D01658 Holywell and Needingworth by Joe Newell
The Author {P7919} (Photograph: Brian Jones)
Holywell and Needingworth by Joe Newell {P7919}
Published for the Author by Graham-Cameron Publishing, Sheringham, Norfolk, England
© 1999 Joe Newell ISBN 0 947672 26 5
This book is dedicated to my parents who gave me life and joy.
J.N.
Acknowledgements
When it came to writing this book I quickly found that there were gaps in my knowledge that could only be filled by talking to others, This led me to visit many old friends and I would like to express my thanks to all those who welcomed me into their homes and gave me of their hospitality and memories. I am particularly grateful for the loan of photographs which add so much to the written word. I would also like to thank the following who assisted in their various and professional ways:-
BLESMA (The British Limbless Ex-Servicemen's Association): The Cambridge Collection. Joe Godderidge, the Norfolk Artist. David Horton-Fawkes, Curator of the Diana Princess of Wales Memorial Exhibition, Althorp: Huntingdon Record Office: Brian Jones Photography; Charles Lane for his authoritative chapter on the Fraser Family: Bob Burn-Murdoch Curator of the Norris Museum: The Royal Air Force Museum, Hendon: Faith Richardson: Salmon's Postcards, Sevenoaks: Tindall’s Photocopying.
I have been unable to make contact with Tristan de Vere Cole {P8205} to obtain his consent to pictures of his mother being published, and should this book come to his notice I seek his indulgence for having done so.
Thank-you to my publishers, Mike and Helen Graham-Cameron who had the unenviable task of putting it all together.
ERRATUM
Page 2: Picture caption should read 30th August 1961 and not as stated
St Ives
1999
By the same author:
‘The Holywell Story’
Contents
Chapter 1 Introduction ........................................................... Page 1
Chapter 2 Lady Diana Spencer, Princess of Wales ..................... Page 2
Chapter 3 The Frasers, A Family of Artists ................................ Page 7
Chapter 4 Alfwara, A Noble Saxon Lady ................................... Page 12
Chapter 5 1066 and All That ................................................... Page 17
Chapter 6 Ambrose Nicholas, Lord Mayor of London ................ Page 21
Chapter 7 Thomas Tenison, Parish Priest ................................. Page 24
Chapter 8 St. Bartholomew’s Day ............................................ Page 30
Chapter 9 The Spanish Armada ............................................... Page 33
Chapter 10 The Great Fire of Needingworth ............................ Page 35
Chapter 11 Donkey Power ...................................................... .Page 39
Chapter 12 Sanders Spencer: From Shoes to Trotters................ Page 42
Chapter 13 Mavis, Beautiful and Beloved ................................ Page 48
Chapter 14 Alistair Fraser: One Man’s Endeavour .................... Page 52
Chapter 15 Scotty Young; A Mission too Many ......................... Page 54
Chapter 16 Edward William Broackes: He fell Asleep ................ Page 59
Chapter 17 The Sandifers of Needingworth ............................. Page 61
Chapter 18 The Needingworth Baptists ................................... Page 67
Chapter 19 A Village Walk ...................................................... Page 71
Chapter 20 Jeffery Day: "To My Brother".................................. Page 97
The Lapse of Time
The lapse of time
and rivers,
is the same;
both speed their journey
with a restless stream:
The silent pace
with which they steal away
no wealth can bribe no prayers persuade to stay:
Alike, irrevocable both when past,
and a wide ocean swallows
both at last.
William Cowper
Chapter 1 Introduction
I was seated one afternoon in the barber's shop in conversation with a gentleman who like myself was waiting for his turn in the chair, chatting about things in general, when he mentioned that he had lived in Needingworth for eighteen years. "Well now", I said provocatively "What is your opinion of the new house recently erected at Holywell!" “‘Never been down there", he answered. I found this reply astonishing, but then, why should it be so surprising?
If one is not in the habit of frequenting an Inn - and there is no better place to rest awhile than the Ferryboat, or if one is not in the habit of going to a place of worship and there is no better place to be at peace with God than the little church close by the well from which the village took its name; why should anyone who has no business there, or other purpose, travel that extra mile along Mill Way which joins together the two villages Holywell and Needingworth?
That is part of the charm of Holywell, it is just enough isolated that only those who have purpose go there. But for those who do, the effort is well rewarded. Here in this tranquil corner of old England, where the Union Jack flies, very little alters with the passing years. Yes, the seasons come and go - Spring - Summer - Autumn - Winter, each in turn to bring change to the natural order of things. To the south of the village the waters of the river Ouse rise and fall, enriching the pastures created from the old fen lands with just a hint that one day the marshlands may yet return.
As I take my place in the Parish Church my mind is prone to wander and I see before me in the mostly vacant pews ghostly figures and faces from the past. There are those from distant times known only by reputation, those who were the life of the village in my youth, and those who have not long gone to their rest. This is no morbid past-time, it is a joy to recall their friendly faces and personalities and to think of the church being full of these friendly folk who worked the soil or went about their varied occupations, men and women who over the ages have formed our villages into what they are today. This book is about bringing just a few of them back together as a way of thanking the many in this millennium year of two-thousand.
An old friend born in a Holywell cottage said to me "Wherever I go, and I have travelled the world, I always come back to Holywell whenever I can. One day I’ll be here forever - where the cuckoo calls".
St. Ives, June 1999 Joe Newell {P7919}
Chapter 2 The Honourable Lady Diana Frances Spencer (1 July 1961- 31 August 1997)
The Princess of Wales
It was one of those sultry evenings in June a year or so ago. My friend Bill Hoather {P8131} and I were relaxing on the terrace of the Ferry Boat Inn. Bill was sipping his Guinness with obvious delight and I was idly wondering whether he would choose to lick or to wipe the accumulating froth from his moustache for it was never a foregone conclusion. It was that sort of evening when time, like the wisps of cumulous cloud, was drifting by. It was getting toward sunset with Holywell at its best, a shepherd's delight sky lighting up Flaggholme field in its glow; a mistlike vapour rising from the river Ouse as moorhens made their nodding way home to the swamp. Swifts soared, dived and rose again searching for invisible insects on which to feed- a cuckoo called somewhere out in the distant ten, so much, yet nothing was going on as I drifted in and out of the land of nod.
We had been reminiscing Bill and I, both village boys, about our youth having so much in common. We had just discovered that although ten years apart in age we had occupied the same candle-lit freezing cold attic bedroom in the Manor house. Bill’s father {P8130} had been called to rejoin his regiment when the Great War of 1914 1918 had become inevitable and he and his sister Margaret {P8132} had been sent to stay with their grandparents for the duration - some may recall that it was all to be over by Christmas!
[Diana was christened on 23rd July 1961 and is shown here with her mother and father Viscount and Viscountess Althorp]
We were in this soporific mood induced by Bill’s Guinness and my glass of Strongbow cider, and recalling the names of the many varieties of apple and plum in the extensive old orchard at the Manor - Blenheim Orange, Orlean's Reinette, Ribston Pippin, Beauty of Bath, Belle de Louvaine, Pond's Seedling with the inevitable maggot at the stone, and many more such wonderful names to wrap around the tongue. All these trees are now long gone and replaced by bricks and mortar, but I could replant that orchard from memory tree by tree. Bill said suddenly (and I have never been able to make the connection) "Princess Diana and I were christened in the same gown". My immediate thought in response was to be flippant, but refraining. "Really‘?" I said, suddenly wide awake and realising that this was going to cost me at least another Guinness.
And so he told me the story. 'Bill' otherwise William E.S. Hoather {P8131} was the grandson of Mary Cross {P3914} born on 9th November 1852 at Overstrand Hall, near Cromer on the Norfolk coast. Mary had inherited from her mother the family christening gown of beautiful Ayrshire lace and exquisite needlework The gown had been created for an earlier generation of the Cross family in the early 1830’s. In April 1872 Mary married Sanders Spencer {P329}, born on 22nd November 1840 at Higham Ferrers in Northamptonshire. He, as is told elsewhere, was sent as a youth to Norfolk for health reasons. Mary and Sanders had 7 children. The eldest, named Sanders {P3575} after his father was born in 1874 and christened at their first home in Norfolk; the other six were Charles {P335} 1876, Mary {P3915}, Douglas {P3577} 1879, Philip {P3916} in about 1885, Spencer {P3576}, and Margery Victoria {P3917} 1887. All were born at Holywell and all were christened in the gown at Holywell church.
Margery Victoria Spencer married M.W.H. Hoather {P8130} in 1911 and gave birth to my friend Bill in 1912 who was also christened in the gown by the Rev. J.F.Tanfield {P399} M.A. at Holywell church. The Hoathers had two more children, Helen Mary {P8133} who became Mrs Alexander Waddell and Margaret {P8132} who preferred to remain single and now enjoys a quiet life in a Cambridgeshire village. The gown was kept busy for many years by the children and grandchildren of the Spencer family - it is amusing to relate that the last child to wear the gown before Princess Diana was a little on the plump side and could not get into it. Rather than break with tradition the child was clothed in a light dress and the Cross gown draped over and attached to the front only of her body, the gown being of sufficient fullness that no-one was the wiser and the ‘trick’ went unnoticed at the ceremony and became an ill-kept family secret.
In 1960 Margery Victoria, concerned for the future of the gown offered it first to the V&A Museum then to the Royal School of Needlework in which institution the 7th Earl Spencer of Althorp held office as President. He was so impressed by the quality of the work that he offered to put the gown on public display ‘in a suitable case for public viewing’ at Althorp House. It was in this setting that Viscountess Spencer viewed the robe and chose it for her daughter’s christening. Diana was born The Honourable Lady Diana Frances Spencer; her father Edward John was the Viscount Althorp. He inherited the title as 8th Earl on his father’s death in 1975. Diana’s mother was a daughter of Ruth, Lady Fermoy. At Diana's birth at Park House, Sandringham, on 1st July 1961 the baby weighed 71b. 12oz. There were two elder sisters, Sarah and Jane and a brother John who lived for only ten hours and lies buried in Sandringham churchyard. At her birth Diana’s father said "she is a perfect physical specimen", but there must have been some disappointment as the family were hoping for a son to continue the male line. It was not until May 1964 that Charles the present (ninth) Earl was born.
[Gown details]
[The christening robe used for Diana.]
[Sandringham Church. J Salmons Ltd Sevenoaks England ]
Diana was christened on 30th August 1961 in the beautiful church dedicated to St.Mary Magdalene at Sandringham by the rector the Right Reverend Percy Herbert.
There is no known blood relationship between the Holywell and the Althorp family of Spencers. However, it is interesting that Higham Ferrers and Althorp, both in Northamptonshire, are but very few miles apart. Both families can trace their ancestry back to the fifteenth century and beyond, so who knows?
The gown was eventually returned to Mrs Waddell {P8133} and on her death was kept for many years by Margaret Hoather {P8132} safely wrapped away in the dark until once more in 1986 its future again came up for discussion. Alexander Waddell and Margaret decided that as the gown originated in Norfolk it should be offered to the Norfolk Museum Service ‘Costume and Textile Centre' who accepted and added it to their collection, based in Norwich.
“She wasn’t bad all the time,
And she wasn't good all the time.
She was a perfectly ordinary girl”
Diana Spencer's Headmistress
[(Left) Diana with her sisters, six year old Sarah and Jane aged four.]
[(Right) Diana, at two months, with her mother at Park House 1961.]
Author's footnote
Having written this chapter I have endeavoured to locate a photograph of Diana’s christening at Sandringham. The museum to Diana at Althorp had only a video of the ceremony and knew nothing of the gown story. The museum at Norwich found the gown but knew nothing of its history. As a result the two have got together and the gown will go on public display at Althorp this summer of 1999. I received a photograph taken from the video for publication in this book all of which is a very happy outcome to my friend Bill’s sudden outburst on memorable evening by the ferryboat Inn at Holywell.
[The lake at Dipsey Co Cork. Francis Arthur Fraser “F. A. F” 1846-1924]
 |
[Near Buckden by Robert Winchester Fraser “R. W. Fraser” 1848-1906]
[Garden William Fraser 1856-1921 signed his paintings “W. F. Garden”]
[Benjamin water meadow, Holywell by George Gordon Fraser 1859-1895]
[Berrie House, Holywell by Arthur Anderson Fraser 1861-1904]
[The bridge, St Ives by Gilbert Baird Fraser 1865-1947]
[The Ferryboat, Holywell by Robert James Winchester Fraser “Robert Winter” 1872-1930]
Chapter 3 The Frasers
A Family of Artists -- by Charles Lane
When Surgeon Major Robert Fraser {P7856} retired on half-pay he moved first to Scotland and then, in 1861, to Bedford, knowing that the school there gave favourable terms for the tuition of the sons of those living in the town. At the time Dr Fraser had five boys to educate with, in a manner of speaking, two more to come. When his youngest son finished at Bedford School in 1882, the Frasers moved first to the Manor House and later to River View (now the River House) at Hemingford Grey. This village on the Great Ouse is below Bedford and close to St Ives, across the county boundary in Huntingdonshire. The two eldest boys left home as did Michie Fraser {P7859} who was not artistic and who joined the Consular Service. The others settled in the villages astride the river to while away their days pottering, painting, fishing, espousing the Jacobite cause, and leading impecunious and largely aimless lives in which they seemed quite satisfied - their wives less so. Dr Fraser died in 1892 and his widow {P7865} moved to a smaller house in nearby Fenstanton. To make ends meet, her sons mortgaged their expected inheritances from their mother's Will. She outlived one of them which complicated this strange arrangement no end!
The style and colouring of the brothers’ watercolours fall broadly into three groups. F.A. Fraser, R.W. Fraser (and his son R.J.W. Fraser) and A.A. Fraser employed a wet brush for ground and water with dry strokes to show distant trees, using sombre browns, blues, greys, sometimes a too-acid green, and body colour for highlights. G.W. Fraser and G.G. Fraser painted in a Pre-Raphaelite detail with natural colours. G.B. Fraser, the youngest of the brothers, whose work is not highly regarded but can occasionally be charming, used splodges of slightly bilious reds, browns and yellows, perhaps arising from a degree of colour blindness.
To imagine a simple idyll of their intermingling lives would be incorrect although it might help one to understand the brothers’ love of their surroundings by quoting the words of A.C. Benson when he writes of Hemingford Grey:
"It seems an enchanted place, where there can be
no care or sorrow, nothing hard or unlovely; or
unclean, but a sort of fairy land, where man seems to
be living in the true and beautiful life of the soul."
The Frasers were a close-knit family and all of them were undoubtedly infected by the atmosphere of this part of England where they spent most of their lives, but for the sake of clarity, l will deal with them individually.
Francis Arthur Fraser {P7857} was born in 1846 in Corfu where his father was serving in the Army at the time. When Dr Fraser moved to Hemingford Grey, Francis was living in London and was already an established contributor of quietly humorous line drawings to periodicals such as Punch and the Fun Almanac as well as a number of the semi-religious and educational periodicals of the time. He also painted genre scenes and from time to time visited St Ives to join his younger brothers’ sorties along the banks of the Ouse. According to the family he was dominated by his wife Susan {P7679}, and theirs was a sadly childless marriage. He died at Walmer, Kent in 1924. His gentle pictures and watercolours are identifiable by his signature of "FA.F."
Robert Winchester Fraser {P7858} (whose grandmother's maiden name was Garden Winchester {P7864}) was born in Scotland in 1848. When he left Bedford School he became an insurance clerk, but this work soon palled. He too moved to London and spent his time painting well-watered landscapes in the Home Counties. His pictures of buildings are warmer in tone than his cold swollen rivers and stark pollard willows; a good example of the former type of scene is The Duck Mill in Bedford Museum. He also contributed to periodicals of the day. He visited Holland and the similarity of the dykes to the English fen landscape is such that many of his Dutch pictures are described as being parts of England, and vice versa. He spent a short time in Jamaica where his great-uncle had been Rector of Trelawny. He signed his pictures "R.W. Fraser" or with his initials, and often inscribed the location of his watercolour on its face. Robert married twice, having two sons by his first wife, Emma Purser {P8134} from Cardington. In later years he became more fond of the bottle than was good for him, and died in 1906 at Gibraltar when on his way to visit his brother Michie {P7859} who had a villa at Malaga in southern Spain.
Garden William Fraser {P334} is accepted as the most talented of the family. He signed his delicate watercolours "W.F. Garden" sometimes in a higgledy-piggledy fashion to reduce its distraction from the subject. He was born in 1856 at Chatham, his father's last military station before retiring from the Army Medical Department. Early in life, Garry, as he was known, settled at the House in the Fields near Hemingford Abbots. The girl whom he married in 1889 gained a reputation for expecting rather more from rural Huntingdonshire than could be provided. Her husband was a highly intelligent man, but lazy. He was content with a simple life, painting, reading, and showing his children, whom he adored, the beauty of the countryside. So different in temperament, it is little wonder that Ethel Fraser {P4317} finally left, taking their six children with her back to Birmingham from whence she came. Garden travelled in Great Britain and Ireland, and also visited Michie in Spain. The majority of his watercolours were of the fen villages near his home by the Ouse, particularly of St Ives and Holywell. His style of work is photographic in detail with crisp, clear colouring and an ability to catch either the shimmering light of a summer day or the cold bright light after an autumn shower. Garden became a recluse, living in a room at the Ferryboat Inn, Holywell. His habits were nocturnal and one night, in January 1921 he missed his step outside the Inn, hit his head on a stone and died in hospital two weeks later, aged sixty-four. He lies buried, without memorial, in the Priory Road Cemetery, Huntingdon.
