lights in coloured glass jars were suspended in the trees and shrubs.
The Band provided similar entertainment at garden fetes in various neighbouring villages.  Naturally some younger bandsmen liked to dance with girls they knew, and they were given temporary leave of absence, provided sufficient players were left to maintain melody and rhythm.  When music for a two-step was called for, Mr Court said ‘Play them a march; it is in the same 2/4 time, they won’t know’, but it was all right until the end of the march and the music stopped in the middle of a figure and left the dancers stranded in mid-air.
Another band not far away was the Much Hadham band and a contest was arranged between the two.  The test pieces were a march of the band’s own choice and Gounod’s overtune to ‘Mirella’.  After commenting on the good and not so good points of each band’s performance and keeping everyone in suspense, the judge finally announced Widdington had won on the set piece, Hadham on the march.
One of the treats looked forward to was the annual visit on the last Saturday or September to the Crystal Palace at Sydenham for the National Band Festival.  For some this meant their first visit to London and the walk across London Bridge to the station on the other side of the Thames was their first sight of the capital city.  Bands of various grades competed, the championship class where the best and most famous bands competed, Grand Shield, Junior Cup and Junior Shield… Generally the Grand Shield would be playing the Championship test piece of the previous year, suites by Gustav Hoist, John Ireland, Sir Edward Elgar and Sir Arthur Bliss come to mind.  Some of the younger bandsmen were more interested in the sideshows and found the Hall of Distorting Mirrors a greater attraction than the music.
Only with the addition of players from neighbouring villages was it possible to make up the full complement of 24.  With this number assembled the Band was able to compete in the Junior Shield section at the National Festival in 1932 playing ‘Inspiration of Youth’ as the test piece.  But there were troubles, the solo comet was unable to make the journey and a player from another band had to be borrowed to take his place.  He misread the instructions regarding the repetition of a passage and became confused.
There was great excitement when it was announced that Widdington had been placed first and the result was published in The News of the World the next day.  But a later announcement regretted a mistake had been made.  The winning bands should have been given in order of playing, which had been decided by a draw in the morning.  Unfortunately some official had given out the number of the band in the programme, which of course was quite different.  In the issues for the weeks following the Festival ‘The British Bandsman’ published the adjudicators’ notes and remarks on the bands performances and the points considered when placing them in order of merit.  These made interesting reading.  Amongst the remarks on Widdington’s playing was one to the effect that ‘This is a piece for Brass Band; there is no need for the conductor to sing the solo cornet part’, a reference to Mr Court’s long-established habit of singing or humming the melody.  The outing was an unfortunate one, because when the instruments were gathered up to go home it was discovered that some covetous rogue had taken away the best E-flat bass, a modern type with compensating pistons, and left in its place a battered thing of unknown make.
In a few years players had moved away and World War II saw the end of the Band, Mr Court was approached with offers to buy the instruments, but he could not bring himself to part with them, they had been so much part of his life.

Ernest T Wilson, June 1983.

Page 26. Memories of Widdington School: 1935-1942 (1)

I attended Widdington Junior School in 1935-1942 and will try to remember some of the highlights during those years.  I started school when I was four I should have been five, but I was keen to go Miss King let me begin early.  Widdington School was a red brick building consisting of one large room with a small cloakroom attached…At the top of the wall facing the Church was a stone plaque which read: ‘Come Ye Children and Hearken Unto Me: I Will Teach You the Fear of the Lord’.  This is taken from Psalm 34 verse 11, and the plaque is now embedded in the churchyard wall.
The large room was divided by a huge cupboard making it into two smaller rooms, one for infants and one for juniors.  It was heated by a solid fuel tortoise stove.  Sometimes we fetched a jug of hot water from the Rectory when they were doing the washing and had the copper going.  We needed this to wash the milk mugs in an enamel bowl.  Outside were two toilets for boys and girls.. They were old wooden seat and bucket variety which I avoided if at all possible especially in high summer!. The playground was in front of the building, and there was a small piece at the back where the boys weren’t allowed to go, and the coke heap was also kept there.
The Headmistress was Miss King who came up from Newport every day by taxi, and when she retired the school closed.  She taught the juniors and covered a wide range of subjects.  When I started the infants teacher was Miss Pansy Frost who lived at the William the Conqueror public house.  When she left, Miss Winnie Barnet from Rook End came.  There were probably about 20 children attending school, but this greatly increased when the war started and evacuees joined us.  I have a school photo dated 1937 and there are 14 children on this, but I know of a least 5 who are missing.
At break time in morning we had one third of a pint of milk, which was free, or it may have cost 1/2d.  We could also buy Cod Liver Oil and Malt at a reduced rate and a block of Gibbs Toothpaste for 1/2d.  We were encouraged to clean our teeth every day and I had cards to mark if we did.  We received a badge marked Ivory Castle League and a red, white and blue ribbon was added.  As cards were completed we received a star which was stuck in the ribbon…
Christmas was an exciting time and we made our own paper chains using the coloured strips of paper which are glued at each end and one is linked to another.  These were hung over the beams with a long handled mop.  When I was small we had a huge Xmas tree which was beautifully decorated..
Amongst my memories are the lovely nature walks we had…

Daphne Bridgeman,  March 1990.

Page 26. Memories of Widdington School: 1935-1942 (2)

Miss King taught us to appreciate the countryside and everything that grew and existed in it….Sometimes we walked to the wood which is halfway between the Church and Debden Park.. We collected as many different wild flowers as we could find and then had to learn their names.  Wild flowers were in abundance everywhere and the excitement of finding a white bluebell, a bee orchid or a butterfly orchid is never forgotten.  Another route was ‘up the lane’ (Cornells Lane) to Hoy’s Wood… We also walked down ‘Holly Road’ (Hollow Road) and I remember a boy falling in the ditch opposite Wyses Farm and the ditch was full of black sludge.  One Autumn we had to see how many different leaves we could collect…
Miss King was a tall lady with dark hair who always wore a patterned smock to protect her clothes, and we were fortunate in having such a good teacher.  We started the day by doing our charts which consisted mainly of deciding what day it was and the weather… This was followed by Scripture which we had every day because it was a C of E School.  We learned the Catechism by heart and also about six Psalms – numbers 8. 23, 121 and 150 come to mind.  We were taught all the Bible stories and drew pictures of these and made models in plasticine or paper.  We also had a repertoire of a few hymns which included ‘There is a green hill’ and ‘Blessed are the pure in heart’.  Our religious knowledge was tested by a Diocesan Inspector called Mr Stares.  I have a certificate, dated 6 July 1939, to say I had passed ‘a especially satisfactory Examination in Religious Knowledge’.
The Juniors, or the Big Side as we were called, consisted of Standards 1 to 5.  We did reading, writing and arithmetic, nature, history and geography.  I remember we followed the route taken by King George VI and Queen Elizabeth when they visited Canada in 1938.  We had a large map of the world on the wall and marked such places as Toronot and Quebec.  We learned to count by having spent matchsticks in bundles of 10 to form HTU (hundreds, tens, units).  We also learned to knit and, as it was war time, knitted for the soldiers.  We started by making a scarf on large needles with Khaki wool and progressed to socks or mittens.  We learned to sew and do embroidery and I remember making a white handkerchief which had to be pinned, tacked and then hemmed… We did PT in the school playground and had little oval straw mats to sit on and do various exercises.  Games like rounders were played in the meadow next to the school.
…we did a concert which was held in the Hut and our Mums came to watch.  There was a large box in the school which held all sorts of dressing up clothes and we also made some costumes out of crepe paper.  One year we dressed up as animals and I was a duck… Another time, we did The Pied Piper and learned the whole poem off by heart.  With all the rats and children – there was a part for everyone.

