Monkey Island, aka Wellington Heath Village.

A very Short History.

The Wellington Heath valley was once one of the two “Commons” in the Parish of Ledbury reserved for animal grazing. Prior to 1790, squatters started taking pieces of land in the Wellington Heath valley, and in 1795, and for a number of years after that the Ledbury Court Leet instructed that the squatters, fences and hedges, “should be laid open before, or by the next Court to be held in this Manor”. Nothing was done, and at the Court of 1807, 35 people were named as encroaching on the common. 

The 1813 Act for Inclosing Lands in the Parish of Ledbury triggered the sale of common land in Wellington Heath. This included the squatters’ holdings. In the main, the squatters were allowed to purchase the property they occupied, therefore legalizing the “status quo”.

Villagers were poor, services which we take for granted were non-existent, and work was mainly seasonal farm labouring. The Overseers of the Poor Law were sometimes called upon. In 1816 Widow Hooper had her pauper’s allowance reduced when she was “relieved of three shillings” (15p), and if she applied for more her eldest child would be “put out (as an) apprentice””. In the 1820’s Thomas Smith was in debt. He couldn’t afford his rent of five pounds per annum, and was granted a payment of two pounds fifteen shillings towards his debts. In 1841 he was still living in Wellington Heath with his wife and five children. 

It is assumed that the “Monkey Island” nickname for Wellington Heath originated from the time in the 1860’s, when bricklayers and scaffolders working on the Ledbury railway viaduct camped here. Even today, the nickname is not liked by some who were born here. The village then was a rough, tough place, and it had a reputation for drunkenness, and fighting. There were many fights at the Swallow Cider House (which was closed in the 1870’s, and turned into a laundry), and the village was sometimes also called “Hell on Earth” by other folk because of the violence. The men of the village were mostly farm workers, “They were all good fighting men, big men, six footers, some born here and some come”. The Farmers Arms, which opened as a pub in the mid-1800s, remained active after the Cider House closed, and no doubt home brewed cider was also still available, brewed both from apples, and other alternatives! 

The village’s disorderly reputation continued. In 1914 Thomas Hankins, of Wellington Heath, was charged with being drunk and disorderly at Ledbury on August 21st. The defendant was represented by his wife, and after evidence had been given by PC. Barrell, was fined 5 shillings.

The village was long a “backwater”, and only started to expand in the building boom of the late 1960s and early 70s. The first motor vehicle was recorded in 1897. The lanes were slowly tarmacked, but remain narrow and winding.  Mains Water, and electricity only arrived in 1950/1, mains drainage in 1973/4, and gas in the 1990s. Today it is a desirable and friendly place to live.

(See also The Monkey Island Republic )