George Gordon Fraser {P7860} (born in Scotland in 1859) was the most imaginative and ambitious of the brothers. As a boy he wrote and illustrated mystery stories for the entertainment of his family. Soon after leaving Bedford School he was drawing cartoons for Punch, Ally Sloper's Half Holiday, Judy, and the Saturday Journal. He also illustrated an edition of Wilkie Collins' The Moonstone, and The Diary of a Pilgrimage by Jerome K. Jerome. His few watercolours are almost more meticulous in their detail than those by Garden, but populated with youths, fishing, farmboys and animals giving life to the otherwise static nature of the landscape. These pictures are rare due to his tragically early death. It seems that a hundred years ago the winters were more severe than now, since the Ouse and its floodwaters frequently froze. So it was in February 1895. The Frasers were all keen skaters and one evening Gordon decided to have a final spin while his wife went home to Houghton to prepare their supper. He failed to return and a fearful Catherine {P7867} raised the alarm. Search parties were organised that night and during the following days and weeks. To compound Catherine’s distress, unfounded and malicious rumours circulated that Gordon had run away with some other woman and, even that they were on their way to India. It was not until early April that his body was found entangled in the roots of a willow about two miles from where he was last seen. He died aged thirty-four, and there is a small memorial of him in the churchyard at Hemingford Grey. In 1896 Fun magazine published Gordon's best work under the title Humorous Pictures as a tribute to him and to raise money for his widow and four children. He usually signed his work "G. Gordon Fraser".
Arthur Anderson Fraser {P4324} (1861-1904), the most ardent Jacobite of the family, lived in a small house at Holywell still known by the name he gave it: White Rose Cottage. His watercolours are extremely varied in quality; some almost naive in his treatment of landscape. His 'atmosphere' is always good, particularly in his snow scenes which are exceptionally well painted. He signed his work in a variety of ways: "A. Anderson", "A. Fraser", or later with a monogram in the shape of a wigwam which appears to be "A.A." but is in fact "A.A.F." In 1891 he formed the White Cockade Club which, remarkably from so small a beginning, led to similar clubs being raised in other parts of the country. On the 29th of May each succeeding year Holywell church was decorated with oak branches as was the Ferryboat Inn, the club’s headquarters. There were quoits matches just across the river during the afternoon and the evening was taken up with speeches, Jacobite songs and toasts to '“Queen Mary the Fourth". Music was provided by a small string band in which G.B. Fraser played the fiddle. A.A. Fraser died suddenly in 1904. and interest in Jacobitism around St Ives died with him.
Gilbert Baird Fraser {P378}, born at Bedford in 1865, was best known for smoking his pipe! He was a prolific watercolourist, but unsuccessful. It was said there was no need to paper his rooms in his Holywell cottage on Front Street since his pictures covered the walls from floor to ceiling. His wife {P4318} taught the local children in the house and those who attended remember the pungent smell of tobacco, and having to keep quiet when Gilbert was painting in the bay window of the front room. The little of his work which is in circulation is signed either "G.B. Fraser" or “'G. Baird Fraser". He died in I947.
It would seem that Michie Forbes Fraser {P7859} (1850-1931) did not paint at all. For most of his time in the Consular Service he was in China, before being hurriedly evacuated from Chung-King during the Boxer Rebellion in 1900. He retired to Surrey, having also bought a villa in Spain, played the Stock Market successfully and continually responded to calls for help from his brothers who were always in financial difficulties.
R.W. Fraser had two sons. The elder, Robert James Winchester Fraser {P323}, born in 1872, was as fine a watercolourist as his father and in style practically indistinguishable. Fortunately R.J.W.F. always signed his work "R. Winter", which was nothing more than his abbreviation of "R. Winchester" avoiding confusion between himself and his father. After his father's death, Bobby Fraser went to live at Holywell, joining his uncles in the neighbourhood. He is remembered as being as poor as his relatives and yet extremely generous. A contemporary wrote: "in my opinion he was the best of the Frasers and I can see him painting on the front at Holywell now; a small thin shabby man; he gave me my first box of paints. He was always broke and borrowed money all over the place. He could never repay it so he would paint a picture in lieu". He died in March 1930 five days after the death of his great friend and cousin, Mack {P7868}, a son of Arthur Anderson Fraser {P4324}. They had the habit of taking night walks in their shirtsleeves in all weathers; the final result was pneumonia for both of them!
R.W.F’s younger son, Francis George Gordon Fraser {P7861} was born in 1879. His rather dry work is usually found signed: "F.G. Fraser", "F. Gordon Fraser" or "Francis Fraser" and none of it approaches the quality of the work of his brother, father or uncles. Injured during WW1 he was never well, living in London and peddling his monotonous watercolours to whichever dealers would buy two or three at a time. In order to apparently vary the source of these paintings he signed some of them "Alex Gordon", "F. Gordon", and possibly "Frank Vincent" or "F.R. Kinglsey". He died at Twickenham in 1931, aged 52.
Contemporary exhibition catalogues of the Royal Academy, New Watercolour Society, Royal Society of British Artists and the Dudley Gallery all contain titles by the brothers (except G.B.F.). They also show that the unspoilt and thinly populated countryside around this "other St Ives" attracted many artists at the turn of the century. Among the visitors were William Kay Blacklock, Hubert Coop, Frederick G. Cotman, A.A. Glendinning, Keeley Halswelle. Charles lnce, John lnskip, Thomas Taylor Ireland, W. Stuart Lloyd, John Muirhead, Alexander Rimmington, Ernest Waterlow, William Tatton Winter, Edmund Wimperis and his friends Alfred East and Yeend King. Others lived in the area for a number of years: J.W. King {P387} (Holywell), T. Hodgson Liddell {P3797} (Moynes Hall, Holywell), W.W. Milne (Houghton and St Ives), and Charles Whymper (Houghton). In this temporary colony of painters, the Frasers are particularly remembered as Bohemian, intelligent, courteous, and endearing individuals in complete harmony with their "sort of fairyland".
Chapter 4 Alfwara - A Noble Saxon Lady
By the conjunction of a vision by a Royal Duke and the munificence of a Saxon Lady the village of Holywell had close ties with the Benedictine Abbey at Ramsey from the year of its foundation in 969 A.D. to the dissolution of the monasteries which began in 1535.
There was a Duke of the East Angles named Athelstan, of royal blood descended from the ancient kings renowned for his prowess in battle, his wealth and his lands, and his worldly wisdom. He proved himself so useful to the King that affairs of state were submitted for his judgement and he became known somewhat derisively as Athelstan Half-King. In his early manhood he married Alfwen a noble lady. They had four sons, Athlewold, Alfwold. Athlesin. and the youngest Ailwyn. Ailwyn far exceeded his brothers in his habitual pursuit of morality and virtue. Alfwen, in addition to her own children, 'with maternal care, nursed and brought up' the renowned King Edgar 'while as yet a tender child in the cradle'. In due time King Edgar made Ailwyn 'Alderman of all England] and referred to him as a ‘near relative'.
While attending the funeral of a noble man who had died suddenly in the Court of King Edgar during an Easter festivity, Ailwyn had discussions with Oswald, Bishop of Worcester which led to the foundation of the Abbey at Ramsey. There was already in the ‘solitary tranquillity' of Ramsey a small religious establishment. Three men who had ‘renounced the sinful lusts of the flesh and were earnestly desirous of knowing the rules of monastic holiness', were then living in a wooden cell which Ailwyn had built for them a few years before; prior to this there were no habitations on the isle, nor any building but the sheds for his herds of cattle.
Ramsey or ‘Rams Island' was a tract of land about two miles long and a little narrower in width, said to take its name from the words ‘Ram' and 'Eye' for island; the story goes that before it was inhabited by man a solitary ram with horns crooked and twisted took up his abode there when the fen was frozen and could not escape after the thaw. The Ramsey Chronicler says 'on the west side (for on all other there is no access to it by reason of the fens) it is served from the firm lands by certain deep and boggy quagmires, in breadth about two bow shots .... the access unto it was by navigable vessels, brought thither through a slow stream with gentle winds, but now by much labour and at no small cost. There is, with wood, stones and gravel a firm causeway so that people may come on foot .... being environed by elders, green canes and bulrushes which beautify it exceedingly, and before it became inhabited was full of all sorts of trees - now it is full of gardens, fat pastures, shady groves and rich meadows. It is besides surrounded by fenny meres full of eels, and lakes breeding many sorts of fish and water fowl'.
Ailwyn’s motive for having established this small community originated in a vision he had while ‘wasted with the rage of a most heavy sickness’ his recovery from which was announced to him by a messenger from the Blessed Benedict, the Father of the monks in whose memory he was commanded to erect a monastery at Ramsey. Bishop Oswald who had already established a small community of twelve men 'full of heavenly fervour' in a village in his diocese, offered to oversee this new endeavour. He sent 'the venerable man Aednoth’ to Ramsey who enlarged the chapel he found there, constructed the necessary offices and much other work besides.
Having done all this Aednoth sent a messenger to the Bishop but ‘He, it being the autumn time, delayed his coming until the harvest was gathered in’ though in the meantime he made preparations for his journey, and at length taking with him the books and ornaments suitable for divine worship, and accompanied by twelve brethren from the Monastery at Westbury, Gloucestershire, and the Venerable Germanus he proceeded to Ramsey where he was met by Ailwyn introducing his infant flock into the newly erected folds, and the divine mysteries being celebrated with a solemn gladness, the management of ‘things without' were committed to Germanus, and those within to the Prior Aednoth. The charges of the maintenance of the brethren were to be paid from ‘the common purse' of both the Duke and the Bishop, until they could be more conveniently provided for in the rents of their estates and possessions.
During the ensuing winter the necessary materials were prepared for building the church and in the spring of 969 workmen were hired and the foundations laid.
In the meantime Oswald was promoted by King Edgar to be Archbishop of York, and soon afterwards on 6th November 974 the abbey church was solemnly dedicated to St. Benedict.
King Edgar gave five hides at Burwell and 'two bells acquired for the price of £20.” The church at Guthrumcestre etc:. Archbishop Oswald {P8135} gave ‘THE VILLE OF NEEDINGWORTH’ and many precious relics. Duke Ailwyn included the whole of Ramsey with the adjoining lakes and meres, the land of Upwode, with the fisheries of the adjacent streams and the hall and court which he had there. .. and various other estates including the land of Weston, which he had inherited from his mother to whom it had been given by King Edgar, for the diligent nursing she had bestowed on him in his infancy.
The Lady Alfwara {P8136}, a Noble Saxon Lady, granted HALLIEWELL (Holywell) to the abbey, together with the church and part of the manor of Ellesworth (Elsworth) and etc. Also one chasuble and alb, and all the rest of the sacridotal [sic] ornaments, and five marks of pure gold to guild all these, and one cross, and one shrine with a coverlet, two silver vessels. two curtains, two cushions, and her saddle with all the horse furniture.
...Ramsey was to become one of the richest monasteries in the kingdom.
On the death of Archbishop Oswald in 993, Aednoth the Younger was chosen as first Abbot of Ramsey. During the sixteen years that he was in authority, the reputed remains of St. Ivo were brought from Slepe (St Ives) to Ramsey.
In the year 990 Gode {P7935} was sent to be priest at Holywell. It will add to our vision of his appearance to know that as a member of the Benedictine order, called the black monks, he would wear a loose gown of black stuff reaching down to his heels, with a cowl or hood of the same and a scapulary and under this another habit of the same size made up of white flannel, with boots on his legs.
In these ways the manorial rights of Holywell, thanks to the generosity of the Lady Alfwara, added to the coffers of Ramsey from the very beginning right through to the dissolution of the monasteries which began in 1535.
In the year 1540 the demesnes and lands of the abbey with several meres and lakes were granted to Richard Cromwell in recognition of his services to the King (Henry VIII). The manorial rights of Holywell were granted likewise to the Earl of Manchester.
[The gateway to Ramsey Abbey ©1999 Public Record Office]
[St John the Baptist Church, Holywell. The west tower was built of wrought Barnack stone taken from the dissolved Ramsey Abbey. ]
Now all that remains of this once great Abbey is the rather splendid ruin of its gateway; since the abbey was so shamefully razed to the ground there is some small satisfaction in knowing that the west tower of Holywell church was rebuilt using wrought barnack stone taken from the dissolved abbey. The building of the tower was begun in 1547, Thomas Roper {P8137} being the mason, and completed in 1551.
Archbishop Oswald {P8135} died on 27th February, 993, Duke Ailwyn died in the same year on the 8th May, and was buried at Ramsey. The following epitaph was inscribed on his tomb 'Here rests Ailwyn kinsman of the famous King Edgar, Alderman of all England, and the miraculous founder of this monastery'. The Lady Alfwara {P8136} died in the year 1007 and is also buried at Ramsey.
Aednoth the Younger who had become Bishop of Dorchester and Wolfins his successor who succeeded him as abbot at Ramsey were both slain while praying for the English army at the battle of Ashenden in Essex, 1016, fought between the Danes under Canute and the Saxons under Edmund Ironside. With them fell many other ecclesiastics who, according to the English custom had met there not with arms but to assist the fighting men with their prayers. Ethelward the son of Ailwyn was also slain in the battle which was lost due to the treacherous behaviour of one Edric. Wolfins and Ethelward were both buried at Ramsey, but Bishop Aednoth was stolen from the brethren of Ramsey by the monks of Ely and is buried there.
With the remnants of his force Edmund was forced to make a hasty retreat towards Gloucester; Canute pursued the fugitive King expecting to find him defenceless, but Edmund with astonishing speed had raised another army. Canute decided to settle the dispute between them by staking all on one stroke in hazarding an immediate attack on the English force. The two armies were engaged in the fight when that same traitor Edric stepped forth. harangued the troops and persuaded them that much bloodshed would be saved by a single combat between the two leaders. The two monarchs agreed and they prepared for combat. Having each broken their spear the combatants fought hand to hand. When at length Canute saw that Edmund had the superiority he proposed a truce, and embracing one another they agreed to partition the country between them.
Canute would have the northern part of England and Edmund the southern part with title Supreme King of England.
The same Edric beheld this amicable settlement with a jealous eye seeing that Edmund might now bring him to account for his treachery, and when occasion permitted employed two ruffians to assassinate the brave Edmund. So in that same year of 1016 he fell a martyr to one of the greatest villains that ever disgraced the annals of this or any country.
With Edmund fell the splendour of the Anglo-Saxons. Their monarchy had lasted 190 years from its establishment by Egbert the Great, and 568 years from the first arrival of Saxons on the shores of England.
[The Rev Owen Swan {P7829}, rector of Holywell-cum-Needingworth (1987-1998) offers celebratory gifts to the Right Honourable John major MP, Chancellor of the Exchequer at the Millennium Fete on 23rd of June 1990. It marked 1000 years from the coming of Gode as priest, in the year 990’s A.D.]
Chapter 5 1066 and all that
Romans. Saxons and Danes all came in turn and left their mark on the land and then came William later to be known as ‘The Conqueror' of whom it was said ‘he could subdue a Baron with the look of his eye and slay an ox with one blow of his fist'.
It was the morning of October 14th 1066 and not yet sunrise as the army from Normandy made their way across the Sussex marshes toward the place we know as Battle, where the English army under Harold was camped. Three weeks earlier Harold and his men had met and vanquished a Norwegian invasion at Stamford Bridge in Yorkshire; then, learning of the danger in the south, had force-marched 250 miles to meet the threat. King Harold had hoped to take the Normans by surprise but by nine o'clock in the morning his troops were not yet lined up for combat, their ranks depleted because many were not yet in the field. Indeed many were exhausted by the long march and some had fallen by the wayside by sickness or desertion.
William saw his chance and ordered his troops to attack. At one time it seemed the English, having the high ground, had gained the advantage of the fighting, but then by fatal mistake they swarmed down the hill in full pursuit of the Normans, with ranks broken they were no match for the enemy cavalry which had only to turn and cut them to pieces. Two of Harold's brothers were slain and he was mortally wounded. Report says that his head was hacked from his body, others say an arrow pierced his eye as illustrated in the Bayeux tapestry. Whatever the truth of the circumstances of Harold's death, defeat was the outcome.
The Norman knights of William's cavalry fought in armour with lance and sword from the backs of strong-limbed heavy horses brought with them from France, whereas the English custom was to fight on foot swinging the double handed battle axe. The heavy horses were the ancestors of the draught horse, the 'gentle giants' of today, particularly the shire horse which replaced the ox and played such an important part in English agriculture for 900 years until ousted from the land by the diesel tractors of the 20th century.
In the years following the Conquest castles were built in every place that William faced opposition and uprising. Stone built castles were built at important locations, but at Huntingdon and Cambridge the castles were ditch and earthwork with wooden palisades.
[The plough team at work on Norfolk artist/farmer Joe Godderidge's farm]
[In their heyday pure bred stallions walked the country roads to serve mares on isolated farms. Bury Victory Chief, a five-year-old shire stallion bred by John Rowell of Bury near Ramsey.]
[Shire horses at rest on John Godderidge's farm]
The last men to resist the oppressors were the followers of Hereward the Wake {P7877}, son of Leofric and the Lady Godiva. His story is best told in the book by Charles Kingsley. Travelling in disguise Hereward is said to have forded the river Ouse at Holywell on his journeys to and from the Isle of Ely. Ely was Hereward’s chief refuge, protected on all sides by the dangerous begs of the fens. But in 1071 William was determined to quell this stubborn resistance to his rule and with great loss of life besieged the Isle. Finally, the defenders suffering from starvation and low morale were forced to submit - it is said by treachery; Hereward alone escaped.