Daphne Bridgeman, September 1990.

Page 26. Memories of Widdington School: 1935-1942 (3)

In this last instalment of my memories of Widdington School I thought I would try to recall some events which occurred during those years.
One of these is the School outing to Clacton in the summer of 1938.  We went on a hired coach, and Miss King, the infant’s teacher, Mr Court (the rector) and some mothers came to look after us.  We played on the beach in the morning and had a picnic lunch… in the afternoon we went to a variety show on the pier and the chorus girls sang ‘The Umbrella Man’ and twirled their umbrellas… I can also remember going on the Ghost Train with Mr Court.  We went to a restaurant on the sea front for tea and we could have shrimps or pineapple which were in glass dishes…
Another exciting event was the Christmas party on the last day of the Autumn term.  In the afternoon we played games and had sandwiches, cakes and lemonade.  Each child had a present and I don’t know who paid for all this but suspect it was Miss King.  We didn’t go to many parties as children so an event like this was very much appreciated.
It was in the summer of 1940 when soldiers were often on manoeuvres, that a group of them, with lorries etc., cramped near the Green for a day or two and the water tap, which was on a grass island in the middle of the road leading to the church, was in great demand for their ablutions.  Miss King let us put on an entertainment for them and we enacted the story of Cinderella and decorated the hedge at the bottom of the playground with coloured streamers.  The soldiers appeared to appreciate our efforts.
Miss King was wonderful story teller and at the end of each day she always read to us… I shall never forget the Dr. Dolittle stories.  The Push-Me-Pull-You (the animal with a head at both ends) sparked off my imagination together with the floating island which was pushed along by porpoises.  Another story was Emile and the Detectives which I think was set in Germany and sounded different to me.
From a medical point of view, we were looked after quite well.  From time to time the School Nurse came and we weighed and measured and had our hair inspected.  I liked the Nurse but was a bit nervous of the Doctor, who examined our chests.  As a child I was very thin for my age… He suggested I had egg and milk but as my mother looked after me very well anyway and was a good cook, it didn’t make much difference… We had all the usual children’s illnesses, e.g. Measles, Chicken Pox, Mumps and Whooping Cough.  I think it was during 1936 when a lot of us had whooping cough and were ill for weeks.  I was immunised against diphtheria during the war and this was the start of the prevention of all these illnesses.  The School Dentist came once a year with a mobile surgery in a caravan and we had our teeth filled with the old treadle drill and gas was used for extractions…
Sadly, as the end of the school year in which we were eleven we had to leave Widdington School.  Pupils then went on to Newport School until they were 14 and were taken each day by car.  There was, however, an opportunity to sit for a scholarship and, if successful, the boys went to Newport Grammar School and the girls to the Herts and Essex High School, Bishop’s Stortford.
After I left Widdington school there were many changes in my life.  My eldest sister, Eileen, left home to become a children’s nanny.  I had a new baby brother, and our two evacuees had gone home.  I started a new school, which was like another world.
I last saw Miss King in 1959, when I was staying with my mother and took my new baby to show her.  I think she retired a year or two after that and the school closed.  It was the end of an era.

Daphne Bridgeman, March 1991.

Page 29. Pamela Johnstone and Mole Hall

Mole Hall was not opened to the public as a wildlife park until 1968, but long before that Pamela had animals.  Even in London where she grew up, a couple of guinea pigs which was loved dearly lived in her bedroom.
Later, after the war she and Stuart came to Essex to live and farm at Little Henham Lodge.  Stuart was then a very sick man, so it fell to Pamela to take on the farming.. They moved to Mole Hall in 1946 and after a time Stuart became stronger and needed occupation, so he took over the farm leaving Pamela at rather a loose end.  It was at this stage that she decided to do something that she had always had at the back of her mind, and that was to form a collection of wild creatures.  At Mole Hall she had the time and the space to develop her private wildlife park.  Her first purchase was a pair of marmosets bought on impulse, but on the whole she selected animals suitable to the climate and the countryside.  She called them her ‘people’.  In 1968 she and Stuart decided it would it would be fun to open the park to the public.  By this time she had a good selection of animals, not all of them indigenous to England.  One of the exceptions was ‘Tubman’ the chimp who came to the park as a baby and is still there – a great favourite with the visitors.  As a little fellow he had the run of the house and was, and is, a great friend.
The animals came from all sorts of sources.  Some were bought from pet shops or came from dealers who sent her lists of animals for sale – some were gifts, some came as a result of swapping with other wildlife parks and reserves.
It went off well from the start.  She and Stuart were a great team.  Stuart was always very supportive of her work, managing the financial side of the venture, while Pamela concentrated on the livestock.  Together they travelled all over the world, looking at animals in the wild and attending conferences on wildlife and animal conservation.  Pamela became especially interested in otters, their breeding and way of life, and is an authority on American otters.  She is the only person in England who has successfully bred them here.  She has appeared with them on television as well, although by all accounts it was a fairly hectic experience, for the otters as well as for Pamela!
The butterfly house is the most recent addition to the park.. during term time busloads of children arrive almost daily at the park on educational trips.  They are always particularly attracted to the butterfly house and an entomologist who is always on hand is kept busy answering their questions.  Pamela herself is very knowledgeable and will lecture if asked (not only on butterflies, but all animal concerns)..
It is a full and busy life.  Apart from keeping in touch with the visitors.. and seeing to the welfare of a large number of her ‘people’ (with the help of John Doe her head warden and the rest of the staff) there are innumerable matters demanding her attention, trips to the vet, long telephone conversations with people ringing up for advice about their pets or animals found injured.  There is a children’s playground which has to be kept safe and in order …. A deep freeze in the store room is stocked with day-old chicks for the owls and little monkeys and frozen fish for the otters….
As a background for the animals Pamela put a lot of thought into landscaping the park itself which is not just a collection of cages and enclosures, but with mown lawns and flowers and shrubs is a pleasant place to linger in, to watch the flamingos dabbling in the moat and the black and white swans sailing up and down.  Peacocks stroll above freely, ignoring the visitors….
Pamela’s day starts at 7.30 in the morning and doesn’t end until sundown, all the year round (except Christmas Day).  You wouldn’t think that anyone who is so slight and looks so frail would stand up to such a taxing regime, but that is her life and she loves it.

M.S.R December 1993.

Page 30. The Old Post Office

The Post Office and shop used to be one of the social centres of the Village, and everyone regrets its passing.  But the building is still a centre of interest, as I discovered when I went on the village New Year walk.
In renovating the house we have kept the old Victorian floor bricks in the shop, the old shop window and the fixtures outside on which the shop sign was help.  In the course of renovating the wall above the shop door our builders uncovered a glass sign bearing the name of Holgate.  And the Holgats, we discovered, ran the shop from the 1850s until the end of the Second World War.
It seems that Joseph Holgate was the first person to run the place as a shop, and it was probably he who had the shop window installed.  He was a shoemaker, grocer and ‘receiver of the post’ (later sub-postmaster) until his death in 1902 at the age of 72.  The shop was then taken over by his daughter, Miss Amy Holgate, and then, around 1930 Mrs Florence Holgate, who was the widow of his grandson, Frank Holgate.  At about the end of the Second World War she sold it to Thomas Walsh, and it then went through a succession of owners, finally the Smiths, who were unable to keep the shop going and who sold it in 1986 as a private house to Roy and Christine Bloss.  They in turn sold it to my wife and myself last year.

Peter Sanders, March 1994.

Page 30. Widdington Post Office.