In 1085 William ordered a great national survey and sent men all ever England to discover how much each landholder held-in land and livestock - how many ploughs - how much woodland, meadow and pasture. The survey was carried out with such thoroughness that one Chronicler says ‘not even an ox, or cow, or pig escaped notice'. The result of this survey became known as the Domesday Book because the villagers related it to the biblical ‘day of judgement'. The survey was made possible by the Saxons, many years before, having conceived a system of taxation and judiciary control by the ‘hide’. The exact size of a hide of land is not known and it may have been variable according to the lay of the land under cultivation. Some think a hide was as much land as would support a family, or that it could be as much as 120 acres. Hides were then grouped into Hundreds, and Holywell came in the Hundred of Hurstingstone, named after an Anglo-Saxon family called Hyrstingas meaning forest dwellers who lived around the Ouse valley and on the wooded uplands. The moot or meeting place of the Hundred was at the point where the abbot’s chair of stone stood by the roadside about a mile from the village of Oldhurst on the old road to St Ives. Some say the ‘chair’ is the base of a stone cross, perhaps destroyed by heathen invaders centuries before. In 1952 work began to extend the main runway at Wyton airfield in readiness for the arrival in 1953 of the Canberra Photo-Reconnaissance Unit. This necessitated the closure of the road and the whole area where the chair stood was taken into the enlarged airfield. For safekeeping the stone was removed to the Norris Museum at St Ives where it still is. Alongside the chair was a gallows which must have had a sobering effect on wrongdoers as they passed along the road.
The Abbot of Ramsey had overall jurisdiction granted by the Crown for ‘holding pleas, trying causes, levying fines and forfeitures' and much more. The King’s Commissioners were to take evidence from The Sheriff, from all the Barons, their henchmen and the whole Hundred. One can imagine the anxiety with which the villagers awaited the arrival of the King's men and their entourage, knowing that they were to be questioned under oath on every aspect of their life and possessions.
The land to the south of Holywell village was mostly primeval fen subject to the tidal rise and fall of the waters, and a catchment for land drainage waters from the uplands of the county and beyond. The marshland provided birds to eat as well as fish and fowl; reeds and rushes were cut for thatching their dwellings, turves cut and dried for winter fuel. On the drier parts in summer, hay would be cut to feed the livestock through the winter. Cultivated land was in the immediate surrounds of the settlement and to the north; evidence of ridge and furrow cultivation was clearly visible until recent times. Beyond this area the landscape of open heath used for grazing and for the chase led toward Somersham forest and the upland woods of Woodhurst and Oldhurst.
[The Abbot’s chair in the courtyard at The Norris Museum St Ives]
The information gleaned by the officials was collated at Winchester where King William's grandson Henry was Bishop. The survey was carried out in 1086 and completed in less than 12 months. This great work entitled ‘The Book of Winchester' is now preserved in the Public Records Office. The skins of eight hundred sheep were used in making the parchment.
Translated from the Latin the entry for Holywell reads
‘In the Manor of HoIiewelIe 9 Hides taxable, Land for 9 ploughs. Besides the said hides, land in Lordship for 2 ploughs. Now in Lordship 2 ploughs; A Church and a Priest. Meadow 30 acres; woodland pasture 1 league and 4 furlongs long and 1 league wide. Value before 1066 and now £8. Alfwold has one hide of this land from the Abbot. He has 1 plough and 3 smallholders. Value 10 shillings ‘
There is no mention of Needingworth in the Domesday survey, and it can only be assumed that at that time there was no established settlement. Much earlier, on the consecration of the abbey at Ramsey in 974, the Archbishop Oswald made a gift to the abbey of 'the village of Needingworth'.
The etymology of Needingworth is not straightforward. Dr Isaac Taylor mentions in his ‘Words and Places' that a Teutonic clan named Nydings came over from Germany and settled in England. Another source explains that Need denotes wanting, 'ing' or ‘inge' is Anglo-Saxon for a field, and ‘worth', meaning village or farm. In old documents it is variously spelled Neddingewurda - Niddingworth - Nidingworth - Niddyngworthe - Nydingworth.
Holywell is quite straightforward having taken its name from the well or spring of fresh water which flows from the gravel bed beneath the hill on which the church stands.
Chapter 6 Sir Ambrose Nicholas - died 1578 Lord Mayor of London
Early in the 16th century, before a register of Christenings was kept in the parish church at Holywell, a son was born to John Nicholas {P8145} and his wife {P8146} at Needingworth and the boy was named Ambrose. On reaching maturity Ambrose {P8147} left home to seek his fortune in the city of London. His parents would have wished him good fortune of course, but little could they have imagined that one day their son would rise to become Lord Mayor of that great city.
Nothing much is known of his early years there, except that he became apprenticed to a Skinner, but it is evident that he made headway and became a respected citizen of London Town. He lived in Bread Street and probably had his business close by St. Paul’s Cathedral. In those days that area of less than one square mile was a maze of narrow streets and open sewers. Pestilence and disease were rife. It was simply waiting for the outbreak of the 'black death' and the great fire- to happen - as it did many years later. In 1666 thirteen thousand buildings were destroyed by the blaze including St. Paul's Cathedral and St. Mildred's church in Bread Street. On his death Ambrose Nicholas had been buried in St. Mildred’s beneath “a very faire monument". Bread Street rose again from the ashes only to be destroyed once more by the German air raids on London during the second world war. But the street rose yet again and today is part of the 'concrete jungle'.
During Ambrose Nicholas' years in London, the world’s greatest playwright William Shakespeare was born in 1564. Mary I daughter of Catherine of Aragon was Queen (1553-1558). During her reign hundreds were tried as heretics and burned at the stake including Thomas Cranmer Archbishop of Canterbury, John Latimer, and Nicholas Ridley. Mary's half-sister Elizabeth I, daughter of Anne Boleyn was on the throne for the remainder of Ambrose Nicholas’ life. This period saw the rise of England to become a first class power. Elizabeth’s cousin Mary Queen of Scots who had spent twenty years of her life a prisoner met her death the axe in February 1587 at Fotheringay Castle. Little more than a mound of grass now marks the spot of Elizabeth's shame. Her one guilty concession was that Mary be beheaded in the warmth of the banqueting hall rather than in the winter cold of the courtyard.
Sir Walter Raleigh (1554 - 1618) a favourite of Queen Elizabeth, founded a colony in Virginia and brought back the potato to replace the now despised turnip of the common folk, and tobacco of which the least said the better. In 1577 Drake sailed out of Plymouth to circumnavigate the world.
These were stirring but dangerous times in which to live, but throughout it all Ambrose {P8147} was busy and prospering both in trade and in his civic life. He became a member of the Most Worshipful Company of Salters. He held public office from 1559 to 1561 as treasurer of St. Bartholomew's Hospital. He represented three wards in the city, being elected Alderman for the Portsoken ward (1566 - 1569), Walbrook (1569 - 1574) and Bread Street (1574 - 1578). He also served as Sheriff (1566 - 67). The historian Stowe states that 'Ambrose gave twelve almshouses in Monkswell Street near Cripplegate wherein he placed twelve poor people giving them each seven pence a week and once every year five sackes of coal and one quarter of a hundred faggots all his gift for ever'. Clearly he had become a man of some wealth and in the year 1575 he was called to be Lord Mayor of London. He was knighted in 1576 and died in 1578.
Sir Ambrose Nicolas was by common consent, called in this year of our Lord (1575) to the rule and government of our city, who effected the same in great gravity and circumspect diligence. He kept no feast likewise at the Guildhall but kept due custom in going to Westminster by water, and dined at his own house, as for the companies they dined in their several halls. This knight did in many ways believe and comfort for, and lived for some few years a worthy knight and justice of the city, and lies buried under a very fair monument in St Mildred’s church Bread Street, nothing further can be showed concerning this knight as yet. This year captain Frobisher set forth his first voyage to Cathay for gold, and brought one of the people of that country home with.
Sheriffes Edward Osborne, Wolftan Dyxy
Chapter 7 Thomas Tenison (1636 - 1715) Parish priest
Not many parishes in England can claim that a future Archbishop of Canterbury was their priest, yet this distinction came to Holywell in those disquieting years of the 17th century. Thomas Tenison {P7970} was born on 29th September 1636 at Cottenham, another edge of the fen village in Cambridgeshire, where his father was a curate. Laud was then Archbishop of Canterbury and it was he who turned the money changers out of St. Paul's Cathedral and ordered that communion tables be placed at the east end of all churches. Thomas Tenison was only 12 years of age when on 30th January 1649 King Charles I stepped on to the scaffold, wearing extra warm clothing so that possible shivering from the cold air might not be seen as fear of the executioner. Thomas went up to Corpus Christi College, Cambridge in 1653 and graduated Bachelor of Arts in 1657. At this time the Church was subjected to Puritan domination and, as an expediency, Thomas studied medicine ('physic') but his heart and soul were with the church in its time of suffering, and he was ordained secretly at Richmond by the Bishop of Salisbury, it being his firm intention to enter the ministry. He became Master of Arts in 1660, Bachelor of Divinity in 1667, and Doctor of Divinity in 1680.
At this time one of his students was Thomas Montague, fifth son of the Earl of Manchester {P14080}. In 1662 he was presented with the Living of St. Andrew the Great in Cambridge. In 1665 Cambridge had a visitation of the plague and most people including Isaac Newton, fled the town for the purer air of the country. But Tenison stayed on to minister to his parishioners. An 18th century college historian writes 'Pestilence broke out with such violence that none ventured to continue here but Mr Tenison, one of the Fellows, and two scholars and a few servants, for whom Preservative Powder was bought and administered in wine, whilst charcoal, pitch, and brimstone were kept continuously burning in the gatehouse. The former not only resided here but what is very extraordinary, attended upon the care of St. Andrew's the parish of which he was then Minister, with perfect safety to himself during the whole time'.
[Thomas Tenison, Archbishop of Canterbury]
It was customary for rising young clergymen to attach themselves to some powerful family, and at the time of the Restoration of the Monarchy Tenison became Chaplain to Edward, Second Earl of Manchester {P14095}. It was he who appointed Tenison to the Rectory of Holywell-cum-Needingworth in 1667. In December of that year he married Anne {P8148}, daughter of Dr Love Dean of Ely who was Master of his old college (1596 - 1661). His place of residence at Holywell is not known, but it is interesting to surmise that a likely home for the newly-weds would have been Moynes Hall which had been rebuilt by one of his predecessors at Holywell, William Chaderton {P7966} (1570 - 1579).
[Register of christenings at the parish of Holywell-cum-Needingworth 1669]
He was the first Rector to keep a parochial register, and it was his custom to place his signature at the end of the entries for each year. (These registers are in the safe keeping of the County Records office at Huntingdon), The records included in this first volume (for the years 1667-1746) show a total of 1053 baptisms (yearly average 14) 360 marriages (yearly average 5) and 1242 burials (yearly average 16). There were 27 baptisms in 1676 and 37 burials two years later.
In 1672 Tenison drew up a deed and terrier of all the lands belonging to the church, and signed the document on 2nd April. He instituted a "Tenison Charity" for the poor, and a fund for the parish church. He also presented the parish with a characteristic gift - a collection of statutes in two volumes dated 1632 and 1667. Both bearing the inscription "The gift of Thomas Tenison {P7970} to ye Parish of Holywell". Nor was Mrs Tenison {P8148} behind him in generosity for she gave to the church a book of Common Prayer inscribed "The gift of Mrs Anne Tenison to the parish of Holywell for ye use on the more solemn occasions". This book includes a “Service of thanksgiving for deliverance from the most traitorous and bloody intended massacre by gunpowder".
Whilst still at Holywell in 1672 Tenison became Chaplain-in-Ordinary to the King. On 8th October 1680 he was nominated to the important living of St.Martin-in-the-Fie1ds, London. At some stage he obtained the advowson of Holywell because he appointed John Knighton his successor before leaving the parish in 1681.
John Evelyn the diarist, who was a frequent worshipper at St. Martin's thought him "One of the most profitable preachers in the Church of England, being also of a most holy conversation, very learned and ingenious”. So conscientious was he that Evelyn adds "The pains he takes and care of his parish, will, I fear, wear him out, which would be an inexpressible loss". What a difference he must have found in the bustle of London compared to the tranquillity of life at Holywell. At one Communion on Sunday 7th October 1688 Evelyn was one of near 1000 devout persons”.
Nell Gwynn - the favourite of King Charles and the 'Witty Nelly’ of Pepys, resided in Tenison's Parish and he was sent for when she fell ill with apoplexy in November 1687. She had drawn up her will and in it requested "that Dr Tenison preach her funeral sermon. That there be a decent pulpit cloth and cushion given to St. Martin's, and £100 for taking any poor debters of these parishes out of prison, for clothes for the winter and other necessities as he shall find most fit." Tenison {P7970} did preach this sermon but what he said is not recorded. Later, when William of Orange and Queen Mary were considering a successor to the Bishopric of Lincoln, the Earl of Jersey did his best to prejudice the queen against Dr Tenison, as he wished to promote a protégée of his own. He reminded the Queen "that he had some weeks before delivered a notable sermon in praise of Mrs Eleanor Gwynn, one of King Charles the second's late concubines. "What!" cried the Queen, "l have heard as much. This is a sign that the poor unfortunate woman died penitent, for if I can read a man’s heart through his looks, had she not made a truly Christian and pious end the Doctor would never have been induced to speak well of her." And so the Ear1’s mention of Nell Gwynn had the opposite of his intended effect and Tenison was elected to Lincoln.
Tenison himself tells the story of a rather curious experience he had whilst at St. Martins. "One day a young woman came to me to visit her dying father in a yard or lane in King’s Street, Westminster, and importuning me much to go with her. She said that her father lay under the horror of having cut the King’s head (Charles I). When I came the Person was dead and no confession was left in writing, nor any other account to be got but that the person had been a sort of butcher or cattle driver at St. Ives in Huntingdonshire, was sent for by Oliver Cromwell {P7934} about the end of 1648, and had ever since lived obscurely by a feined name and received a yearly Pension which died with him." (See footnote).
Many years after this incident Tenison asked his friend White Kennett to make some enquiries as to the whereabouts of the daughter at the Griffin or Green Dragon Tavern in Fleet Street but the house had changed hands and he could discover nothing.
The Duke of Monmouth, illegitimate son of Charles II and a protestant whose ambitions to the throne of England came to a sorry end at the battle of Sedgmoor in Somerset in 1685, was captured after the routing and massacre of his troops and placed in the Tower of London under threat of execution. His plea for mercy went unheard. The Duke declined to make "a confession of his crimes“ and was refused Communion by the Bishops who attended him. In his extremity the Duke himself asked of the King that he might see Tenison for he had worshipped at St. Martin’s. The request was granted but owing to the Duke’s obstinacy in confessing certain things Tenison also refused him Communion. Tenison was one of those present at the execution on 15th July 1685. It was a disgraceful affair with much suffering for the Duke of Monmouth, the executioner (not the butcher from St Ives) using a blunt axe only succeeded in severing the head on the fifth attempt.
Dr Tenison {P7970} served as the elected Bishop of Lincoln (1692-1694) "with conscientious diligence and Protestant zeal". Following the death of Archbishop Tillotsen in November 1694 he was elected to the Bishopric of Canterbury "Being esteemed a person of great learning, piety, charity and wonderful moderation" and served until his death on 14th December 1715.
In this chapter the concern has been to show something of the life and times of Thomas Tenison {P7970} as a Parish Priest. There is, of course, much more to his life both as a priest and particularly of his years as Bishop of Lincoln and Archbishop of Canterbury which has not been touched upon at all. Those were indeed troublous times and maybe in his worst moments the good Doctor was able to look back with thankfulness for his early years at Holywell.
[Oliver Cromwell, Lord Protector]
[About the end of 1648 Oliver Cromwell sent to St Ives "for a butcher or cattle driver" to behead King Charles I[1], recorded Archbishop Tenison.]
Chapter 8 St. Bartholomew’s Day 24th August - The French Protestants.
On Sunday 24th August 1572 St. Bartholomew's Day, the bell of St. Germain- L'Auxerrois in Paris signalled the city's Catholic population to take up their arms and set upon the unsuspecting French Protestants known as Hugenots[2] (from the german ‘a companion bound by an oath'). Brutal killings took place all over France, figures for the dead range from 10,000 to the unlikely 70,000 claimed by the Hugenots. Whichever figure is near the truth it was a dreadful time for these people who simply wished to live by the Protestant faith. The great debate between the Catholics and Protestants of Europe had been inflamed by Martin Luther’s 95 theses nailed to the door of Wittenberg church in which he questioned the authority of the Pope and brought civil war to France.
[A Hugenot wedding]
Peace and freedom of worship did not come until the Edict of Nantes 1598. This Edict was revoked in 1685, and the law then assumed that there were no Protestants in France, although they actually numbered between one and two million. Anyone performing any act of Protestant worship was liable to be treated as a relapsed heretic. The penalty for attending a religious assembly was for men, the galleys for life, for women, imprisonment, for children compulsory education in convents. Every act done by a Protestant pastor, no matter where it was performed was said technically to be done ‘in the desert' and worship could only be carried on in secret places, and not even there could they worship freely. It was a capital offence under the law of France not only to perform any pastoral function but even to be a Pastor and many were sent to the gallows.
This persecution brought misery to thousands, and whole families fled the country, many of them came to the east of England. Some settled for example, in Wisbech, and many in Needingworth. During the incumbency at Holywell of the Rev Alexander Torriano {P7972} and previously, French protestants and other refugees were granted sums of money. The church register records several such payments:
"Collected upon ye brief for Michael Kys {P8149} and Peter Kys {P8150}, Hungarians ye sum of five shillings, July 16, 1667"
"1694 collected upon ye brief for the poor French Protestants £1.01.5d"
"Collected upon ye brief for the French Protestants paid to Mr Salmon 12 shillings 1689"
"April 21, 1699 collected upon ye brief for the poor exiled Vandois and French Protestants £1.18.11d"
As far as is known Holywell is the only church register in the County having notes referring to the French refugees.
At an annual church service on or about St. Bartholomews Day the French massacre and it’s place in history is remembered.
Nor was it only the French Protestants who were helped by the villagers of Holywell and Needingworth; amongst several entries in the register are the following;
"30th of May 1671 paid to Dr Budd by Edward Offley the sum of £2.16.11d puts collected in Hallywell upon ye brief for the ...?...of English captives taken by Turkish pirates"
"April 29, 1728 paid to William Sanders 4 pounds and three pence collected in Holywell for the relief of sufferers by fire at Hilton"
Pastor Benezet was executed at Montpellier on 27th March 1752 when he was 26 and left a young wife and an infant child, Toinette. The picture shows Toinette Benezet being clandestinely wed, also to a young Pastor.
The morning dawned. Beneath the forest trees,
With far out spreading branches stretched above,
And flower gem greensward soft beneath their feet,
A band of faithful worshippers were met.
There, after prayer and praise, an aged saint,
Whom God through long disastrous years,
Thro' the perils numberless, and toils unknown,
Raised holy hands to consecrate the bond
That made the martyr's child the pastor’s wife.
E'en then the foe was near-was close at hand:
Scarce was the mystic benediction said,
Ere the low well-known cry, the signal's sound
That told of danger nigh, smote every heart.
And then-a quick farewell-hurried flight.
[A page from the baptismal register of Holywell church showing the signature of the Reverend Alexander Torriano {P7972}]
Chapter 9 The Spanish Armada
The year 1588 was one of the most critical in all English history. King Philip of Spain was determined to invade the country, force Roman Catholicism upon it and make it a Spanish dominion. His vast preparations to the same end the previous year had been frustrated by Drake who burned 100 ships off Cadiz, but by the next year he had 130 ships and 30,000 troops ready to sail to the Netherlands there to embark a like number of troops to invade England.
In Huntingdonshire the Subjects of the Queen were not slow in making active preparations in this national emergency and the existing method for raising troops, which dated back to ancient times, was at once put in motion. Each Hundred in the county was expected to provide about 100 men. The head of the organisation was the Lord Lieutenant, Lord St. John of Bletsoe, His Marshall Sir Henry Cromwell {P7932} of Hinchingbrooke commanded the cavalry. The two infantry captains were Oliver Cromwell {P7934} (Sir Henry’s eldest son and Uncle of the Protector) and George Wauton of Great Staughton. The High Constable of each hundred was responsible for selecting suitable men. In addition the trained bands contained experienced soldiers. The holders of copyhold lands under Sir Henry Cromwell were called up by him in respect of their feudal obligations. Oliver Cromwell had command of the contingents from the Toseland and Hurstingstone Hundreds among which the following appear on the list dated 3rd June 1588:-
HOLYWELL AND NEEDINGWORTH
|
William Slowe {P8152} |
Pike and Arquebuse |
|
Martin Killingworth {P8153} |
Pike and Arquebuse |
|
John Peach {P8154}e |
Musket |
|
John Ibbott {P8155} |
Qualiver |
|
John ??? |
Qualiver |
|
John Scott {P8151} |
Qualiver |
A Qualiver is a kind of musket or light arquebuse - and an arquebuse is a hand gun fired from a rest. Some men had both weapons, and some had a sword.
As well as men the county had to provide money and people of means were obliged to contribute.
Mrs Carlton and John Broekett, gentleman, each a light horseman (presumably both man and horse.)
The following were called upon to contribute £25 each;
· Joanne Carlton {P8157} widow of Nicholas Carlton {P8156} of Needingworth.
· Henry Newman {P8158} of Needingworth
· Robert Gylate {P8159} of Needingworth
When on July 24th a letter was received announcing the arrival of the Spanish Fleet in the channel the whole of the English Forces were divided into three parts and they marched or rode with all speed to their prearranged stations. One force guarded the south coast, one the Thames at Tilbury, and a third remained in reserve. The Huntingdonshire men started for Tilbury very soon after July 26th and were at their stations by the end of the month.
The men from this parish must have heard Queen Elizabeth deliver her famous speech to the troops at Tilbury and have joined in the cheers when she declared that "Although a woman, I have the heart of a King and would rather die leading my soldiers into battle than survive to see the slavery and ruin of my people".
The epic story of the destruction of the Spanish Armada by the English fleet is well known to all, and the men of Holywell and Needingworth came home without striking a blow. No doubt there was much relief and rejoicing and many tales to tell.
Francis Alfred Ibbott {P396} who died on 19th March 1965 in his 83rd year was a direct descendant of John Ibbott {P8155} who went to fight the Spaniards and the last male descendant living in the parish. His grave is in the shadow of Holywell church.
[The inscription on the memorial stone reads: in loving memory of Francis Alfred input passed away 19th March 1965 aged 63 years; also of his wife Nelly {P3926} reunited 23rd of September 1971 aged 89 years. In thy hands O Lord.]
Chapter 10 The Great Fire at Needingworth
An open letter to the parishioners of Holywell-cum-Needingworth by the Rev. R.J. M’Ghee {P1404}, A.M. (Rector 1846 - 1872)
On Wednesday, September 15, 1847, you were all, as usual, employed about your various occupations. It was a calm and lovely evening. I was in the village about 7 o’clock, and conversed with several of its inhabitants. One of the oldest of them Mrs H, had been a long time very weak; and I recollect saying that it was too late: that evening, but that, please God, I should be with her on Friday, being obliged next morning to go to London for a day. Your plans of business, of farming or labour, or traffic in your little shops, or of visiting, as some of you did, your friends or neighbours at a distance from the village, were all no doubt, thought of and talked over by your fireside, as you were seated on your chairs at your tables with your evening meal spread before you, and afterwards lay down quietly to sleep, you thought little that it was the last night that so many of you were to have any use of those articles of furniture, or to dwell in those habitations with which many of you had been familiar from your childhood, but that in a few hours they were to present nothing to your view but a mass of shattered fragments or of smoking ruins.
Thursday, the 16th, arose with a very clouded sky, and seemed to threaten a storm; but you little thought how soon it was to burst on your heads, and carry with it unexpected ruin and desolation over your village, and that, from a quarter where it was impossible to imagine it could arise, and from which, when it came, it seemed a direct visitation from the hand of God. If lightning had struck every house and set it on fire, it would not have seemed to me more marked, as coming directly from His hand.
There were two small cottages in the pits belonging to the poor, separated by an orchard in full bearing, from any other habitation, distant, I suppose, from the nearest almost hundred yards. If any one had been asked whether any danger was to be apprehended from these cottages being set on fire, I suppose the most timid or the most cautious person in the village, could not have expressed the slightest fear a short time before. A poor half-witted girl who had been left in one of these cottages, threw out, as any one might have done, some ashes on the heap at the end of the cottage, where they were generally thrown. Some unextinguished embers among these were fanned into kindling by the south-west wind, which was then blowing a storm against the gable of this cottage.
Some gleaning straw was lying, at that moment, close to the ashes, and the kindling embers caught and set fire to the straw; instantly it blazed up to the roof, and communicated with the thatch of the cottage, which happened to be very dry, and in a few minutes the two cottages were in a flame. Still who could have apprehended danger from the distance of these cottages from other dwellings, and the intervening orchard? They lay directly to windward of the village, and when the thatch on the roof became separated from its binding by the flame, the storm carried it through the trees and over the orchard, still fanning it more strongly as it flew, and blew into the thatched roofs and corn-stacks of other houses and homesteads in the village. The nearest hayrick and the nearest thatched house escaped; the wind blew the burning thatch over them to others, but in a few moments some small cottages from fire, then Mr Sharpe’s {P1539} house and all his offices caught the flames; then old Mrs Howard’s {P20216} house and offices and all her corn-stacks were in a blaze; and when next, on the morning of Friday I saw the habitation which I had promised to visit in the evening it was all reduced to a shapeless mass of smoking ruins. Each house, as it took fire, furnished the storm with but fresh materials for its fury, and fresh firebrands to carry further forward in its work of destruction. The flames raked the village from the south-west to the north-east, and the rapidity of the desolation they spread before them, was scarcely less formidable and unlooked for, than the havoc it carried along with it. One neighbour had not time to render a few moments assistance to his friend, before his own house was in flames, and he was constrained to cry for aid for himself. The villagers who dwelt in the middle of the village and those who dwelt at the north-east, the part most remote from the extremity where the fire broke out, hearing that there was a fire at the other end of it, naturally ran, some from curiosity to see the fire and some to give their aid to extinguish it. But while they were running in the direction of the fire, the storm was blowing the flames and burning thatch and brands, more swiftly to their own habitations then they ran from them; and before they could return to their dwellings they had left in such fancied security a few moments before, the roofs of their own houses had caught the devouring element. Then universal terror and consternation succeeded. Every house that caught fire added its burning embers but as fresh fuel to the storm, and spread dismay and despair amongst all the inhabitants of the village. Each expected or feared that his house and property must soon fall a sacrifice; and from the houses that were not on fire, as well as from those that were in flames, everyone was dragging out their furniture to save it. Bedsteads could not be unscrewed, so they were cut and broken to pieces to try and save them from being consumed. Some laid their property in the street,-some carried it into the yards or outhouses of their neighbours, where they hoped it might be safer than their own; and the very spot which some selected as a place of security, proved to be the very furnace where their property was consumed. Many carried their furniture and all that they could snatch from the flames into Mr Thorpe's malthouse, which being tiled and detached, they considered perfectly safe, but this soon fell prey to the flames, and all that had been so confidently consigned to it was speedily consumed. Several, whose houses escaped the fire, lost their property in their efforts to preserve it, by carrying it out from terror to the street, or to a place where it was burned.
It is impossible adequately describe the scene, - the fury of the flame - raging of the storm, and the terror and dismay on every countenance. Fire engines were useless. The wind blew their jets of water spray before they could reach the spot to which they were directed. The poor men who had gone out to labour, instead of returning to their dinner, only came to behold their cottages in flames or in ruins, or in a state of peril from which it was impossible to rescue them; some who had gone out to see their friends at a little distance, as they came back, beheld a village on fire, and ran with trembling hearts, not knowing whether their house had fallen in the general ruin, and were long unable to pass through the dense impenetrable mass of strangers of all classes, who in the course of two hours, had collected in the village.
And here the most painful circumstances in all the afflicting narrative must be told to do justice to truth. Of the multitude who thronged the village from every quarter, while some of every rank, with indefatigable kindness and exertion, laboured to extinguish the flames or preserve the property of the sufferers, others made the confusion a pretext for the most unfeeling and unprincipled plunder. Some broke into the houses on the pretence of saving the property contained in them, and consumed all food and drink they could lay their hands on. Some in pretence of saving the furniture took away articles that never were recovered and etc;
At the time of the fire there were in Needingworth 192 houses, (and in Holywell 30) of these 83 or 84 were completely consumed in the flames as well as 10 barns containing the grain and other produce of the recent harvest. 87 families were left homeless. Every family found shelter in Needingworth, or Holywell, or the surrounding villages.
The village also suffered from fire on the night of 12th April 1855 when flames burst forth about simultaneously on the premises of Thorpe {P1672}, Harris, Peace {P10802}, and Bagge {P979}. The farm buildings of John Harrison[3] were also burned down. It was supposed that these fires were started out of malice by some person or persons unknown.
Chapter 11 Donkey Power
That sure-footed beast of burden the humble donkey, descendant of the wild ass and half brother to the mule is often portrayed as a stubborn and lazy animal. He is, of course, neither as peasants throughout the world would confirm. We much malign him in using the term ‘donkey’ or ‘ass' when describing a dim-witted or stupid person. To this day they are frequently over-burdened, starved, and beaten, so there need be little wonder if on occasion an individual digs in his hooves as much as to say ‘enough”. I recall as a child that weary little band of donkeys by the breakwater on the sands at Hunstanton and no doubt a scene repeated at many other seaside resorts around the coast of Britain. For a few coppers one could be lifted on to the saddle and with an encouraging slap get started off with 'gee-up Ned' in the direction of the pier only to find that Ned (a derivation of Edward) had no intention of going that far. A minimum amount of jogging perhaps the length of a cricket pitch made an encouraging start. and then the pace would slacken to walking speed as if Ned were looking for a mark invisible to the human eye which on being reached would call for an immediate pause, turn, and steady trot back to the breakwater stall. No amount of 'gee-ups' or bare heel prodding would induce the donkey to increase the outward ride by as much as a single step.
[The author with his brother and sister and the retired milk round cob, Tommy, gathering driftwood to fuel the washday copper.]
In the 1930’s ‘Pet’ Lilley, a St. Ives Drover and grazier, wintered the Hunstanton donkeys in a field off Meadow Lane, St, Ives - they must often have dreamed of those lush pastures as they backed the wind on Hunstanton sands.
In rural England in earlier days the donkey was commonly used as a pack animal. Carrying heavy loads in panniers, and able to feed on rougher herbage than a horse. It would occasion no surprise to see a tethered donkey along Holywell front, or being ridden along Parsons Drove to St. Ives market. Larger houses kept a donkey to pull a small cart about the estate or farmstead, some being fitted with leather shoes to minimise the damage to the turf of lawns, and especially the tennis court of Edwardian times as the roller was drawn back and forth. Pads of leather were strapped to the donkey's knees to prevent skinning as Ned knelt on front legs to get better purchase when the going was rough.
One such donkey was kept at the manor house by the Spencer family and treated as a pet by the children but with a purpose. Before the days of the motor car Mrs Charles Spencer {P336} (nee Bertha Warren of the St. Ives coal merchant family) could often be seen out for a drive on business or pleasure. The donkey was harnessed to a governess cart - a light vehicle usually fitted with plush seats. Our photograph was taken in Conger Lane, Holywell, showing Mrs Spencer with her two daughters Nancy {P337} and Katherine. {P338} The donkey would sometimes pause to nibble a choice piece of herbage and be reluctant to heed the command "walk-on”, and this shows the donkey’s independence of character rather than its obstinacy.
Vehicles such as the governess cart and the buggy were custom-made by William Fuller and Son at their coachworks in New Road in St Ives. Donkey carts could be fitted with special attachments such as raves - a removable framework fitted to the sides and perhaps back and front of the cart, to increase the cart's carrying capacity for bulky but light loads such as hay or straw at harvest time. This family run firm was expert at making one-off commissions. My brother {P7923}, when four or five years of age, had a pet goat which would follow him about like a dog, and father had Fullers’ make a small cart for it in which my brother would ride about the farm carrying small loads such as feed for the hens. I suppose it had very little practical purpose but gave him a lot of pleasure. A gift to me {P7919}, one Christmas, was a small wheelbarrow made by Fullers. It was painted green and had sign-written initials J.N. on the side. It had a removable top section which could be added to increase the capacity for lawn mowings, or when gathering up fallen leaves in the autumn. I was very proud of it! I recall another Christmas when I was given a small-size garden fork when I really would have liked something quite different- my father was a practical man!
The youth of the villages, when competing in team sports such as tug-of-war on Feast Days, were given a derogatory nick-name founded on some embarrassing incident in parish history. Local examples were Colne Noodles, and Somersham Suck-eggs. On the night of the great fire of 1847 a hovel which was known to contain calves was burned to the ground, and the poor unfortunate animals were roasted in the fallen timbers. Being hungry from their activity in fighting the many fires and getting the scent of toasting flesh the young men located a carcase and set about carving off portions to relieve their hunger. Only when the hooves came into view did they realise that they had been eating a roasted donkey! Consequently Needingworth boys have ever since been known as "Greeks" because it was common knowledge that the Greeks ate donkeys!
[Bertha Spencer (née Warren) with her children Nancy and Katherine. Bertha was FM Warren’s sister.]
[The Rev and Mrs JW Saunders with their donkey at the Manse, Silver Lane, Needingworth.]
Chapter 12 Sanders Spencer (1840 - 1930) From Shoes to Trotters
It was one of life’s little ironies that brought Sanders Spencer {P329}, and with him fame to the village of Holywell. He was born into a Northamptonshire family of shoemakers where it was taken for granted that he would one day follow in his father’s footsteps and enter the shoe factory, learn the trade and one day take control of the business. He did make a start, and as he was intellectually bright he intended to do well. Never a robust lad, his health became cause for serious concern as his teenage years advanced. Eventually medical opinion was sought and concluded that only a life in the open air would bring about an improvement in his constitution, and so it came about that at the age of 19, in the year 1859, he said goodbye to the shoe trade and set off for a new beginning with a farming family in Norfolk. Here he applied himself assiduously to his new career and as nothing more is heard of ill health it can be safely assumed that the winds of East Anglia fresh from the north sea were as bracing and life-giving then as they are today. Here he developed a growing interest in the commercial future of pig farming.
[Sanders Spencer 1814 to 1930]
In Victorian England large families were the order of the day and generally speaking the poorer the family the larger the number of children. This was particularly so in the midland and northern towns where booming industrial growth and the coming of the railways were rapidly changing the face of Britain. To feed this ever growing population, the pig, of which it was said that every part from snout to tail, except the ‘grunt’, could be used, took on a growing importance. Thousands were kept in backyard sties, especially in the coal mining areas of England and Wales where they received as much, sometimes more, attention than the children. Often they became pets to the family until the day of mixed sorrow and rejoicing when they were slaughtered to provide a rare treat of the working class family - fresh meat for a family roast, with Yorkshire pudding. There followed a veritable feast with all the other delicacies of the freshly slaughtered pig. Every drop of blood was saved for black puddings, intestines converted into chitterlings, lungs to faggots, trotters to brawn, and many other such concoctions. Not a bit was wasted. The fatter the pig the better for that all important lard. Well into the 20th century the children of poorer families were dependent on bread and lard. Even so, most pigs were of nondescript breed bought in ones and twos as piglets often from unscrupulous dealers. It was the desire to improve the breed performance of these pigs that prompted Sanders Spencer to see and accept the challenge to do something about it. He methodically set about improving the Middle White and the Yorkshire Large White breed of pig, being one of the first to keep meticulous records of every animal in his sties and their breed lines. He was ruthless in culling any animal, even whole progeny lines, if they were seen to drift from the high standard he set for his herd. His skill lay in recognising certain qualities in a pig and in the cross mating of stock.