The article in the latest Widdington Magazine brought back so many memories of my childhood as the Post Office was truly a focal point.  I remember Amy Holgate and Florence Holgate who ran the shop when I was a child… When I was a little girl Amy Holgate gave me a marvellous scrapbook full of Victorian pictures, probably cut from magazines, which were surrounded by pressed dried leaves and coloured transfers.  I imagine she made this scrap book when she was a young girl.  Also in the book is a small painting of a cat signed by Joseph Frank Holgate, February 20th 1888.
When I was small, my sister used to take me to the shop to buy sweets on a Saturday.  The three stone steps to the shop door seemed to be quite high and wide to me with the Post Box to the left of the shop window… The shop sold most things and before the village and a phone box, you could telephone from the Post Office.
When the war came and rationing started, things were never quite the same.  Windows displays were usually made of cardboard and contained posters saying Dig for Victory and suchlike.  Only registered customer s were allocated anything special which the shop might have had wasn’t rationed.  This included sweets before they went on ration… When Amy and Florrie Holgate retired there was a presentation in The Hut of two fireside chairs and I remember them sitting on them to try them out.
… After the Holgates, a Mr & Mrs Hudgel took over the shop.  I remember Mr & Mrs Walsh.. Also Mr & Mrs Instance (I don’t know how you spell it). I remember Mrs Philips as she had the shop when I used to visit my mother when my children were small.

Daphne Bridgeman, June 1994

Page 31. May Day Customs

There is no record of Widdington having a May Pole, but there is an equally lovely custom the children used to take part in as last at 1960 when school closed.  They would decorate two hoops with flowers and leaves, held together in the middle with a small dressed doll.  No one now remembers  what the doll represented.  Some authorities state that they doll may have represented Flora, the Goddess of Spring.  Two children would carry they garland through the village, followed by schoolmated carrying bunches of flowers.  They would call at large houses in the village and sing this song.

Oh garland gay I have brought you here
And at your door I stand
The buds of May are well budded out
By the work of our Lord’s hand.

The hedges of the fields so green
As green as any leaf
ur heavenly Father watered them
Returning them to you so sweet.

Now my song is nearly done
I can no longer stay
God bless you all both great and small
I wish you a joyful May.

Joan Gray, June 1988.

Page 31. The May Singers

I was born in Widdington in 1931 and lived there until I married in 1955 but came back regularly to visit my mother until she died in 1979.  I still come to the Churchyard to see the graves of my father and mother – James Alfred Stalley and Queenie May Stalley.
…. I was one of the May Singers during the war, and shall never forget the excitement of getting up early to start the singing before we went to school, then again in the dinner break and we finished our visits to every house in the village when we came out of school.  Of course there were not so many houses then.  I don’t know what the doll in the hoop represented.  My Aunt Doris, most years, did the hoops and we made our own crossed.  These were two pieces of wood nailed together, back of which was covered with greenery.  We picked bluebells, paigles (oxlips), cowslips and cuckoos (purple orchids) and made these into small bunches which were tired to the front of the cross.  Later my brother and sister went May Singing… The song was sang went like this:

I’ve been a rambling all this night
And sometimes of this day
And now returning back again
I’ve brought you a branch of May.

A branch of May, my dear I say,
Before your door I stand
Tis but a sprout, but its well budded out
By the works of our Lords hand

The hedges and the fields so green
As green as any leaf
Our heavenly Father watered them
With his heavenly dew so sweet.

And now my song is almost done
I can no longer stay
God bless you all both great and small
I wish you a joyful May.

This is a bit different to that printed in the magazine but it’s imprinted on my mind lie the ABC and my sister remembers my version.  We also remember the tune! I used to live n the house next to Florus House by the Green and I think Mrs Brookman lives there now.

Daphne Bridgeman (nee Stalley) March 1989

May Song

Three flats.  Four time.  All notes one crotchet except where otherwise indicated.
First bar: Bb
Second bar: G,G,G,Bb
Third bar: Ab,G,Ab,F
Fourth bar: Eb,F,G,Ab
Fifth bar: Bb,(dotted minim), Bb
Sixth bar: Eb(high) F,G,F
Seventh bar: Eb,C,Bb,G
Eight bar: Ab;F;Eb,D
Ninth bar: Eb

Daphne Bridgeman, June 1989

A Village Craftsman's day book

Joseph Thurgood was the village carpenter and undertaker near the end of the last century.  He was the second son of Lawrence Thurgood.
It would be fanciful to think that he was descended from the Lawrence, carpenter, who in his will dated 1787 mentions his copyhold estates of the Manor of Priors Hall.  However there have been other Thurgoods who were carpenters, as well as yeomen and farmers in this area – Robert, at Thistley Hall in 1830, another Robert at Ringers Farm, millers at Debden and schoolmasters at Widdington.  Lawrence was evidently a family name: the last Widdington Thurgood of that name died in the 1950s an old man and unmarried.
Joseph lived in part of the White Cottage, the Corbys lived in the other part.  His workshop was on the opposite side of Cornell’s Lane.  He also used Wray’s yard for storing materials such as bricks, slates, tiles and sand.
His Day Book from August 1891 to February 1894 was preserved by John Chipperfiled who carried on the business and is now in the care of Mr Jack Chipperfield, who kindly lent me it.  It is beautifully written in near copperplate style and gives a day-by-day account of work done by himself and his workmen and their pay.  A typical week’s wages was 14 shillings, about 70p.
His son William, then nearly 50, did most of the heavy work, but from time to time he employed other carpenters and wheelwrights and bricklayers and tillers.  William was mainly employed in making and repairing farm carts and wagons, including the wheels.  Other equipment and tools for farm work included ploughs, ladders, wheelbarrows, fences, gateposts and gates, wipple trees and wetrees – bars with hooks for attaching horse traces to the plough.  A plough slide is mentioned.  This was a sledge with iron runners on which a plough was dragged along the road from one field to another.  Domestic articles such as dog kennels, perambulators, sash cords for windows and of course, coffins are listed as well as helping to kill a pig.  More homely jobs were making a pastry board for Miss Hawkins the school mistress and doll’s house for Mr George Clausen, the artist.
Widdington Mill was then in use, requiring new sails in December 1892.  William made and fitted the seat for the church organ, which was dedicated on 24 May 1892.  He cleaned the inside of the church and carted chairs from Newport for the expected large congregation the day before and took them back the next day.  He was also one of the bell ringers.
For 2 weeks in September 1892 all hands were busy erecting Mr Clausen’s studio, which later became the Reading Room. After that they helped in the corn harvest.
Under “My Own Time” Joseph records his own work, on the whole less strenuous, like sharpening saws and making helves (handles) for tools.  Some days and a few whole weeks are blank, but he was the boss and not paid by the hour, and he was over 70.  He was honest when he confesses to one day ‘muddling about’ and another ‘not much doing’.  Entries are more like a diary with weddings and funerals, unusual events like ‘tenor bell thrown over’, ‘snow the day before Easter April 17 1892’ and a visit to the Naval Exhibition in September 1891.  Lotting Rangers in Lilley Wood probably gave him a chance to buy trees for timber.  When Mr William Peacock, the solicitor and agent, came to collect the cottage rents, Joseph went with him, presumably to see what repairs were needed.
We can only surmise that Kate, whom he took to the station, was his daughter.  Later in January 1892 she was very ill and he visited her in Hampstead and fetched her home in March 1892.  She was married in November that year.
His elder brother John went with him to Walden in November and December 1892. John died in 1899 and in his will directed that Pond Mead, Butcher's Mead and land in Stansted should be sold and the proceeds and rest of his estate divided equally between his 21 nephews and nieces, of whom my grandfather, John Wilson, was one and Miss Rose Read another.
The last entry in Joseph's hand records 'Put oil in church lamps' - a fitting last act of a man who had spent a lifetime providing the village with many of its basic needs.