[Pages from a sale catalogue showing the precise detail of breed lines as recorded in the herd book. Many hundred pigs were known by name and number.]
[Middle White Boar "Holywell King", bred by Mr Sanders Spencer, and exported to the States where he won a great many prizes. (Engraved for Stephens Book of the Farm)]
Over the years he virtually rebuilt the middle white pig to become a docile animal, quick to convert food into growth and provide the succulent fat pork needed at the time. He was said to commence every day with a six o’clock breakfast of porridge followed by a ‘slab’ of salt pork on freshly baked bread- proof that his constitution had improved. Today, when animal fat is frowned upon by nutritionists and housewives alike the lovable middle white pig is no longer viable and has become a rare breed and can only be seen at conservation centres such as Wimpole Hall near Cambridge.
By the year 1875 Spencer {P329} was earning recognition in the world of agriculture and winning prizes at agricultural shows. With this success demand grew for his breeding stock. He needed more space at this stage and looking for larger premises led to his taking the tenancy of Manor Farm, Holywell. He was encouraged by the Duke of Manchester {P14107} who was Lord of the Manor of Holywell and Needingworth and who was probably instrumental in the move, to continue showing his pigs. His first major success came with exhibits at the Royal Show at Bristol in 1878. He was somewhat reluctant to show his pigs at this stage because he had seen other breeders fall into the trap of breeding for short term show success rather than the long term health of the stock. But in all, over the years, Holywell pigs won almost two and a half thousand prizes at agricultural shows. Spencer’s son Charles {P335} grew up on the farm, ultimately taking much of the workload off his father, and with the unstinting loyalty and effort of his stockmen, Jack “Johnny” Topper {P19233} and Fred Tabbitt {P2791}, his middle white and large white pigs became famous throughout the world. They were exported to forty-five countries. Fred Tabbitt who lived in a cottage on the farm, frequently travelled with consignments of pigs to France, Switzerland, Denmark and Eastern European countries. These two men were reckoned to be second to none in their knowledge of the pig - yet Fred Tabbitt could neither read nor write! They once took 36 pigs and a dairy shorthorn cow to the Royal Show, quite a feat when one considers that this was before the age of motorised transport and the men would have to live and sleep with their charges in spartan conditions for a week or more.
[Large White Sow "Smithfield Queen" (182), bred at Holywell Manor. One of the Cup winners at London, 1882. (Engraved for Stephens Book of the Farm)]
Pigs went to many noble establishments including the Royal Estate at Sandringham. By special permission of King Edward VII the Royal Coat of Arms headed Holywell writing paper.
Considerable economic benefit was brought to the local community by the employment of local labour. Breeders and would-be purchasers came to the village from home and abroad, frequently lodging at ‘The Boat’ (now the Ferryboat) Inn and the more affluent at the Golden Lion Hotel, St. Ives. In particular, Mr Peter Morkeberg from Denmark, the then Agricultural Commissioner, came on numerous occasions to buy the boars and gilts that played so important a part in the creation of the Danish bacon industry.
Sanders Spencer {P329} was instrumental in founding in 1884 the National Pig Breeders Association. At the inaugural meeting he was appointed Honorary Secretary and Editor. He drew up scales of points for each breed and indicated relative values. As a journalist he wrote numerous books and articles for journals on the subject of pigs, and became nationally called upon as a lecturer on agricultural matters. Although pigs came first and foremost in his work he applied the same methodical recording of breed lines and a critical analysis of cross breeding to his fine herd of dairy shorthorn cattle which in his day were the main providers of milk and beef for the lowland farmer.
The influence of Sanders Spencer and his son Charles {P335} on the management and breeding of cattle continued long after they gave up farming in 1914. Although the middle white pig, by its very success in converting food into growth and fat, brought about its own demise, the large white pig went on with its long lean form to provide the almost fatless sides of bacon and pork which are now called for. Having regard to the parlous state of the British pig industry today one wonders if Mr Peter Morkeberg of Denmark should have been made quite so welcome at Holywell!
The following verses, penned by a young St. Ivian, appeared in the National Pig Breeders Association journal in 1930, in tribute to Sanders Spencer shortly after his death on 7th February in his 90th year.
A winding rippling languid stream,
Paradise of roach and Bream,
Skirting Meadows lush with hay,
And wildflowers, of colours gay.
The Meadows stretch for half a mile
Gently rising, then o'er a stile,
Stands a quaint and ancient church,
Circled with stately elm and Birch.
Twisting tortuous country lanes,
Oaks and elms, beech and planes,
Cottages of thatch and beam,
Stables for the Squires team.
Nearby the ancient Manor farm,
Lends to the scene still further charm,
Here many have danced country jigs,
'Midst cackling fowl and grunting pigs.
At Evensong when sun goes down,
In blood bled red glory, o'er distant town,
Curfew still may toll the knell
Of parting day, o'er Holywell.
Here in this peaceful tranquil spot,
Where man can live and be forgot,
One inspired earned world wide fame,
Sanders Spencer {P329}
was his name.
Henceforth wherever pigs are bred,
Will be remembered he who led
The Pioneers of early day,
To found the great N.P.B.A.
Chapter 13 Mavis (Mabel) Wright 1908-1970 "Beautiful and Beloved"
[Mavis with her little brother Trukki (top).]
['Sam' Wright in 1909. Mavis at age 14.]
Mabel Wright {P127} was born in London on 19th December 1908 the daughter of a grocer's assistant and one of five children. Her father Sam {P125} was an easy going sort of chap who tried his hand at various occupations without much success and eventually joined the Royal Flying Corps during the First World War. Mabel's grandfather John {P419} served with the Metropolitan Police and on retirement came to live at Mill Cottage, Holywell at a rent of two shillings (10p) a week.
[Holywell Windmill in 1909. Trukki Wright described the miller's cottage as a quaint place with dug-out floor levels.]
Later, he bought Mafeking House, Needingworth. He joined the Methodist Church and was a well liked man about the village. His son Sam {P125} frequently cycled from London at weekends to visit and soon the family moved into Mill Cottage, Sam having got a job with a local firm. This then became Mabel’s {P127} childhood home. As she grew up she attended the nearby village school. A contemporary says she was a bright pupil, normally high spirited, that she made friends easily and was frequently led into trouble by her elder brother ‘Trukki’; she and Trukki {P128} were always to maintain a close friendship. He described their home as a quaint place with dugout floor levels. Postmills were built on a mound of earth and the miller’s cottage was built as low as possible to gain the best possible flow of wind for the sails. The cottage had no running water, but did boast an outside toilet and a ’copper’ for boiling clothes. The mill in their time was no longer in use and becoming derelict so it was an exciting place for the children to play. It was set in the middle of a fruit growing area of apples, plums, strawberries etc, and the children earned pocket money by picking fruit for a local merchant, money always being a problem.
The children were often down at Holywell where the river was an attraction, and along with the Tabbitts and others, would hang about near old Tom Metcalf's {P605} sheds, where he built the flat bottomed boats used for gathering rushes, and with willows, shaped the eel traps which were later sunk in secret places on the river bed. Tom bred maggots and let out fishing gear especially to undergraduates from Cambridge for a day's fishing or water fowling with gun and dog.
[Mavis, in the Womens Land Army during World War II, writing 'Tommy'.]
The family eventually moved out of the damp Mill Cottage into Mafeking House - still with no running water or flush toilet. In 1923, when grandfather died, the house had to be sold and they moved to a council house in Ramsey Road, St. Ives. Mabel {P127} got work at Enderby's Mill. Originally built as a flour mill by the Brown family but by this time converted into a modern printing works producing, among other things, the boxes and labels for Chivers jams and jellies. Betty Stiles who ran a dancing class in St. Ives remembered Mabel as a graceful girl with natural talent, much envied by other girls for her slender figure and good looks.
Mabel was growing up, attractive, and turning young men’s heads. Although living in St. Ives she kept her Holywell friends, particularly Joey Churton {P25435} whose father {P8183} had inherited a fortune and purchased Holywell Manor in 1914 from the Duke of Manchester and bringing to an end the world famous pig breeding business of Sanders Spencer {P329}. Joey was ‘a bit of a lad’ with plenty of money, and, perhaps of more immediate importance, a Rudge-Whitworth motorcycle. At this time there were only three cars in Holywell. Mabel may have been out of her class financially, but her talents lay in her natural gifts of beauty, wit, and glowing charm, and as she became friendly with Joey she could often be seen roaring about the village as a clinging pillion rider on Joey’s bike.
Even then she could aim much higher than village boys. When Mabel {P127} was about 18 her cousin Lilian, cook to Lady Cairns at Round Hill in the New Forest, visited the family at St. Ives for a wedding celebration. She talked to the restless Mabel about her life at Round Hill and with a little persuasion Mabel applied for and was successful in getting the job of scullery maid in that household.
This was a low beginning, but a start in the wider world away from the confines of home. She was happy enough but still not quite contented and she set her sights higher. The name Mabel seemed right enough for a scullery maid, and for ribald jokes, but not for her ambitions, so she renamed herself Mavis and remained so for the rest of her life. With this new appellation it was not long before she obtained the position of nurserymaid/governess to a clergyman’s family in Wimbledon. The house had an extensive library and Mavis who was aware of her educational shortcomings, made full use of it with the support and encouragement of her employer. One day however, and whatever the circumstances may have been, the mistress of the house upon entering the room unannounced, found her husband with his arm laid across Mavis’ shoulders. This resulted in her dismissal.
Mavis soon obtained work in the City of London and, if continued, this narrative would no longer be that of Mabel, a naive country girl, but that of Mavis - whose story is told by her son Tristan {P8205} in his book ‘Beautiful and Beloved'.
Suffice to say that Mavis, who needed love and gave so much of it to others, moved in the Bohemian society of her day, married Horace de-Vere-Cole {P14154} noted for his pranks and jokes, became mistress to Augustus John, who painted some wonderful portraits of her, then married Sir Mortimer Wheeler {P14153} the archaeologist, who later divorced her. She was later tried and found guilty of shooting her lover, Lord Vivian, and was sentenced to six months' imprisonment.
This is but a synopsis of her turbulent life which was to end as a lonely alcoholic with only her dog Jolly for company in a house near Sloane Square in London. She died on 16th October 1970 in her 62nd year.
Chapter 14 One Man’s Endeavour 2nd Lieutenant Alistair Hay Fraser 1894 - 1918
[2nd Lieut. Alistair Hay Fraser RAF (1894-1918)]
Alistair Hay Fraser {P4327} was born on 2nd August 1894, the first son of Arthur Anderson Fraser {P4324} and his wife Margaret Elizabeth {P4325}. He had a brother Francis McGreigor Fraser {P7868} (1886 - 1930) who served in the Army Service Corps in the Great War of 1914- 1918. The family lived at White Rose Cottage in Holywell where his father died tragically in 1904. The Fraser family motto is 'I am Ready' and both brothers lived up to this challenge. Alistair made the supreme sacrifice for his country.
When the war began Alistair enlisted in the Bedfordshire Regiment and served with the 6th (Service) Battalion until 1917. The 6th Bedfords arrived in France on 30th July 1915 and served in many areas from The Somme to Ypres. In the last few months that Alistair served with the battalion they operated at Neuve Chapelle (December 1916), Le Touret (January 1917) and Loos (February 1917), all in the Bethune area.
We do not know what persuaded him to do so but Alistair then left the infantry to take up his commission in the Royal Flying Corps. After training, he received his commission as a 2nd lieutenant in the newly created Royal Air Force the day it was formed on 1st April 1918. In June 1918 he joined the 41st Squadron in France. The squadron bearing the motto ‘Seek and Destroy' was formed as a Fighter Squadron at Gosport in July 1916 and crossed to France three months later. The squadron was mainly engaging enemy aircraft, but was often employed during major offensives in attacks on ground targets, and in low level reconnaissance.
On 1st July the squadron was based at Conteville. A big Allied offensive began on 8th August with large gains being made on the first day. Air patrols were increasingly important both in the scouting and offensive roles. On 11th August, Alistair took off in his SE5 aircraft from about 10 miles behind the advancing line. He was scheduled to take part in a scouting patrol, but disaster struck before the patrol was undertaken. When taking off his aircraft fell to the ground and burst into flames. Alistair died six hours later from multiple bums and the resultant shock.
It was now the latter stages of the First World War but the warplane was very much in its early days. The SE5 machine which Alistair piloted belonged to a group of biplanes often referred to as the ‘stick and string brigade’. It needed courage to enter any form of combat in one, and tactics were very much as developed by each individual's survival skills and expertise. What a twist of fate that a soldier who had survived two years as an infantryman on the western front should die as a result of a failure of a machine and, even more cruel, that within twelve weeks the war would be over.
Alistair {P4327} lies buried in grave C9 of the Wavans British Cemetery at Pas de Calais, France, 14 kilometres north west of Doullens.
There is a memorial stone to him in Holywell churchyard. His mother gave an Altar Cross and two Candlesticks in brass to the church at Holywell, in memory of her son.
An SES aeroplane similar to that in which Alistair flew can be seen at the Royal Air Force Museum at Hendon.
[The SE5 Aircraft is similar to the one in which Alistair Fraser lost his life.]
Chapter 15 One Mission Too Many Warrant Officer William ‘Scotty’ Young Royal Air Force.
Anyone happening along the front street at Holywell, now or at any time over the past fifty years couldn't help but notice a flagpole situated beyond a crumbling brick wall, scented with the wild mint growing in it's crevices. It stands in front of a startling mauve washed exterior of a chalet bungalow. Invariably it flies The Union flag. The sight of this emblem of our nation, fluttering in the breeze, never fails to raise the spirit. For centuries men and women of Holywell have rallied to the flag, some have fought and died beneath its colours. One of those who, by courage and endurance, lived to tell the tale is 'Scotty' Young {P8266}. This was his home which with life at its lowest ebb he expected never to see again.
[Scotty Young, 1941]
William Ramsey Young was born in Glasgow in February 1921, an ordinary city lad with a growing fascination for aeroplanes and a dream of joining the Royal Air Force. In 1939 he volunteered and was accepted for training as an Aircrew Signaller proudly wearing the white flash alongside his cap badge. Having a broad Scottish accent it was inevitable that he became ‘Scotty’ to his mates. So he remained for the ten years of his service until retiring, the crown on his cuff denoting the rank of Warrant Officer.
Much was to happen to him in those ten years and more than can be touched upon in this brief résumé of his life and wartime experiences. He flew on more than 100 operations with 221 Squadron in the Middle East from 1941 to 1943. Wellington bombers, ‘Wimpies', equipped with elementary radar and two torpedoes for anti-shipping strikes intercepted supplies reaching Rommel’s desert forces in North Africa. His squadron also supported ground forces at the battle of El Alamein. The Africa campaign over, there followed a long 13 week voyage home in the ‘Ile de France’ via South Africa to his new posting at Limavady, Northern Ireland. Here he instructed others on Anson aircraft. Scotty recalls one particular training flight when their plane ran into freezing rain. The carburettors iced up, the engines coughed out and they ditched into the Irish Sea. Their SOS message was picked up, a search was undertaken and after many hours their inflatable dinghy was spotted in the choppy seas. The search aircraft diverted the 1500 ton S.S. Sherringham to pick them up. It was ‘“quite a performance".
1944 arrived and Scotty {P8266}, by then a Flight Sergeant, was stationed at Halfpenny Green in Staffordshire. He answered an Air Ministry call for volunteers to train with a Special Duties Squadron. His Radar experience ensured his acceptance and he joined 192 Squadron at Foulsham in Norfolk The function of the squadron was so secret that crews of the Halifax bombers had no idea what it was all about. They were investigating certain aspects of German radar to find out how the Luftwaffe communicated and directed their night fighters onto our bomber fleets. They were even called upon to undertake missions into enemy territory when Command aircraft were grounded by bad weather. Their airfield was fitted with FIDO a device which lifted the cloud base and gave sufficient visibility for take-off. Two channels were constructed, one on either side of the runway and filled with inflammable liquid which when ignited gave off sufficient heat to lift the cloud so one could see to take-off. An operation which Scotty describes as ‘very hairy’.
It was the last winter of the war against Hitler's Germany. On 5th March 1945, Scotty was about to commence his 63rd mission as a member of the eight-man crew of his Halifax bomber, already ‘bombed' up and waiting on the tarmac. At Briefing, their captain, Flight Lieutenant Jack Irvine, a Canadian, had been assigned their target - the rail marshalling yards at Chemitz near Leipzig, some 600 miles from their home base. It was sixteen minutes past five when the heavily laden bomber was given the green light and rumbled up the runway and lifted into the sky to link up with 700 of the mainstream bomber force over the south coast of England. Scotty felt concern for the 19-year-old tail gunner on his first mission and for himself with apprehension that his luck might be running out. The bomber climbed to 10,000 feet as it crossed the Dutch coast. The gunners tested their weapons with a warning from the captain not to waste ammunition that they might later need.
The plane flew on into the Rhineland, climbing higher as probing searchlights caught a Lancaster in its beam. They saw it explode as ground ack-ack gunners found their target. They sought safety higher still in the night sky. Five hours passed, they were getting close to their target. Soon a dull red glow could be seen in the distant sky, showing where pathfinders had dropped their markers to guide the incoming bomber mainforce. The skipper steadied the plane as the bomb-aimer called directions to guide it on the run-in to their target. Then ‘bombs gone’ was the welcome cry on the intercom. The wireless operator sent his coded message back to base as the plane turned away for home. Amid the confusion of exploding anti-aircraft shells, the aircraft weaving to avoid the blinding light of searchlight beams in which they had been caught, the Halifax was suddenly raked with exploding shells from a ME262 night fighter. Now crippled, the plane collided with the tail assembly of a Lancaster which plunged to earth killing all the crew. The Navigator set a course eastward hoping to make a landing beyond the German lines in Russian controlled territory. Scotty stuffed a handkerchief under his helmet to stem the flow of blood from a head wound which was trickling down his neck, and set about destroying the secret equipment which he had been operating. Then working with the bomb aimer whose face had been grazed by shattering perspex, they hacked away debris to free the crazed tail gunner. Worst hit was the skipper who was huddled over the controls. He was covered in the snow and ice blasting in through the shattered cockpit - the plane had plunged down before levelling at 8000 feet and was rapidly losing more height, lurching it’s way downward. It became clear that the plane could not remain in the air much longer. "Scotty, get the escape hatch open" ordered the skipper "I can’t keep her up much longer". The escape hatch was jammed. In desperation they hacked at it with the already blunted axe "start jumping" came the order "the plane is breaking up", now at 2000 feet nobody moved, as if paralysed the seconds ticked away. Who would be first to throw himself into the unknown? Then, ordered to jump first, Scotty parachuted into the night sky and found himself spinning in the slipstream before his parachute opened and with a bone-jarring thud he struck the ground. This was his one piece of luck for many a day to land in a snowdrift narrowly missing a rocky outcrop of nearby rock.
[A Halifax GRMK III bomber, of 192 Squadron. The crew of aircraft number 111 was Flight Lieutenant N Irvine RCAF, Sgt LA Howard RAF, Flight Lieutenant JE Nixon RCAF, Flight Officer D E Banks RCAF, Warrant Officer J A Martin RAAF, Warrant Officer R F Young RAF, Flight Sgt WJ McCulloch RCAF, Flight Sgt A C Searle RCAF]
[(left) Sgt Veamie Young (née Watchman) Women’s Auxiliary Air Force 1939 to 1949]
[(right) Warrant Officer William R F Young {P8266} Royal Air Force 1939 to 1949]
Somewhere on the Polish Steppes he stumbled through vast snowy wastes. A blizzard was raging, his shouts were lost on the wind and with no sign of his comrades he headed eastward, sleeping in trees to avoid a wolf pack which trailed him. Eventually he was picked up by the Russians. He was interrogated, ill treated and branded a spy. For seven days running he was hauled from a prison cell and, with a Polish prisoner, placed before a firing squad whose ammunition on the seventh day turned out to be live - at least so far as the Pole was concerned. This was but the beginning of a nightmare of incidents, eventually another member of the bomber's crew was picked up and as his story corroborated Scotty’s conditions improved. But they were still treated as prisoners. There was a failed attempt to escape by stealing an aircraft. The day came when their captors informed them that the war had ended. They were flown out to Odessa and from there they finally reached home aboard a Norwegian tanker.
Scotty {P8266} continued his Service career and when stationed at RAF Oakington he met Veamie Watchman {P7235} the girl who was to become his wife. She was the daughter of a Veterinary Practitioner in Savernake Forest, Wiltshire. She had joined the WAAF (Women’s Auxiliary Air Force) when only seventeen, by falsely declaring her age, and in 1939 was one of the first five hundred girls who formed the new service. She became a Sergeant and was a VIP Driver to many important people throughout the war. She and Scotty were married on Friday, June 25th 1948. On the following Monday, Scotty started flying in Dakotas twelve hours a day in the memorable Berlin Air Lift - but that’s another story.
They both retired from the Service in 1949 to the comparative peace of Holywell. Fifty years have passed since the Union Jack first flew in front of their home - long may it continue to do so.
Chapter 16 He Fell Asleep: Edward William Broackes
The chapters devoted to the lives of Alistair Fraser and of Scotty Young tell stories of dedication and courage. I have chosen to tell their stories simply because they are known to me, and at the same time I am well aware that the wartime experience of many other men and women in the parish would, if told, make equally fascinating reading - and an exciting book could be the result. One story in particular I would have liked to tell, but know little of it than the ‘bare bones’, is that of Major Edward Broackes {P8267}. A few yards inside the main gate to Holywell churchyard on the left-hand side of the pathway is a polished granite (or marble) memorial bearing the inscription:
In ever loving memory of
EDWARD WILLIAM BROACKES
Major Welch Regiment
Served in the Matabele Campaign 1893
Jamieson Raid 1895
Boer War 1900
World War 1914-1918
FELL ASLEEP MARCH 16th 1949
“Thy will be done"
What pictures these words conjure up! The Major’s age is not given or his date of birth. No mention of any commendation for outstanding service to the Crown but quite simply that after all the action he ‘fell asleep’.
I wonder if he was one of those my mother in 1899, with thousands of others lining the streets of London, waved off with cheers, marching bands and waving flags to fight the Boers. Another war that was to be ‘over by Christmas’ but dragged on for more than three years. Perhaps he was at Mafeking where 1000 British troops held off 8000 Boers for 217 days until relieved. Back home the news was received with great rejoicing and at St. Ives the town pump on Market Hill was ‘accidentally’ burnt down - ‘tis said on purpose, never to be replaced. One could enjoy the pleasure of speculation and yet never come to the truth.
In time, the Major retired to Holywell to lead a peaceful life, and one afternoon while quietly digging in his garden he unearthed and recognised an important archaeological object, nothing less than a hand axe of brown flint in near perfect condition which had lain there for 200,000 years since it was dropped or knocked from the hand of a wandering ‘old Stone Age’ tribesman.
It is a fitting tribute that this stone age hand axe, of no monetary value but of great worth to an ancient warrior should have been unearthed, almost as a tribute, by another old warrior of a modern age!
By the Major’s generosity this hand axe can now be seen on display at the Norris Museum in St. Ives.
I have no idea why the Major chose to spend his retirement in Holywell but I am glad that he did. Having “fallen asleep’ may he sleep on in peace.
[The town pump at St. Ives, destroyed by fire during the Relief of Mafeking celebrations]
[Hand-Axe of brown flint, perhaps 200,000 years old (old Stone Age), founded at Holywell]
Chapter 17 The Sandifers of Needingworth
[Able Seaman Kenneth Sandifer born 1919]
[The Chestnuts at Needingworth]
It was one of those early days of Spring the sun shining and just a nip in the air as a reminder that Jack Frost might yet wreak havoc to tender shoots. The kind of day on which the farmer has to decide if the time is right to sow the sugar beet, plant the potatoes, turn the cattle out of the wintering yards - time to take decisions on which his very livelihood will depend. I was seated comfortably in the home of Ken Sandifer {P7703} a retired farmer who knows well the importance of such decisions. Now he is relieved of making them and able to take the time to chat with me about his family's connection with Needingworth.
Ken was born at the family home, “‘The Chestnuts", a large red-brick Queen Anne farmhouse in the High Street in 1919 the third son of William D. Sandifer {P7705} (1880 - 1962) and his wife Ethel (née Odams) {P8138} of a Fenstanton family. His father ran the two hundred acre mixed arable dairy farm which he had inherited from his father Alfred {P433} (1856 - 1927), and he in turn from Robert {P2720} (1824 - 1881) and he from William {P1307} (b 1796). For five generations the Sandifers had farmed the land of Needingworth parish spanning three centuries with overlap of both generations and continuity.
[Grandma
Sandifer, the mother of 15 children]
[Alfred Sandifer 1856-1927]
With typical Victorian enthusiasm Robert {P2720} had four wives who gave him a total of fourteen children. Alfred {P433} whose wife Mary Jane {P3556} (nee Bidwell, 1858 - 1947) gave him fifteen children and outlived her husband by twenty years. Alfred’s tenure of the farm was a period of prosperity when all seemed well in Queen Victoria's England - the recession of the 1930's was a long way off.
In the Baptist cemetery in Meeting Lane, is a beautifully sculpted Angel memorial to the memory of Alfred and Mary Jane which is in itself a testimony to the love and devotion which was felt for them by their large family.
The family were of the Baptist background with a strict Christian upbringing in that tradition. They supported their Providence Chapel in the village. Having so many children it follows that they became interlinked by marriage with many other well known families in the locality – Harvey, Northrop, Senescall, Few, to name but four.
Throughout their history the Sandifers were an enterprising family; William {P1307} is listed as shopkeeper as well as a farmer, and Robert had an advertisement in the 1885 Kelly's Directory:-
R. Sandifer and Sons Brewers Maltsters and Spirit Merchants
The Brewery, Needingworth.
Spirits of the best quality at the usual prices.
Malt and Hops of the best quality.
Martells's fine old Brandies
Old Jamaica Rum and Dunville's Old Irish Whiskey.
In the late 1920's Ken's father {P7705}, trading as ‘W. D. Sandifer and Son’ opened the Needona Dairy next door to Kiddle’s furniture showroom in Bridge Street, St Ives. They sold fresh milk, delivered daily from the farm, eggs, butter and so on, and their famous speciality cream cheese under the registered brand name Needona. The cheese already had a regular retail outlet with Messrs Crowson and Son, High Class Provision Merchants of London. The firm of Crowson was founded by Mr Isaac Crowson {P3194} of Victoria House, Needingworth. By this time it was well established and as Buckingham Palace was one of their regular customers it can be assumed that Needona was tasted at the highest level! I well recall this teatime treat which was considered something of a luxury - there is nothing quite like it in the shops today.
[William D Sandifer 1880 - 1962 and his wife Ethel née Odams]
On Whit-Monday in 1910 a London motor bus brought down the staff of Crowsons for a day trip. They arrived at midday, and were regally entertained at The Priory, the home of Mr Alfred Sandifer {P433}.
Alfred Sandifer was a successful breeder of Hackney and Shire horses. The Hackney was a medium horse much used for riding and carriage work. It needed good strong limbs to be able to sustain a good pace over long distances Many of these animals were exported to Europe as well as finding a ready market in this country. The Shire horse needed heavier limbs and a well-muscled body to take the deadweight pull of the ploughshare through compacted soil.
The Silver Wedding celebrations of Alfred and Mary Jane in 1903 were reported in the local press with such interesting detail that I am including it.
But to return to my conversation with Ken Sandifer {P7703}. Ken was educated at Kimbolton School where he was particularly interested in sporting activities and played right half in the First Eleven football team. He also played football for his home village and was a member of the 1947/48 team which won the Robinson Charity Cup. In June 1942 Ken joined the Royal Navy and was trained in meteorology serving in a number of famous Royal Navy ships - Daedalus - Duke of York - Devonshire - and was finally demobilised in February 1946.
Happily it was while serving in the navy that Ken met his wife to be, a nurse in the WRNS (‘Wrens’). She was Andrina (Ann) Corrigan {P7572}, a Scots lass from Edinburgh. Their daughter Alison {P8055} and son William {P8055} are both married and each have two children.
The Sandifer family were an important influence in the life of Needingworth village over a period of many years. With changing circumstances the family retired from farming and on 4th April 1962 a dispersal sale of the entire animal stock and farming equipment took place at The Chestnuts. The pastures near to the home farm have now been swallowed up by housing development and much of the arable land is now a lake after gravel extraction. The Chestnuts has changed hands a number of times and at the present time is a superior restaurant.
The old field names have interesting connotations having been arrived at over many generations, to make easy reference for every-day farming work. Examples are; Onion Ground, Big Fen, Lutch Ground, Sharp’s Fen, Brown’s Fen, Jackson’s Fen, Parish’s Fen, Stenstitch, Top Piece, Runyards, Gipsy Field, Oak Tree, Chain Pump, Winter’s Fen, and Baker’s Paddock.
Silver Wedding Celebrations at Needingworth
The name of Sandifer has occupied a prominent position in the history of Needingworth for the greater part of a century, and never more so than at the present moment. Mr Alfred Sandifer {P433} is the representative to-day of the third generation, and on Saturday last he celebrated his silver wedding day, an event the villagers will long remember. Mr Sandifer represents his native village on the County Council, the Board of Guardians, and District Council, and is universally respected. At home the day was observed as a family gathering, including fifteen children, besides brothers and sisters and other relatives and a few old friends. Outside, all the old people in receipt of parish relief were treated to a packet of tea, or a parcel of tobacco, according to sex, and further regaled with a substantial meal. Those who were too infirm to get out were by no means forgotten. The chief affair of the evening, however was a supper given to all employees on the farm, and numbering 35, served at the Rose and Crown Inn by Mr {P291} and Mrs Wootten {P292}.
After a bountiful repast, Mr Sandifer left his guests at home, and joined his men for a time. In response to a toast of his health, most enthusiastically received, he laid stress upon the good feeling which had always obtained between master and men, and how beneficially for both and all of them. On many occasions he had sought the advice of his men in various matters, and was not ashamed to own it.
Then came the surprise of the evening. One of the guests produced a mysterious package, which on being opened turned out to be a handsome silver and cut glass inkstand, mounted with stags’ antlers, embracing pen rest etc. This said the spokesman was the spontaneous gift of the hands to their master and mistress, and Mr Sandifer was for the time overwhelmed with pleasurable surprise. During the evening each man was presented with a wooden pipe and a packet of special tobacco. Throughout the day Mr and Mrs Sandifer were deluged with letters and telegrams of congratulations upon the happy event.
(From a local newspaper report of 1903)
Needingworth side of 1933/4 who won the Hunts Lower Junior League and Cup
1947/8 winners of the Robinson Charity Cup
Chapter 18 The Needingworth Baptists
[Rev and Mrs Saunders]
On the 9th August 1928, during the ministry of Pastor J. W. Saunders {P8179}, the newly erected Providence Baptist Chapel was consecrated to the work of God in the village of Needingworth. The day started with a service of praise and prayer – 'To God be the Glory, great things He hath done' resonated to the rafters in song, expressing the feelings of the congregation. Members and supporters of the Baptist cause had come from miles around. The festivities continued in the afternoon with services in a large marquee erected on Mr. J.S. Few's {P548} paddock. Pastor B.J. Northfield of March took as his text the words ‘The stormy wind fulfilling His word' (Psalm 48:8). Tea was served in Mr Few’s barn and tickets cost eightpence each. It was in this barn that Charles Haddon Spurgeon the great Baptist Divine once preached, and among the assembled company was Mrs Turner {P581}, an old lady of 86, who remembered Spurgeon coming and was present at his services.
The cost of the new building carried out by Mr F Giddings of St. Ives was about £900. The proceeds of the day’s celebration was to go toward the building fund for this was an act of faith - and by the end of the day the chapel was free of debt. It was a great occasion!
Where did all this begin? Its root may go back to the day that men from Holywell and Needingworth went to fight the Spanish Armada and maintain Protestant England against Catholic Spain, or when, in 1620, the Pilgrim Fathers set sail for the New World where they might feel free to worship as they chose. However, early in the 17th century the church book of the Independent Church at Rowell in Northamptonshire shows that during the pastorate of a Mr Davis, ninety-seven persons were admitted to membership, residing in seventeen villages in Huntingdonshire some of them from Holywell and Needingworth.
This same Rowell church founded two other churches in Huntingdonshire one at Kimbolton and the other at Needingworth. The church at Rowell deputed Brothers Coales and Richard Pain to preach at Needingworth ‘as often as they could go'. On the 12th December 1692 a letter of dismission was signed at the church at Rowell so that the Needingworth members might become a separate body. In the minutes of a Church Meeting on January 17th 1693 the following entry occurs 'Then the messengers of this church proceeded to the work of the day, to break them off into a distinct church’.
[Providence Baptist Chapel at Needingworth. It was erected in 1861 destroyed by a gale in 1928.]
There seems to be no surviving record of the proceedings of this early dissenting church until nearly a hundred years later when the Particular Baptist Chapel originated from the work of Mr Thomas Ladson {P8303}. The church was formed on March 13th 1767 and as far as can be discovered the first Meeting House in ‘Meeting Lane’ was erected about that time, although there may well have been an earlier place of meeting in the area now known as Chapel Close. Evidence of an early graveyard was unearthed when bungalows were built there. The first Pastor was Mr Thomas Ladson who ministered for fifty two years until his death on 6th March 1819 at the ripe old age of 87.
Mr Samuel Sherwood {P9027} after supplying the pulpit for nine months held the pastorate until April 14th 1836 when he died. Mr Joseph Wallis {P5123} was ordained Pastor in 1837 and held the ministry until May 1843.
[The new Providence Chapel. Erected in 1928.]
After some years the growing congregation made some enlargement necessary. The question debated was whether to pull down and rebuild, or to enlarge the existing structure. The Church was almost equally divided in the matter, and discussion was hot and strong. The hours rolled on and the argument continued, seemingly endlessly, when, at a critical moment a piece of the chapel ceiling fell with a crash. Someone quickly realised the opportunity, sprang to his feet and proposed a new chapel - and it was carried unanimously.
So the old meeting house was pulled down and a new one was erected in the High Street at a cost of £750. It was opened for Divine Worship on 24th October 1861. There are still visible remains of the old meeting house just inside the Meeting Lane graveyard.
This new building was erected during the ministry of Mr Eli Whiting {P1780} who became Pastor in 1844 until he died on 27th March 1868. In 1860 a piece of ground was purchased at a cost of £123 and added to the burial ground. In 1877 a house was purchased in Silver Lane for the use of ministers which cost £200. This manse was sold a few years ago and not replaced.
The new chapel did not stand quite so long as the old one for on January 6th 1928 a devastating storm swept across the countryside; a large portion of the chapel was blown in, and great damage was done to the pulpit, the seats, the lamps, and the organ was made worthless. The roof was bodily moved about a foot and a half. It was a large lofty building with a gallery, and some parts were much too light to bear the stress they were subjected to in high winds. Many years previously, in March 1894, the front was blown out and the minister at that time, Arthur Baker, very narrowly escaped death. The 1928 damage to the structure was so extensive that it was necessary to demolish the building - except for a part of the end wall which was incorporated with the fireplace and chimney into the new building.