E.T.W ., June 1987.

Page 33. Memories of a timber yard in Widdington

I remember John Chipperfield, my grandfather, would go to Debden Park and select trees - oak and elm for future use in carpentry trade. He was assisted by
his brother William and my father Edgar. With horse drawn Timber Whim (this was specially made by them to transport tree trunks) they would fell the trees,
using crosscut saw. How they managed to get the trunks on to the whim, I wouldn't know. Towards the end of daylight, I well remember looking out of the front room window to watch them come home and drive into the Timber Yard, which was on the corner of Cornells Lane. The trunks would be left to season and when the time was right they would be lifted on top of the saw pit - again, a crosscut saw was used and the trunks were cut into planks. My father being the youngest was always in the pit, got covered in sawdust, and his uncle was above. Grandfather was the governor, I think he looked on!
There was very little winter work so carts, wheelbarrows and ladders would be made, repair and cleaning of work shops done, boards planed by hand ready for use when needed. People used to say "If you want work to last a lifetime, get old John Chip to do it."

Joyce Chipperfield, December 1990.

Page 33. A fragment of Church history

Great efforts are made today to foster good relations between the churches, but it was not always so. On the 27th November 1840 Sophie Perry, the daughter of two 'dissenters', William and Anne Perry, was buried in the churchyard at Widdington, but the rector, Colin Campbell, refused her the benefit of the Funeral Service. He could not refuse to bury her, because, as he noted at the foot of the burial register, "the right of burial is not to be refusedtopersonsbaptised by dissenting Teachers". But he did not recognise the validity of a Nonconformist baptism, and so in his view young Sophie was not 'capable of Christian burial on account of having died unbaptised'.
The Perrys, I think, lived at Widdington Hall, and if this is right then William was one of the most important farmers in the village.

Peter Sanders, September 1995.

Page 33.  News from Widdington 100 years ago: a lively time at the Fleur de Lys

... In the first few months of 1899 there was one event which caused a lot of amusement in the village. On Wednesday, 8th March, a fox coolly went into the Fleur de Lys. The landlady, Mrs. Hopwood, who was standing atthe door, and who wasevidently not very observant, took no notice of it because she thought it was one of the village dogs. But a few minutes later the pack arrived from the Puckeridge Hunt, which had met at Rickling Green earlier that morning, turned up the fox at Pansey Wood, and chased it all the way to Widdington. Two of the dogs rushed into the pub, and then, according to the Herts and Essex Observer, 'there was a lively time in the tap-room and cellar. Flower pots were knocked out of the window, chairs were overturned and glasses broken'.In the end the huntsmen went in, caught the fox by his brush, and dragged him outside where he was quickly killed.'

Peter Sanders, March 1999.

PART V: Widdington in wartime

From the Parish Records

June 10th 1814.

'On Tuesday last the inhabitants of the parish of Widdington assembled to commemorate the blessings of peace on the fall of Bonaparte, - when the lower classes were amply regal'd with joints of meat, plumb puddings, & barrels of good old English Ale on the lawn in front of the Rectory - The chearfulness of the scene, the fineness of theweather, & the lively airs played by the band, altogether produced the most striking & pleasing effect - In theevening the gentry & Yeomanry with their friends & families repaired to a neighbouring barne,which had been most tastefully prepared for the occasion by its hospitable owner - Mr. Mumford - when the gay dance commenc'd, which was kept up with great spirit until the company was summon'd to an elegant cold collation After various appropriate songs & toasts, - the dance was again resumed until a late hour, when at length the party reluctantly broke up highly pleas'd with the festivities of Widdington.

Anonymous. June 1984.

Page 33. The Boer War: a letter home

On Saturday 10 March 1900 the following article appeared in the Herts and Essex Observer:

'WIDDINGTON. THE RELIEF OF LADYSMITH.

Private J. Newman of the 2nd Middlesex has sent to his mother at Widdington some stirring incidents of the fighting at Spion Kop. He says: 'We are having a terrible time of it in our efforts to reach Ladysmith, the hardest piece of work that has ever been done out here. I have not had my boots off for a month and have not been in camp or had a wash for 10 days. At night we have to get the best covering wecan and often get drenched tothe skinby theheavy thunderstorms and our clotheshavetodryonus.Wehavelostterribly,ourregimentalone losing 80 killed and wounded in one action. It is a horrible sight. When we took one of the Boer trenches we found it filled with their dead, burnt by our Lyddite like bees in a hive, and they stank like rotten sheep. When we got the order to charge it was awful to see our poor comrades dropping; they begged of us for a drop of water, but we were not allowed to stop to give them some. We lost over 400 before we tookthat position and ourpoor captain was among those who were shot down. He was very severely wounded. I had a narrow escape myself as one bullet passed clean through my helmet and knocked it off. When we got to the Boer trenches it was a hand-to-hand fight and it was four o'clock in the afternoon before they retired. We then laid down for the night but we could not sleep, we were so hungry and thirsty and the cries of the woundedwereheart-rending.During the night we were formed up in line and names called, and our colonel told us that half our men were killed and wounded anda lotwere missing and nobody could account for them. He asked us all to pray to God to bring us through, and we did so, and also for our wounded. I cannot write any more; my heart is broken for my fallen comrades.'

Peter Sanders, December 1999.

Memories of 1914-1918

I hadn't long been at this village school when the 1914-18 war broke out .... With the threat of invasion, arrows were painted on buildings to indicate where to go if it happened. One direction was towards Henham.
The children had to play their part. I remember tearing paper into strips to be used as stuffing for pillows and the like, for army use, and the teacher was busy knitting khaki socks.
In summer we went blackberry picking with teacher. We didn't mind because we were paid so much a pound for the berries. Sometimes we went home quite rich.
Occasionally the soldiers, when on manoeuvres, came to the village, some on horseback. They sat on the green for a while for refreshments. Jugs of coffee were made for them. Any left over was given to us, but without milk or sugar, so it wasn't very nice.
Every day at 12 noon the church bells were rung to remember the forces fighting for our country. We lost several of our men. The loss of manpower meant women going to work in fields. Some children went stone picking.
In those days we didn't have air raid wardens, shelters or gas masks, but we did have the blackout. We knew there was a raid when the planes went roaring over and we could hear guns in the distance. Two German Zeppelins were brought down not all that far from here. For some reason balloons were floating about the sky at times One came down at the back of the Church. During this time there was a very bad flu epidemic and many died, sometimes more than one person in a family.
One day I was in the Post Office at lunch time when the 'phone rang. It was to say the war was over. Armistice had been signed. No school for us that afternoon.

Fr. Francis, June 1990.

Outbreak of War, September1939

I was 8 years old and during that summer there had been talk of war and some Austrian refugees came to Widdington. I still remember their names, and some of them became friends of my Aunt Ruth. A titled lady, Mrs. von Karla, and her two daughters stayed at our house for a while. The daughters were very pretty and spoke perfect English.
We were all supplied with gas masks, masks which were black and came in three sizes, small, medium and large. Ihad a small black one but would have liked to have had a Mickey Mouse gas mask which was brightly coloured and supplied to very small children. At school we used to practise wearing these and tried to be brave. They felt a bit hot and stuffy and when you breathed out they made a rude noise at the side. Later on in the war, an additional filter was added which was bright green.
One Sunday afternoon we walked right to end of Cornells Lane and along the cart track to the fields. A huge trench was being dug from left to right as far as you could see and was called a tank trap.
On Sunday, September 3rd, I sat on our front door step with the cat ... waiting for the evacuees to arrive from the East End. Each house had previously been visited to see how many children we could take in. We had been recorded as having room for two girls. When the coaches arrived, they stopped outside the Hutandthe occupants went in there to be sorted out. They all seemed to be mothers with small children and were allocated to various houses. We did not have anyone at that time but later wedidhave twogirlswith usfor a year. Their names were Anne Webster and Valerie McClelland.
During the next week or so the mothers used to sit on the village green during the day and Widdington must have been a very bewildering place after the East End of London. One woman went into the village shop and ' asked for beetroot: when she found it was not cooked, she did not want it. I didn't know you could buy cooked beetroot. Most of the mothers soon moved back to London but three families stayed until the end of the war. As they lived quite near to us, we became very friendly. They were Jewish and I was interested in their customs. They also introduced us to new foods such as halvah, matzo and cooking oil. I was especiallyfriendly with one family, Mrs. Israel and her children, Godfrey, Lilly and Stanley, and visited them once when they returned to Spitalfields, but that was 40 years ago.
After that memorable day in 1939 weeventually started a new term at school and life settled down but was never quite the same again. We had food rationing ... We did not go hungry, but I used to long for an orange.

Daphne Bridgeman, September 1989.

Wartime in Widdington W.I.

During the Second World War Widdington W.I. was a great focal point. With petrol rationing we were very much dependent on our own resources and making our own entertainment and contributing to the war effort.
Things I remember most vividly are the evacuees being brought by coach to the village where they all disembarked on the green and were issued with rations before being dispersed to thehouseswheretheywere to stay. I remember them opening tins of milk and then letting them roll down the grass. Wehadsomeverynice people but others were not so pleasant and were not very good visitors. They must have thought that Widdington was the back of beyond after the East End of London.
We used to have great jam making sessions in the Hut (now the Village Hall) with trestle tables set up for us to work on and we also used to bottle fruit in Kilner jars.
We had a lot of dances, in spite of the blackout, and once even a th? dansant! When the Americans were at Debden we used to invite them over for supper and entertainment, perhaps Joe Chipperfield with his wonderful Essex stories and Mrs Bass with her mandolin. We even made them apple pies to remind them of home.
When the invasion scare was at its height we WI ladies thought we should be able to defend ourselves and our village. Sergeant Jack Dennison of the Home Guard came and gave us rifle shooting practice. We lay in rows on floor trying to master heavy army rifles. Mr and Mrs Maxwell Scott were living at Pond Mead then and she was a leading light in the WI. He was the Air Raid Precaution Warden and when there was an air raid warning he used to bicycle through the village ringing a hand bell and blowing a whistle for the All Clear.
We also did a pantomime once. Mrs. Gage who was the wife of Judge Gage made a very fine back half of a horse!  

Page 35.  There was a Searchlight Unit encamped in the meadow  

There was a Searchlight Unit encamped in the meadow before you get to the main road (one of the soldiers married Flossie Chipperfield, sister to Joe Chipperfield), and the WI used to entertain them as well. They used to come up to our house for a bath and a cup of tea. We had children's parties as well, everyone contributed from the meagre food rations. We used to look at the spread and say "What a pity Hitler can't see that!"
Parts of the war years were dreadful with air raids and the worry about husbands and family serving in forces, but we had some very good times with a great feeling of fellowship and the WI played a big part in keeping everyone together. We were a very close and happy community then.

Monica Pelly, March 1995.

Page 36.  An Evacuee's View of Widdington in 1940

When it became apparent that London was going to be in the front line ... a government policy was declared that young people should be evacuated out of London to safe places, with the result that children were sent to America, Canada, and many places in Britain.
My cousins, Peter and Ann Webster, and I were fortunate in that we came to Widdington. My cousins' mother, Mrs. Ruby Webster, apparently had a longstanding friend - a Miss Paterson - who lived at The Haven cottage in Spring Hill and, through her, placements for the evacuation of the three of us were made, and we subsequently arrived in Widdington to find how fortunate we were.....
Ann Webster went to stay with the Stalley family and then later moved to Mr. and Mrs. Carmichael, who lived in a bungalow in the middle of a field at the back of the church. Mr. Carmichael senior was living in the old farmhouse. Peter Webster went to live with Mr. and Mrs. Pettit who owned the blacksmith's forge at the top of the main street on the left, and I can remember the farm horses waiting to be shod by Mr. Pettit.
I went to live with Mrs. Askey at Belmont Cottage in Spring Hill and she had a young girl staying with her (I believe they were related) ... Brenda Butcher .... Belmont in those days was a simple cottage with a coal-fired range which had to be cleaned and polished once a week and raked out every day in order to get a good fire. There was no water supply and we had to go a short distance up the road to a standpipe to fill up jugs and bring water back to the cottage. Lighting was by oil lamps which had to be trimmed and cleaned every day,but during the time I stayed with Mrs. Askey electricity was brought into the cottage and a water supply to a sink and tap in the porch outside the back door.
None of this, however, modernised the toilet arrangements which I, as an 8-year old, found fascinating! They consisted of a very deep hole in the ground in a flint and brick building at the back of the house. There was a wooden seat with a very uncomfortable rough hole in the middle, but I believe the hole in the ground was quite big enough to cater for one adult and two children for many years ....
There was also in the outbuilding a washroom which consisted of a copper boiler where Mrs. Askey toiled on Mondays with the real washerwoman image involving her dolly and washing-tub. So clearly all three of us were well housed and well looked after.
We all went to the village school which was then opposite the church and consisted of two large schoolrooms with a very large wood-fired stove midway between the two rooms for heating during the winter months. There was a large playground on the edge of which was a set of lavatories and, to say the least, they were a little rustic and to be avoided at all costs!
Miss King was the senior teacher. I have forgotten the name of the other lady who also tried to teach us but the classes were divided into two. I, being 8 years old, was eligible for the senior class, whereas the other lady taught the junior children ... At the back of the school was a field sloping up to a hedge and mid way along this hedge were two trees which grew out in the shape of a 'V'. If one stood in the middle of this'V'and shouted very loudly there was the most lovely echo and we spent hours doing this. ...
The church figured very strongly in our week - and we were given one (old) penny for the collection plate - as it was insisted that the evacuees should attend church on Sunday mornings and Sunday School in the afternoon. The services ... were rather boring and we spent most of our time counting the ticks of the lovely old church tower clock. I am so pleased to go into the church and find that old clock still ticking.
Sunday School was held in the little hall which was just along from School Lane just before the Fleur de Lys pub. I believe the lady who ran this was Miss Hamilton and she lived in a bungalow in Spring Hill on the left, just before the old pond where we used to spend hours tadpoling. Miss Hamilton was a disciplinarian of the old school and used to ride around the village on a very high upright bicycle with strings from the mudguard down to the rear hub to stop her dress being caught in the wheel. In those days, of course, Miss Hamilton would not have worn slacks - absolutely unthinkable!
The Gambles farm, which I believe is now owned by the Robinson family, had its lovely old tithe barn which I see still stands to this day. With the Gambles' son (I think his name was Alec) we soon rigged up a wonderful swing by means of a rope from the highest rafters and launched ourselves from a haystack at the end of the barn, falling into another haystack at the other end with sheer joy. But more fun was chasing the rats under the barn with his dog.
In the harvest season a large steam traction engine used to arrive at the farm towing a wooden threshing machine and this was the signal for everyone to get to work and help with the harvest. I was allowed the privilege of driving the horse and cart taking the sacks of wheat from the machine back to the big barn. ... The other great sport for us children was trying to catch the field mice which were in the stacks. ... The fields were then ploughed using a horse-drawn plough. I was allowed to try with the horses but never could master the skill required and anyway I could not see over the top of the plough!
When harvesting was completed it was the turn of the beet and we children would help by sitting with a billhook topping and tailing. Again, I don't think we did very many and chasing field mice was of more interest.
War did not affect Widdington very much directly, although I am sure there were many sons and daughters who went into the services. At the top of Holly Road on the right was a searchlight battery and I asked the sergeant one evening if I could switch on the light. I was allowed to do this and also turn the light round. The sergeant must have been some sort of a wag because he suggested that since the light was so strong I could climb up it if I wished! I, in turn, suggested that if I did he would most likely turn the light off (old wartime joke!)
The searchlight battery was attacked one night by a German fighter plane which seemed to manage to fire most bullets into Widdington Green. I think you will find that there are still some embedded in the old tree in the centre of the Green. No one was hurt and the light kept shining.
I believe during my time there that two planes crashed in the fields around Widdington but I am not sure where this was - I believe one was German and another one of ours as there were a number of Air Force stations in the area.
Widdington in those days had two shops, I think, one also being the Post Office, and there was a bakery run by the Hoy family. The bus to Newport was only once a week so Widdington had to be self-sufficient in those days, as cars were rare.
Widdington is still very dear to me. As a child coming out of Muswell Hill, London, I had had some experience of the countryside ... but this was different. I was very happy and eventually moved back to London to live with my mother, as I believed she was missing me greatly.