This brings us back to the beginning of the story. That same building, erected in 1928, with some modernisation stands firm today. The ‘Chapel' has had its ups and downs over the years but with courage founded in the faith of its Baptist forefathers, maintains the witness to the faith of more than 300 years - long may it prosper.
Pastors
|
Thomas Ladson {P8303} |
1767 - 1819 |
|
Sam’l Sherwood {P9027} |
1820 - 1836 |
|
Joseph Wallis {P5123} |
1837 - 1842 |
|
Eli Whiting {P1780} |
1843 - 1868 |
|
Walter Wright {P3094} |
1869 - 1874 |
|
Joseph Willis {P8305} |
1875 - 1879 |
|
F.S. Reynolds {P3541} |
1884 - 1885 |
|
A. Baker {P3668} |
1887 - 1898 |
|
W. Hudson {P8306} |
1900 - ? |
|
G. Folkard {P8307} |
1904 - ? |
|
J.W. Saunders {P8179} |
1913 - 1940 |
|
G.W. Pibworth {P8308} |
1944 - 1947 |
|
R.F.M. Earl {P8309} |
1954 - 1961 |
|
A. Westrep {P8310} |
1961 - 1966 |
|
B. Westrep {P8311} |
1966 - 1967 |
|
A.C. Turner {P28942} |
1967 - 1968 |
|
- |
1969 - 1971 |
|
R. Thornborough {P8313} |
1972 - 1982 |
|
D.J. Power {P8314} |
1982 - 1990 |
|
- |
1991 - 1994 |
|
J.M. Teeuwen {P6995} |
1994 - |
Chapter 19 A Village Walk
[St John the Baptist Parish Church Holywell-cum-Needingworth]
[Just below the church is the Holy well from which the village is named.]
We are about to embark on a short journey of about a mile around the village of Holywell to meet the residents best known to me during my childhood years of the 1930’s. On the way I will describe something of their homes, their occupations and life in general. Fortunately the topography is quite straightforward, the village is shaped something like a squashed out circle with the Church dedicated to St. John the Baptist at the west end and the Ferryboat Inn at the East End. The south side is known as The Front and faces the river Ouse across a large hay meadow named Flaggholme. A brook runs alongside the road - it is below flood level and joins the river near the Inn. The road along the north side is Back Lane.
[The Renault car once owned by the Rev J A Ross, Rector of Holywell, seen here with its new owner Dick Wilderspin and his friends.]
[The mother of Rev J A Ross]
Halfway along the back is the only road into or out of the village and leads to Needingworth a mile to the north. In the centre of the junction was once a grass island on which stood a public seat. There was no shop in Holywell, or bus service, so anyone seen sitting on the seat could be assumed to be in need of a lift, be it by horse and cart, milk float, or even the occasional motor car.
We will start our journey taking the front path. The first dwelling is The Rectory. The incumbent in my childhood was The Rev. J.A. Ross {P7980}, MA. (1913 - 1945) who lived with his mother {P8316} and the auburn-haired maid, Maud Dodson {P8317}. The Ross family did much to improve the fabric of the church and donated the oak screen which divides the Chancel from the Nave. James Ross was an academic and although somewhat withdrawn was much loved by his parishioners. The picture window above the altar was inserted during his time and reflects the history of the church. The topmost light contains a view of the Holy Well with inscription "Quoniam apud te est fons vitae" ("Since with Thee is the well of life").
The Rector rode high in the driving seat of an early Renault car with polished brass fittings. As it chugged along the Tabbitt boys would sometimes run behind whooping and giving a helpful push.
Joseph 'Joey’ Mansfield {P222} was Churchwarden, Sexton, Parish Clerk, and Gardener at The Rectory. He was rather short in stature and completely disappeared when digging a grave, he had a small ladder which enabled him to get in and out of the depths. One of his jobs was to toll the Passing Bell. Not many people lived within earshot of the sound but once the bell had tolled then rumour became fact.
A little further along was the only dwelling on the right hand side of the road Orchard Cottage a round white painted summer-house type of structure supported on stilts where the ground dropped away. Here lived Mr {P8318} and Mrs Kathleen Meggy {P8319}, they jointly owned the London School of Journalism. Kathleen developed tuberculosis, and sometimes I would pause and peep through a knothole in the boarded fence to see her lying on the verandah taking the air. On Saturdays I would take her a regular order of sixpennyworth of vegetables from the Manor Kitchen Garden with a couple of eggs fresh from the nest and, in season, watercress from the spring below the church. I was usually asked to sit a while and we would chat about the birds in the garden and happenings at the farm. I expect my boyish naivety amused her. I missed her!
On the opposite side of the road to Meggy's stands Goodyers as it has done for more than 300 years. It is a substantial house of red brick and thatch and at one time it was two adjoining cottages. The name is derived from William {P3237} and Elizabeth Goodyer {P3238} who lived and farmed here in 1871 according to the census then taken. At one end lived Annie Cooper {P353} whose husband {P8321} worked for Sanders Spencer {P329} -- his pig breeding business created much employment in Holywell for close on 50 years.
Gerald Leslie Baily {P7673} came to Holywell in 1924 married to Madge Irene Brummitt {P7333}. They converted the two cottages into the one dwelling. Grandfather Baily {P29010} was born on Empire Day which was perhaps responsible for his son having itchy feet. They led him to Canada where he trained in fruit growing with the Okinagen Valley Fruit Farms. He gained much valuable knowledge there for his later years at Holywell. He first planted the mixed fruit orchard on land by the road between Houghton and Wyton Airfield and still bears fruit for the Course family of St. Ives. He served in the Royal Canadian North West Rifles during the First World War and his brother was killed in that conflict. At Holywell he became an established fruit farmer and commercial pig breeder.
[(far left) Gerald Leslie Bailey (born 1889) at Okinagen Valley Fruit Farms, Canada in 1909]
[(left) Gerald L Bailey with his wife, Madge and children Gerald, John and Janet (born 1933).]
His son Gerald {P5400}, born in 1925, and then John {P5394} were both educated at St. Ives Grammar School and Kimbolton School. Sister Janet {P8323} arrived in 1933. Madge Baily {P7333} was an enthusiastic campaigner for the Conservative Party.
On their father’s death the boys continued working the farm and, now married with their own families and both retired, they have the distinction of being, with Jack Arnold, the only three born in the village before the Second World War to be still living there.
[The Croft]
Next is The Croft built by Sanders Spencer {P329} for his retirement from Pig and Cattle Breeding after handing over the reins to his son Charles. Here he continued to write articles for the agricultural press and never really retired at all. Humphrey Warren {P8325}, a Director of Comte and Warren lived here after Sanders Spencer {P329}. He was a relative by marriage. Humphrey died from a heart attack whilst cheering on the St. Ives Rowing team at a Regatta - St. Ives Rowing Club owes much to his interest and encouragement. He was an Olympic rower.
In the front hedge of The Croft were several wild plum trees which we called ‘mellabellars’ (Prunus Myrebalzm). Full of spring blossom they were fruitful and in July the pathway was strewn with their fruit, some yellow some red, providing many pies for the less well off of the village. For no good reason that l can see they have since been cut down.
[Robert Winter Fraser seated at easel, Holywell front.]
The next house is The Friars with the red Queen Victoria pillar box let into the garden wall. Postman Grey always studied his half hunter watch before opening the door at precisely 9 am. - l remember this because it fascinated me to see what he would find inside, but it also meant being late for school. It was said that the box had been placed there for the convenience of Mr Spencer - such is fame and influence. The present post box is on a drunken post and has lost the charm that the old one had.
Jimmy Hodkinson {P29595} came to live here in the 1920's, escaping the depression in industrial Lancashire to breed poultry. He specialised in White Leghorns which he trap-nested. He was a friend of my father, and once for some small task gave me a bobtailed cockerel which I proudly carried home. My father said if that bird is no good to Mr Hodkinson it is no good to you wring it's neck'. He had an early motor car called The Bean. His wife {P13818} had a pianola and I recall an occasion when after tea we all had to sit quietly while she gave a rendition on it. It was her pride and joy, but l thought it rather silly to pretend to play an instrument which played by itself.
Next door is Spring Cottage taking its name from the spring of water which rises beneath the house from the same strata of gravel as in the churchyard. The water always trickled down the bank and across the road into the brook, until recently when "somebody” decided to install a drain to achieve the same purpose
["The Friars", taken before Sanders Spencer’s letterbox was let into the wall by the gate.]
Mrs Bobby Fraser lived here with her artist husband and family. With other boys, I would often stand and watch him working at his easel.
This spring never ran dry, yet further along the front the well at Reed Cottage always dried up in summer, and Gilbert Fraser {P378} could be seen bowed down with the weight of two buckets of water carried by yoke across his shoulders - the daily ration! Only at the Manor House and The Rectory were there flush toilets.
[The Easton’s cottage which was demolished in about 1950, by which time George Easton could lie in bed and see the stars through the thatch.]
Through a rickety little gate and standing some fifty yards from the pathway was a small wattle and daub, whitewashed and thatched cottage, the home of the Easton family. ‘Rooky’ Easton {P2496} was a hedger and dyker who worked for my father until his retirement, previously he had worked for Joey Churton {P25435} and Sanders Spencer {P329} maintaining the hedges and dykes of Manor Farm. His craft has all but disappeared from the countryside and one would be hard put to find a well laid hedge and free running dyke in the county. His work in maintaining the hedgerows and ditches by its very nature provided the environment in which small birds and other creatures found habitat, and wild flowers could thrive, each in their season.
Eventually Rooky died from gangrene poisoning of a leg wound, this was long before the days of penicillin and such deaths were not uncommon. One of his sons, George Easton {P358}, worked in the fruit orchards at Needingworth for Russell Asplin {P7841}. By the 1950’s the cottage had become almost uninhabitable and George said he could lie in bed and see the stars through the thatch! In time it was demolished and a house built on the site for Madge Baily {P7333}.
The other son was Harry {P13810}, a cripple from birth, having been born without legs. In fine weather Harry would be taken from his place by the cottage hearth in a wooden wheelchair to sit by the gate. Every passer-by would pause and have a word with Harry. Often when a cow calved I would be sent with a can of ‘first milkings' known locally as ‘bisnings’ to various cottages in the village and would ladle the rich creamy milk of the new lactation into a jug from which the housewife could make a delicious pudding, needing only to add a little sugar. My first call was always the Eastons and sometimes Harry would be lying on a settle just inside the door. He would get quite excited at the prospect of a bisning custard.
He was by no means left out of things. His brother George, or Stan Mortlock {P37}, or the Tabbitt boys would take him in his chair to Metcalf’s corner and here boys and girls, some from Needingworth, would meet and chat or on summer evenings act about in horseplay by the river with Harry in their midst. Sometimes they would lift him out of his chair and sit him in the bottom of a punt to take him with them on the river.
Lammas Day on the first of August was once a festival of the Church. The name Lammas is derived from the Anglo-Saxon 'Loafmass’ when it was customary to give the village Priest a loaf of bread made from the new season's wheat. At Holywell it was celebrated by the opening of the duck shooting season, and as soon as it was daylight men and youths from Holywell and surrounding villages could be heard firing off their guns from either bank of the river to bring a welcome change of diet to their table.
Standing against the footpath with steps leading up to the front door, a fine old thatched farmhouse Hill Farm has its birth date 1623 - proudly set in stone on the chimney stack for all to see. Here lived Sid Broughton {P4259} and his wife[4] Jane Elizabeth {P7889} going about their daily toil, until one day old Tom Metcalfe {P605} found Sid drowned in the river and brought him home in his punt. It was a sad time for the old house, but happier times were to come.
[Hill farm]
[(left) Hill farm, Holywell. W H West and Harry at feeding time on the poultry farm]
[(Right) three generations, circa 1936. William H West, his son Harry and his grandson Eric with the improvised water carrier.]
William West {P8342} from Darwen in Lancashire, down to spend a few days holiday with his friend Jimmy Hodkinson {P29595}, did not need much persuading to up roots and settle for the milder climate and pleasant surroundings of Holywell. Here he soon became interested in poultry keeping and in 1932 his son Harry {P7654}, a carpenter by trade, with his wife Violet {P8339} came to live almost next door in the first of two cottages named ‘Fairbank’. Violet {P8335} their daughter tragically died of cancer and now her husband Billy Wootten {P8336} too has gone. Their son Eric {P8340} and wife Margaret {P8341} have only recently left the village to live in St. Ives.
Just inside the boundary wall of the old farmyard stood one of the few walnut trees in the village, it was a majestic tree of great proportion and for many generations had provided a rich harvest of nuts for those out early on a foggy autumn morning, many of which fell by the pathway.
Hereabouts was the lowest part of the front footpath and in severe flood the way would become almost impassable and scary for children, with the waters of an enormous sea lapping at their feet as they passed.
Next we come to Berrie House; its appearance today, a charming thatched cottage, is quite different to the smaller dwelling of the 1930's which suffered serious damage by fire. In the early days of the century Fred Tabbitt {P2791} and his family lived here, having moved from the tied cottage at Manor Farm. It was purchased about 1920 by Walter H Fawkes {P8344}. During his undergraduate days at Cambridge Walter Fawkes, like so many of his contemporaries, made forays out to the Pike and Eel at Overcote crossing the river by ferry from Over, and to the Ferryboat at Holywell. Student days finished he took up professional life with the Board of Education and regularly cycled from Maida Vale in London to Holywell on a Friday, stayed at the Tabbitts' and cycled home again on the Sunday evening. Eventually with his wife Lilian {P8345} and son Alan {P8346} he took occupation of the cottage. Alan commenced his schooldays at Slepe Hall in St. Ives, then followed in his father's footsteps to the University at Cambridge becoming an Analytical Chemist engaged on scientific research.
[A younger Fred Tabbitt-about to go a-mowing for pony fodder]
When the Fawkes family left Holywell to live at Houghton the cottage was sold to Miss Edith Deane {P7405} who retired from the bustle of London to enjoy an idyllic life in the country. She bought a horse, all the gear, and a pair of wellington boots. Unfortunately, magic though Holywell was, the reality did not quite fit the dream and the horse had to go, but not the wellington boots. She became a well loved eccentric as she walked the lanes; She had a weakness for auction sales and over the years her barns became full of her ‘bargains’ and a haven for mice. I became her garden boy and mouse catcher at fourpence an hour on Saturday afternoons. Miss Deane would not 'harm a fly' and purchased a number of patent mouse traps which the little varmints could enter but not leave. On Saturday l would empty them near the brook - I would expect they were all happily back by Monday.
[Lillian Fawkes]
[Walter Fawkes]
[Alan Fawkes, sent running down Parsons drove for Doctor Grove.]
Alan Fawkes {P8346} told me the story that he and his father visited The Manor for a social evening with my parents and to listen to the wireless which was then a novelty and was played through a large horn after much manipulation of a ‘cats whisker’. My father {P7920} asked the Fawkes if they would like some apples and went off to get them. The apple store was in the loft above the milk float stable and accessible by a ladder through a central trapdoor. After some time had elapsed and father not returning Alan was sent to see if all was well, and found father lying in a pool of blood on the concrete floor. He ran back to the house whereupon mother and Mr Fawkes attended to father and Alan was sent running down Parsons Drove to St. Ives for Dr W.R. Grove {P29591} who came straight away in his car bringing Alan with him. The patient was not seriously injured but diagnosed as having concussion from the fall.
Alan after his brave run was then sent home and taking the short cut through the churchyard, normally forbidden, was startled by the screech of a tawny owl from the church tower which sent his tired legs running even faster!
Mr Fawkes stayed the night by father's bedside and afterwards recounted to much hilarity that father in delirium constantly called "where are my trousers?"
In the second of the next pair of cottages, set back from the pathway, lived Mrs Mortlock {P4900} and her sister[5], both very elderly ladies in quiet retirement.
The picturesque Oak Cottage was the home of David {P3927} and Norah Tabbitt {P3951}. They were married in the parish church in 1906, and in 1908 their daughter was born and named Norah {P373} after her mother. It was another four years before Sidney {P7883} came along followed by twins, Frank {P6970} and Reginald {P7884} in 1914. Eric {P7621} was born, and then Walter {P6968}, and after another four years came Stanley {P7625} whose birth was something of a surprise. David’s wife's maiden name was Wilmer, her brother {P25} married David's sister Mary {P367}, so brother and sister married brother and sister. David had a good tenor voice and sang in the church choir. When he became old enough the eldest boy Sidney pumped the organ at the parish church. For this he received a remuneration of seven shillings and sixpence (37.5p) every quarter. The electric blower was fitted in 1948. All the boys were keen on sporting activities, some played for Needingworth football team, and the river was part of their life.
[(Left) David and Nora Tabbitt with their six sons Walter, Sid, Eric, baby Stanley, Frank and Reg, plus dog.]
[(Right) Nora Tabbitt who grew up to become a much loved teacher at Holywell School and married Les Harrup]
For many years David Tabbitt was a Special Constable and responsible for keeping the peace in Holywell.
David worked for Churton's {P8183} at the manor farm and was the victim of circumstances not of his own making shortly after my father took over the farm. Not all the men who worked for him at St. Ives moved to Holywell, for various reasons, so he kept on some of Churton's men. The Churtons were not farmers of the working kind - having made a fortune from the whisky trade; this led to a certain slackness and the men had become accustomed to not working on Saturday afternoon as my father expected and was normal at the time. There was grumbling in the harness room! A decision was taken that they would work until 1p.m. on the next Saturday and not return in the afternoon - after all, the master could not sack them all. David was not happy about this, he had a large family to feed but went along with the plan out of common loyalty.