John Mitchell, June 1998.

Page 36. Recollections of V.E. Day in Widdington: 8th May 1945

I was on short leave from the 5th Maritime Regiment R.A. on that wonderful day of the 8th May, 1945,and my wife and I went down to the village where everyone was gathered to celebrate the end of the Second World War. .. Outside the Fleur de Lys was the Publican, Bert Chesham, and a barrel of beer. We all danced in the street "Knees Up Mother Brown!" and beer was handed out. My wife and I also rang the church bells (very discordantly). The feeling of relief was immense, for the killing had come to an end.

D.G.P ., June 1995.

Page 37.  PART VI:  The road and buildings of Widdington

The New Road

How many people travelling from Widdington to Newport know that the quarter mile or so of straight road over the railway bridge was known for many years after it was built in the early 1870s as the "New Road"?
Originally there were two roads which diverged a little way west of Shipton's Farm. Not many years ago the remains of the old wooden signpost stood on the little triangle of ground on the right of the present bridleway leading across the fields to Hollow Lane. The stumps of the arms pointing the direction of the two old roads were still there. One road went off in a south-westerly direction across the field (Marchfield) to where the Hogstrough (some call it Oxcroft) Bridge crossed the river Cam and then a level crossing over the railway with a single storey dwelling for the crossing keeper. (After many years of cultivation the course of the old road can still be traced across the field, where the stones have an effect on the height and colour of cereal crops, especially in dry seasons.) This building is still inhabited, with access down the lane from the old A11 road, although it is not a wholly desirable residence, especially at night, with trains thundering past within a few feet of the bedroom windows.
The other road ran in a north-westerly direction to another level crossing, with its keeper's bungalow. This was on the far side of the railway, so it had the advantage that it could be reached from the main road without crossing theline. There was no bridge here, but a ford was possible, because the land is flatter here and the river wider and shallower. The bungalow was lived in until recent times, but was eventually demolished.

Ernest T. Wilson, December 1982.

Page 38. Broad Leys - one of the oldest houses in Widdington

When we first moved into Broad Leys in 1975 we were told that ... the house had been largely rebuilt at end of the last century, using a certain amount of original timbers. We found this difficult to believe at the time because it did appear to be much older than a nineteenth century house and was mentioned on all the old maps. However, as were certainly not experts on old buildings, we accepted the general view which was summed up by Sir Claud Hollis in his History of Widdington written in 1939: 'During the past 30 or 40 years a dozen modern homes have been built at Widdington. Some of them, e.g. Pond Mead, Cornells, Weft House and Broad Leys have portions of old cottages incorporated in them'
..... At the beginning of this year we applied for planning permission to build a two-storey extension on the front of the house. Just as a matter of routine the Council sent someone to look over the house to see how our plans would fit in with the existing building. When he arrived he frowned and said: 'This is never a nineteenth century rebuilt house. It looks original but I'm not an expert so we'd better have it checked.'
The Council then called in an expert on timber-framed buildings from Chelmsford. .... He was able to identify and locate the whole of the original structure which is still intact, and which he estimates was built around 1560.
The original house consisted of a central, open hall, with no upper storey, but with a fire on the floor, which necessitated the use of a smoke hole in the roof above. This was in the pre-chimney days, and he identified the probable site of the smoke hole as being in the roof of what is now the smallest bedroom. On the east side of the hall were two downstairs rooms with a single solar (large bedroom)above. This would have had access by means of an open ladder staircase from the hall. On the west side were the kitchen and buttery with another solar above. He identified what we had thought were just peculiar notches on the wall beams as being Tudor mullion windows from the pre-glass age.
He thought the original building was not thatched but tiled and the height of the ceilings indicated that it was not a cottage but probably a yeoman's house. ( .... As a matter of interest, in 1419 there is reference to an older building on the site, called 'Bradeleghe'.)
Broad Leys is now a listed building, and the extension has been built in keeping with the original, including an upper storey overhang. The beams on the front of the old house, revealed for the first time when the plaster was chipped away, have been restored and left open to view in the wall of the new upper storey.
We are still discovering things about Broad Leys. When we dug out earth at back of house to make a patio, we discovered traces of stonework, including some pieces of carved pillars. These are currently being checked in case we are on the site of a Roman villa.

Katie Thear, December 1983.

Page 38. William the Conqueror

In December 1984 the Magazine introduced a new picture on its cover showing the old public house, William The Conqueror, on the corner of Cornells Lane and the High Street In an accompanying article it reported that accaccording  to Sir Claud Hollis, it was erected as a public house around 1840, and Laurie Gates recalls that it continued as a pub until October 1958.
Doug Foster, parents took it over in 1935, and a few years later Doug marrimarriedand lived there with his wife May.
The brewers sign would probably have advertised Philips of Royston,-Fine Ales and Stouts, but others breers followed.

Anonymous, December 1984.

Priors Hall: (1)

As I walked down Peryslane, the track that leads westwards from Priors Hall through Burgate Field, and looked across at the busy M11, and the power lines traversing the skyline, at the newly electrified railway line and the busy road leading to fast developing Newport, my mind wandered back over the centuries and I wondered what this view had looked like in the past and about the people over the years who had trod this self-same track.
Domesday records that there was a manor on the site of Priors Hall called Widituna which, together with the manor of Widintuna, now Widdington Hall, later became the ecclesiastical unit and parish of Widdington. The part of Debden now associated with this parish was the manor of Amberdana, a medium sized manor valued at £12, whereas Widituna was valued at only £8 13s. The survey not only tells us about the property but also about the surrounding countryside. The number of swine each manor could support (Amberdana 250, Widituna only 10) indicates the comparative extent of woodland around the former and the sparseness to the west of the village.
Some years after the Conquest the site of Priors Hall was occupied by the monastic order of St. Valery of Picardy having been given the land by William the Conqueror. It is said that, when William and his troops were gathered in northern France awaiting shipment, the weather was rough and unsuitable for the embarkation of troops, horses and followers, so he called upon the abbot of the local monastery to parade his relics on the shore and pray for fair weather. Miraculously the storms abated and the abbot was rewarded with lands at Widdington, Takely and elsewhere.
The monastery survived for nearly three centuries and although the monks had their own chapel they combined with the owners of Widdington Hall to build the church early in the 12th century. One can imagine groups of monks in their traditional habit walking down Perystrete, which bisects the village green, to attend worship at this church.
But following the wars with France in the 14th century, the monastery was seized by Edward III and either he or his son Richard II gave it to Williarn of Wykeham, Bishop of Winchester, founder of New College, Oxford, in whose hands the property remained until 1919.
By the 15th century a large extent of woodland around the parish had been cleared and replaced by small moated farms. Land that was not productive arable, pasture or woodland was enclosed as manorial hunting parks. Much of the parish as it was then would be recognisable today: the road and green lane network linking surrounding parishes, the streams and manorial boundary hedgerows. Land adjoining Priors Hall would be readily recognisable, for the open landscape of this valley overlying the chalk was never enclosed into small fields and remained until the last century farmed in the medieval manner of small strips.
So as I turn and walk back towards Priors Hall, towards the barn that would have held part of every occupier's produce as tithe, I think of the previous tillers of this land named in, say, the 1767 inventory, the map showing the jumble of land boundaries of three or four acres apiece - of Mrs.Bithnay, John Mumford, William Broughton, Thomas Hawkes, Richard Chiswell. They walked this lane, just as I do now.

Jeremy Dillon-Robinson, March 1987.

Priors Hall: (2)

....We had always understood Priors Hall had been built in the early 15th century on the site of the alien monastery of St. Valery of Picardy..... However, English Heritage... have found the shape of a Saxon doorway in the east end of the house. During the last two weeks plaster has been removed revealing the true shape of the doorway and directly above it a window. Because of the type of stone (quarried at Barnack in Northamptonshire and known to be in use at that time) and because of the shape and placing of the stones and the mortar infill, the doorway and window are certainly Saxon.
Of course, these could have been rebuilt into a later house, but this theory was discounted when the plaster was removed from the north east corner of the house to reveal perfect corner stones in the Saxon style supporting the flint walls. The fact that the doorway is in the east wall of the house shows that it was not a church but a domestic property, making it possibly only the second Saxon house known to be in existence.
So there seems little doubt that when the monks of St. Valery of Picardy arrived in Widdington in the 11th  centrycentury  a house already existed and that an inentifiable past remains to this day.

Jeremy Dillon-Robinson, March 1988.

Priors Hall: (3)

In the last issue of this magazine I wrote of the discovery of a Saxon doorway in the east end of Priors Hall. Further investigation has suggested that it is not a doorway but an arch between the nave and chancel of a church. Indeed this theory has been strengthened by digging a trench to the east of the arch to expose the foundation of the chancel wall.
.... It appears there that the earlier supposition that Priors Hall was originally an Anglo-Saxon house is. incorrect. More likely it was the parish church, built and in use before the Conquest. When the property was given to the monks of St. Valery of Picardy they no doubt used it alsoas their private chapel. And maybe when the burial ground became full they and the owners of Widdington Hall built St. Mary's church on its present site in the early 12th century.

Jeremy Dillon-Robinson, March 1989.

Page 40. "The steeple is crackt"

The late Sir Claud Hollis's History of Widdington has been deposited with me, and I think it will of interest to parishioners to pass on to them some of the information I have gleaned from it about Widdington church. Not much is known about the origins of the church, but it appears that before it was built, the monks of Prior's Hall and the owners of Widdington Hall had chapels of their own. Early in the twelfth century they combined to build a church, dedicated to St. Mary the Virgin. This must have been within 100 years of the Norman Conquest. The only remaining detail of that period, however, is the small "slit" window in the north wall of the chancel. This window was revealed when the church was restored in 1872, and what happened to other Norman features we do not know. The east window, and the piscina in the south wall of the chancel, are of the late 13th century.The early English window to the right of the piscina is of the 14th century, and the north and south windows at the west end of the chancel are of the 15th century. It is thought that the nave was rebuilt and the vestry added in the 15th century. If that is the case, it would account for the absence of any Norman features in the nave being preserved.
The list of the rectors and patrons on the wall behind the font goes back to 1326, but Sir Claud's history takes us back another hundred years, and his list begins with Thomas (called Master Thomas deWyditon) in the year 1220. It is also interesting to note that the patronage of the living was in the gift of Queen Elizabeth the First from 1570 to 1587. The brass effigy (of which the lower part, being the feet, is missing) is of one John Green, who was a patron in the 15th century.
Then came the Reformation period when little church building was carried out and many churches were neglected. From Archidiaconal records, it appears that Widdington church was allowed to get into a state of decay during this period; and in 1686 ... it was reported that "the tower of the steeple is crackt". Things seem to have gone from bad to worse, for the following entry appears in the parish register dated 15th May, 1771: "The whole steeple, from top to bottom, with ten feet in breadth of both sides of the body of the church fell down. Three bells out of five were dug out of ye rubbish unhurt". The churchwarden of that time sold the bells, and out of the proceeds purchased one small bell, and built up a wall of red brick at the west end, considerably shortening the nave.
In 1814 the lead was taken off the nave and a new roof put on, which was slated. Some inside repairs were carried out, but the condition of the church must have deteriorated very much for by 1871 it became necessary to suspend services, owing to the dangerous condition of the building.
Then in 1872 there was a great restoration, carried out largely through the Zealous  generosity of Sir Claud Hollis's grandfather, Francis Smith, and his son, Griffith Smith. The most important item in this work was the rebuilding of the tower on its original foundations, and the restoration of the nave to its proper length. The south porch was rebuilt in its original form, three new bells (the gift of Mr. Francis Smith) were hung in the tower, the gallery was removed and the old high pews were replaced by the present ones. A new font was installed, the design of which was based on the fragments of the old one which were found under the rubble of the old tower.
As we all know further restoration work and improvements have now been made possible out of funds received from the Pelly benefaction.

J.T.Stevens, June 1962.

Page 41.  Pond Mead

Pond Mead (on your left as you come into village) may look like a rambling Victorian house, but originally it was probably two cottages. The one on the roadside, the other set quite a bit further back. What the cottagers did is not known, but certainly this century the building had a dairy in the grounds and present villagers can remember collecting milk from the farm here rather than from Wyses.
The very old roadside cottage (largely the eaved part nearest the front drive) had grown into a farmhouse and joined up with the other cottage. The original front door had been moved forward to make a hall and at a later stage it was moved forward again. .... In the present kitchen (part of the old roadside cottage) the floor has obviously been lowered by over a foot - to accommodate taller occupants? - and is lower than the road surface.
... The floor in the living room .. is stripped wood planks, sprung specially for dancing. This floor was covered with sheets of hardboard during the war (when the house was used as officers' quarters) to protect it. The fact that the floor was sprung was offered 27 years ago to Mr. Geen (who lives at Pond Mead now) as a selling point. He was more taken with the fact that it was a house big enough for two families to grow up in With other relatives there were 15 people living in the house for a few years, but there are 9 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms and 2 kitchens so they weren't too crowded.
.. Outside there is evidence of the house growing - and perhaps a reflection of the money available at the time - some manhole covers are marked "Newport", others "Mayfair".
This time of growth was reflected inside with the two staircases, attic rooms, a row of bells to indicate to the servants in which room something was required, and a dumb waiter for serving meals. There is a shaft of a different sort upstairs but it goes nowhere and probably was built to disguise a wall leaning too far from the perpendicular. Whatever the history of Pond Mead it seems to have been a happy one. There is no hint of a chill from the past.

Margaret Hudson, December 1991.

Page 41. Widdington Windmill.

Most of the inhabitants of Widdington know the history of the important buildings of the village, i.e. The Church, Priors Hall etc. ... But there was another important building, unfortunately no longer standing, which played an essential part in village life, Widdington Windmill.
Widdington Mill was a Post Mill, built in early 1600s. A map of 1633 shows a mill on the site, but carvings on the mill postdate it as 1660. So perhaps there could have been an earlier mill which was replaced.
To reach the mill with their grain the villagers would have travelled down Spring Hill, along to Shipton Bridge Farm, then along the bridle path to the top of the hill where the bridle path to Waldegraves and the footpath to Newport meet. The mill was in the south-west corner of this intersection and the Francis brothers of Rook End Farm recall ploughing up bricks on this site in recent times....
The mill had a pair of french millstones, a dressing machine, lime kiln, dwelling house and land, and in 1799 the miller, George Rayment, insured the mill for £200, the standing and going gears for £60, and the stock and utensils for £40. In 1821 the freehold was rented to Adam Howard for £25 a year. For a long time the mill was run by William Woodcock Perry and later by George Woodcock Perry of Widdington Hall, both farmers. The mill had a single storey round house, tail pole winding, weather board body, mansard roof, single shuttered sails turning clockwise and, later, two pairs of grinding stones.
The last miller was Ralph Iredale in 1898. The Perry's had a steam engine to drive the mill if the wind failed but the mill was never put over to complete steam power. The mill fell into disuse in 1902, and was taken down in 1910, some of the timbers being used in the first house in Spring Hill as you enter the village. There is also a postcard showing a small picture of the mill. (For further information, see Sir Claud Hollis' History of Widdington, and Essex Windmills and Mill Wrights by Kenneth G. Farries Volume 5.)

Alan Calver, March 1992.

Page 41.  Widdington Hall

Morant in his "History and Antiquities of the County of Essex", dated 1768, states that Widdington Hall "is a very ancient building". He also sets out ownership to that date.
The manor of Widdington Hall was held by various Norman-French families, the last of whom, Gilbert Levois, died in 1364, leaving his elder daughter, Catherine, as his heiress. She married John Duke, Master of the Pantry to King Edward III (1327-1377), presented him with the estates, and it seems likely that the original aisled hall and western crosswing were built at about that time.
The building consisted of a great aisled hall running East to West with a crosswing or solar at the Eastern end. The hall was open to the rafters and today the roof rafters are well smoke-blackened giving evidence of the communal open fire used for heating and cooking.... The crosswing was probably floored and used by the family as living accommodation and for sleeping.
Unfortunately only one bay of the hall remains, the Eastern end having been destroyed by fire. However, much of original timberwork remains in the house and roof. In particular the massive doorway into the hall is intact, together with the crown-posts in the roof.
Ownership of the hall over the 15th century is not clear. Morant says that a John Greene Esq. married Agnes, daughter and heir to John Duke (see above), and shared the estate with her. Both lie buried in the Church chancel.
At the beginning of the 16th century the estate came into the possession of the Elrington family. Edward Elrington married Grace (?) around 1525. Grace is a bit of a mystery, but the Elrington family was well established. Edward's father, Sir John, was Treasurer of the Household.
After some 30 years of ownership Edward died in 1558, and during this period the second phase of building took place. At the East end a thick chimney and kitchen were built and extended to the North in the form of a prestigious two storeyed building expensively built in decorated brick and heavy timberwork. The building is worthy of special description. It comprises five bays, red brick with a blue diaper pattern on the West wall, and a heavily timber framed East wall. It abuts on to the main house at the Southern end, the Northern end being brick built. The ground floor is divided into rooms, whilst the upper storey is open to the roof, without division. In the north-west corner a fireplace exists on both floors with the chimney stack recently rebuilt. All the original door frames exist together with the oak-mullioned windows. Over two of the windows the sliding shutters are in place with their original runners. The roof, traditional in the structure of the time, has side purlins and wind-braces without a ridgepiece.
The building had been used for general farm purposes over many years and much of the internal structure had understandably deteriorated. Over recent years the building has been extensively restored, and is in much the same condition now as when it was built over 400 years ago.
The Hall and estate continued to be owned by the Elrington family until they were sold to Mr. Edward Turner of Saffron Walden about 1635. It is likely that Mr. Turner carried out further development of the house, that is the addition of the dining room, central chimney and fireplace, and the flooring in the main hall of the house.
The Turner family occupied the Hall until it passed to a Mrs. Bithray, a sister of the last direct male heir to Edward Turner, on his death in 1738.
During the 19th century it is doubtful if there was any further major development apart from addition of a wagon barn and hayloft..... The ownership passed to the Perry family at the beginning of the 19th century.... They farmed the land of about 380 acres employing 10-15 men and up to 20 boys.
At some time in the early years of this century the Hall was sold to Thomas Carmichael. The Carmichael family occupied the house and farmed the land until William Carmichael retired in 1970. I bought the house in that year, and have extensively restored and renovated it, preserving in particular the northern extension for posterity. The main structure of the house has now stood for over 600 years, and provided it is well looked after and loved, I see no reason why it should not stand for another 600 years.

Alan Bonner, June 1992.

The Old Rectory

The Old Rectory has been Church Property since it was originally built until it was sold in 1957. Unfortunately no old records exist, so history is only speculation based on remaining features.
It is obvious that over the centuries the buildings underwent extensive alterations many times.
The oldest part is the single storey timber-framed lath and plaster projection on the East side, originally thatched, dated 15th century by the age of some of the remaining beams. There was a small loft accessible by ladder, a large open fireplace converted to a bake oven, a privy area, with an earth closet and ancient iron window in the NE corner. This building must have been the somewhat primitive home of the Rector for many generations.
The present large timber-framed lath and plaster 3-storey tiled building supported on three massive brick chimney stacks with vast underground cellar is 16th or 17th century and still contains, unaltered, the original Jacobean staircase.
The walls round the garden with a thatched top were completed at the same time, the clay being dug by hand from a clay pocket, so making the pond... The large thatched barn was also built to store the tithes and to stable 6 horses, harness and carriage. The old yew tree and box-edged path are thought to be contemporary.
It was not until the 18th century that to be in the fashion a red brick face was erected to cover the plaster work on the front and North face of the house. At the same time a second more elegant staircase to the first floor only was added. Even the red brick facing, which is now prized, went out of fashion, as a water colour picture of about 1830 exists showing the brick facing painted white. In the background of this picture the present large copper beech tree appears as a sapling.

Mr. Court, Father and Son, were the consecutive Rectors and leaders of the village for about 80 years from 1860 to the 2nd World War. They had private means and lived in some style and keeping up with the times, they put in running water and a bathroom with drains to a septic tank. ... Old Mr. Court is said to have brought the tall Wellingtonia tree from California and the Giant Hogweed from Cornwall. ...
During and after the First World War the property started to fall on hard times as less and less maintenance work was undertaken. The gardens were left untended and the roof started to leak. By 1955 the house appeared derelict. The gardens had returned to nature. The Rector, Mr. Stevens, could no longer cope and so he decided he must move to a more manageable house. Colonel Philip Gold who had for years admired the position and appearance of the Old Rectory negotiated the purchase from the Ecclesiastical Commissioners ....
By 1959 structural repairs were complete ... the Gold family took up residence at last in the Spring of 1962. There were still odd repairs, fitment, fixings and decorations to be done. Jack and Joe Chipperfield over the following years carried out hundreds of items of work.
The derelict old School was purchased and later made over to Anthony Gold who demolished the old building and concrete air-raid shelter to build, in 1974, the present School House.

Colonel P. Gold, September 1994.