Saturday came, David {P3927} went home to wife and family as was his normal habit. The others went to the White Horse where over a glass of ale the doubters began to feel less confident of the outcome of their plan - perhaps it was not such a good idea - the upshot was that they went back to work but no-one thought to let David know and knowing nothing of the change he stayed at home. The next day father asked about his absence and on being told said that where livestock were concerned he needed to know that they would be fed and watered so David was dismissed. It could have been a disaster for him but it so happened that he preferred pigs to cattle and was fortunate to become employed by Mr Baily {P7673} at Goodyers Farm as pig man.
[Fred and Amelia Tabbitt with their daughter, Mary.]
Grandfather Fred Tabbitt {P2791} lived in the cottage next door to his son David. This was his third move in the village, he first lived in one of the two little two-up two-down tied cottages on Manor Farm with his wife Amelia {P1095} and a growing family - the last and ninth child was Mary {P367} who as soon as she was old enough became nursemaid to the Spencer children at the nearby Manor House. Space at the Tabbitts was so limited that the older boys took their meals sitting on the stairs, and the eldest, David, took his in pride of place sitting on the copper. On washdays he would sit on the doorstep! Fred Tabbitt was often away from home for days at a time. As herdsman he was in charge of the pigs and sometimes cattle at Agricultural Shows in various parts of the country including the Royal at Islington. Occasionally he would be away for as much as six weeks taking stock to the continent and occasionally to Ireland.
Fred's second move was to Berrie House with more living space and outbuildings which enabled him to keep a small herd of five cows and two horses named ‘Jenny' and ‘Fisher’.
His third move was to be his last and after his departure the vacated cottage had a chequered history for a while. It was sold and modernised - one owner reportedly got into deep water financially and solved his problem by taking a large gin and cyanide. The cottage became known as Quarterdeck by a naval-minded occupant and so it remains to this day.
[Brooklyn, Anchor Cottage and Reed Cottage]
Eventually Quarterdeck was owned by Marjorie Tanner {P8351}. Mrs Tanner was the daughter of George Dennis Day {P8349}, solicitor, and Clerk to St. Ives Town Council. Two of her brothers were killed in action in the First World War and the third Lewis Day {P8352} followed in his father’s footsteps. The family home was Rheola in Cemetery Road, St. Ives, now an Old Peoples' Home.
Many St. Ivians of my generation will recall the PSA. (Pleasant Sunday Afternoon) services held in the Free Church during the 1920-30's under the benevolent leadership of Mr G.D. Day {P8349}. The programme included local speakers and talent such as the much applauded Jack Maile on the piano, and sometimes Laurie Dawson, Harry Cotton and Jack Dawson, the singing trio. Then there was ‘Deaffy’ Mitchell on the trumpet and George Smith with his violin. The church was always crowded, and rang with the singing of Sankey hymns - Jack Barter pumping away at the organ which had not then been fitted with an electric blower. At the final session before the summer recess one could hardly bear the anticipation of waiting to receive a prize for attendance from the books piled high on the rostrum. On my bookshelf I can see Anne of Green Gables, Hereward the Wake, and Coral Island, with the valued ‘Awarded for attendance' on the flyleaf. Each session would close with the emotional song "till we meet again" and not a dry eye in the place!
The Day family had lived for generations by the river Ouse, it was part of their life. It was in particular Jeffery’s {P8354} special joy to be out sailing or rowing in solitude, or with his brother Ivor {P8353}. He had a liking for poetry and found that he could express his feelings in that way. His poem ‘An Airman’s Dream’ was his own preferred choice of his work, but the poem ‘To my Brother' which he wrote in France some time after his brother died, is the most poignant and expressive of his feelings.
[(left) Dolly Metcalfe. Her pony "Kitty" grazed Colonel Ramsbottom’s paddock behind the Anchor Inn (right) Dolly with her retriever dogs.]
It is with the permission of Jeffery's niece, Miss Shelia Day, that it is included in chapter 20 of this book.
Second Lieutenant Dennis Ivor Day {P8353} died on 7th October 1915 of wounds received in action at Vermailles on 25th September 1915. Aged 23.
Flight Commander Miles Jeffery Day {P8354} D.S.O. R.N. died in the North Sea after being shot down in action on 27th February 1918 aged 21.
Just across the road from Rheola is the Borough cemetery where stands a memorial cross bearing an inscription to the brothers and these words
He died as few men get the chance to die
Fighting to save the world's morality
He died the noblest death a man can die
Fighting for God and right and liberty
And such a death is immortality
The Arnolds lived in the next house Brooklyn. Cecil
Arnold {P7846}, a policeman and
his wife Dorothy {P607}, known to everyone
as Dolly and the daughter of Tom Metcalfe {P605} at Wildcroft had
four children. The eldest was named Tom Metcalfe Arnold {P7321} after his grandfather.
Then came Robert {P7847} 'Bob’ and the
twins Olive {P7848} and Jack {P5368}. Dolly became the breadwinner
after she and her husband parted. She was a resourceful woman of strong
personality, helping her mother with guests at Wildcroft. She was an excellent
shot often invited to join shooting parties, she had control of the trained dogs
- retrievers of the waterfowl brought down by the guns. With her talents, and not
at all afraid of hard work, Dolly could be seen out early on the river poling
her punt through the morning mist to the reed beds. These beds had been
jealously looked after by generations of Metcalfes and before long the flat-bottomed
punt made by her father would be heaped up crossways with the dripping reeds.
Hard work, gathered with a long single bladed hook-like scythe especially made 
by Old Tom.
Returning then to the green in front of her home the reeds would be gathered
into sheaves and arranged into ‘shocks’ to dry. This was a tricky business managed
with handed down skill. If allowed to become too dry the reeds would become
brittle and useless. Equally, if too wet they would become mouldy and useless.
Finally the reeds would be graded and stored for sale to the breweries and jam
makers to caulk the wooden barrels - inserted dry, on contact with moisture they
would swell and form a perfect seal. Women's Institutes used them too, for craft
work such as table mats and chair seats.
In his authoritative work ‘Vatmaking’ published by the Science Museum R.R. Foskett says “the grade required by the Vat Maker is sold by the Rush Merchant as ‘best quality coopers’ rushes'. Large flags, nearly an inch in diameter, are the ideal size for vatmaking. When required for use, they should be split open lengthways down one side, opened out flat, and hammered to remove their springiness. Their principle use is to seal the groove - the junction between the staves and the bottom of the vat. In contact with the moisture they swell up and fill any gap. They are not as is frequently imagined, used between the staves except when carrying out certain sorts of repair.
The village seat was next to the Arnolds, and behind it on the black boards of an old barn are carved the initials of many local boys including the Tabbitts, Tom Metcalfe {P605}, A.A. Fraser {P4324} and his nephew Robert Winter {P323}. This seat was the preserve of Henry Selfe {P14151}, an ancient who lodged with the Arnolds. There is a story that a not unusual argument developed between Selfe and another ancient over some minor matter, which soon became physical and terminated in them both rolling down the bank into flood waters below.
The old barn is part of The Anchor Inn, now a private house in the ownership of Colonel Ramsbottom {P13592} who saved it from complete ruin. The Inn had flourished in the days of barge traffic working up and down the river Ouse, and a brickworks existed on land behind the Ferryboat. In the early mid-nineteenth century the landlord of the Inn which was then called ‘The Boat" was a man named Jackson {P3787}. He was also a coal merchant and there was a coal wharf beside the Inn to which coal was delivered by barges coming up the river, for distribution in the surrounding area. Owen Morton {P6447} who owns land hereabouts has frequently come across coal when cleaning out the ditch which divides the property north to south. Here also were hovels in which the bargemen lodged and probably some of the brickmakers as well. Now they have all gone and the gault pit is filled in to provide a car park for the Inn and the housing development. Charlotte Day {P527} was the last licensee of ‘The Anchor?
[Gilbert Baird Fraser with his daughter Mary in the garden at Reed cottage, Holywell.]
The pink colourwashed reed thatched cottage next to The Anchor is appropriately named Reed Cottage; In an old oil painting of the 19th century it is shown as a pair of labourers' cottages. The artist Gilbert Baird Fraser {P378} lived here with his wife May {P4318}, daughter Helen {P381} and son Rupert {P382}. An older daughter Mary Theresa {P380} sadly died in 1921. Mrs Fraser’s sister Miss Heseltine {P9548} lived with the family. Although Gilbert Baird was not as successful a painter as his brothers and was thought to suffer a degree of colour blindness I have always liked the simplicity of his water colour paintings, mostly of scenes from his studio window - which doubled as the best bedroom - and which generally included a small sailing boat in the middle distance. Although poor financially they were proud of their Scottish ancestry and were keen supporters of the Jacobite cause. Mr Fraser seemed satisfied with a quiet life, smoking his pipe, planning the next Jacobite revival meeting with his brothers, playing the fiddle and watching the sunset.
Mrs Fraser was mistress of a small private school which both my sister {P7922} and I {P7919} attended. Our classroom was the cosy sitting room of the house and our desk the dining room table, to my recollection we were never more than five in number. Here I was taught the three Rs, the rudiments of knowledge in general, and to appreciate the wonders of nature. My schoolmistress was the most patient and kindly person imaginable.
Leaving Reed Cottage and crossing over the road as it turns toward Back Lane comes Wildcroft, the Metcalfe’s home. Old Tom Metcalfe {P605} was a countryman extraordinary and had been written about many times. His knowledge of the river and its environs was unsurpassed. Many students from Cambridge university owed their understanding of country life, be it the art of fishing, shooting, or wildfowling, to Tom Metcalfe. As his understanding of the natural order of things had been passed down to him, so the accumulated wisdom was passed on to his daughter Dolly {P607} and grandson Tom {P7321}.
[(Left) Tom Metcalfe-Arnold cutting the rush harvest.]
[(Right) Alma, wife of Tom Metcalfe Arnold with the last punt gun in the village.]
[Jack Arnold with his twin sister, Olive]
Here, in the outbuildings surrounding the house, Tom made his own punts for gathering the rush harvest, and one of special design for that fearsome weapon the punt gun. When fired, from a prone position in the bottom of the boat, it could kill twenty or thirty wildfowl with the one firing. He designed and wove with willow, the eel traps called hives which were so important to their livelihood for eels were sent live in great quantity to the London Markets. Tom's wife {P606} took in paying-guests assisted by her daughter Dolly. In the fullness of time Dolly's son Tom {P7321} and his wife Alma {P7855} took over the running of this multi-faceted business - but that’s another day’s story.
[The Flood bank, leading from the Ferryboat to the Pike and Eel at Overcote]
A little further along is The Ferryboat, reputedly the oldest Inn in England, having first served liquor in the year 968. As the name implies the Inn stands at a convenient crossing place on the river. The last ferryboat was built by Breese Brothers, the St. Ives boatbuilders. It was 33ft long and 10 feet wide and capable of carrying 25 tons. It drew only 5 inches of water. It was swept away in a late 1930's flood. Before the ferry the river was forded in two places, one half a mile downstream and the other at a place called the Shallows three quarters of a mile upstream. The latter was regularly used as a cattle crossing in the 1920’s. In 1841 the census shows Metcalfes as landlords at both the The Ferryboat and at Over Court, the old name for the Pike and Eel. At either place a journey to Cambridge could be shortened by 7 or 8 miles for the cost of a few pence levied by right of the landlord. At the same census ten men gave their occupation as brickmaker and one as tilemaker. Two of them were lodgers at the Inn and with their families they totalled 27 of the then village population of 192 souls. As far as ghosts or ghostly happenings are concerned one can well believe that a village maiden Juliet Tewsley {P7878} hanged herself on St. Patricks Day in the year 1050, for unrequited love of a woodcutter, Thomas Zoul[6] {P7879}. But l like to think that she rests in peace beneath the gravestone set in the bar-room floor.
[The Ferry Boat]
In 1930 the publican was named MacLean {P9549}, and his young son {P9550} was my fellow student at Mrs Fraser’s school.
Taking the road from Holywell Front towards Back Lane, the first dwelling to come into sight is Moynes Hall, set in spacious gardens. This is now the home of Mr and Mrs Owen Morton {P6447} who came to the village in 1942. They have done much to maintain and preserve what little remains of the original dwelling, probably in ancient times the Manor House. There are some very old carved and decorated oak posts as part of the original structure and part of the old moat with three fishponds of considerable size. Until the extraction of gravel from nearby land these ponds regularly held water. In the days of tithing, large quantities of coarse fish and eels were required. It would be impossible to meet the quota without the fishponds in which the daily catch would be kept alive until needed.
[Moynes Hall]
Moynes Hall derives its name from one Berengar Le Moyne {P9551}, a military tenant annexed to Ramsey Abbey, who in the year 1252 was assessed as holding land of one hide in Holywell. Old records show that it was bought, together with Barnwell St. Andrew in Northamptonshire, under the name of Needingworth by Abbot William de Godmanchester on behalf of the Abbey in 1276.
An old Northamptonshire legend tells the story that Berengar Le Moyne bricked up his brother, Winter, within the walls of Barnwell Castle. This murderous act was prompted by a fit of jealous rage when their beautiful cousin Beatrice chose to become betrothed to Winter rather than Berengar. So distraught was Beatrice to hear of her true love’s murder that she drowned herself in the river Nene. The castle built in 1276 was until recent years the home of Henry, Duke of Gloucester.
Moynes Hall was acquired from Thomas {P9552}, son of Alexander East {P11365}, Gentleman, by William Chadderton {P7966} in 1580. He was Rector of Holywell (1570-1579), and President of Queens’ College, Cambridge. It was he who built the present house which dates from the 16th century. In the 1920’s the house was in the ownership of the Butcher family. Johnny Butcher {P364} was a horse procurement agent for the army during the First World War. He bred horses and had the power to requisition the best horses from local farmers. He had no fingers on his right hand - they had been bitten off by a fractious stallion. In the senility of his old age he would be led, or taken about the garden in a wheelchair by Sid Tabbitt {P19291} who recalls that he constantly repeated loudly "It’s a Bxxxer!"
In the 1930’s the farm was purchased by Mr Egbert Athlestone Jennings {P9553} who was both a farmer and cattle dealer. At the time Moynes Hall had a large orchard separated from Back Lane by a very substantial brick wall - said to have been constructed from ‘seconds’ produced by the nearby brickworks. In this orchard, among others were two full-bearing apple trees. Their fruit hung well into autumn and shone bright red. It was not the first time I had been tempted and now in my tenth year the old wall seemed climbable. The ground beneath the trees was littered with fallen fruit, my first bite was enough. They were bitter and sour cider apples (of the variety Jolly Miller). Returning to the wall I could find no toehold, the inside was in better condition than that by the road and the top was out of reach. Realising the impossibility of escape that way I made for the gate by the farm and was met with the brandishing stick of Mr. Jennings who blocked the way. The abuse was confined to the verbal, nevertheless it was my first and last attempt at scrumping. Apples from our own orchard were much safer to pick.
Two of Jennings’ fields by the flood bank produced excellent blackberries, and I would often go there in season as would others including Belinda Smith {P7597} the gipsy and Aunt Mary {P367}. I was lucky and was never confronted by the owner but Aunt Mary was not so fortunate and on one occasion, for which I brand Jennings a friend of Beelzebub, she was about to leave the field with two baskets of the bright black berries when Jennings approached "So you like blackberries do you?” he asked. "Yes I do" she replied, whereupon Jennings took both baskets from her and tipped them onto the ground.
I tell this story because in all my years in Holywell it is the only instance I can recall of one person being unkind to another.
The Pantiles, now owned by Mrs Marion Knight {P6281}, is next to the Moynes Hall orchard. It was owned by George {P383} and Kathy Radford {P9554}. He worked for the Churtons {P8183}. The old cottage had become dilapidated and was partly used by Tom Metcalfe {P605} to store rushes. However, on the death of George the property was sold to Dr Robinson {P9555}, a London surgeon who had it completely restored to the lovely cottage it is today. Mary Tabbitt {P367} became his housekeeper and Walter Wilmer {P25} was his gardener. Dr Robinson was a keen fisherman and used the cottage mostly for relaxation from his profession. He was popular with the Tabbitt boys because he would put his hand in his pocket and take out a number of half-crown coins, they would then be given any of which the boys could correctly guess the date.
Next to the Pantiles is Briar Cottage which had long been the dream home of Mary Wilmer {P367}. Built in 1654 it was, in my childhood, occupied by Mr Sharp {P9556} who was virtually blind and dependent upon his wife. Mrs Sharp {P9557} was invariably dressed in light cream or white clothes and white stockings which I thought were very odd at the time, but perhaps he was able to see some movement of light colour? Theirs was another of my regular Saturday calls with vegetables from the kitchen garden and always flowers. If I wanted pocket money it had to be earned and this was one of the ways to do so. The cottage eventually came up for auction. There was much discussion and Walter Wilmer {P25} said they could not afford to buy it on his wage as a gardener. Mary was more determined and on the day of the sale she went off to the auction in St. Ives. She bought it for £120 and it became their treasured home. Walter died in 1971. Mary continued to live in her dream cottage, and was known to young and old with great affection as "Aunt Mary”. One could always see a small vase of flowers in the window by the front door, no matter what time of the year. Often they were wild flowers. Her special favourite was the Kingcup, and she told me years later, when a resident at Rheola, that every year she looked forward to walking across Flaggholme to collect a bunch from an area known as the swamp. As she got older and no longer able to do this it became an annual event for Tom Arnold to take her in his punt across the brook directly into the swamp to gather her favourite flower. She died just a few months short of her 100th birthday on 13th October 1991.
[Dorothy Ibbett lived at Newlands. "Cowgirl" minding cows along Holywell front by Spring Cottage.]
On the south side of the road stands Newlands built by the firm of Masons of the Quadrant at St Ives, for Frank {P396} and Nellie Ibbott {P3926}. He was a carpenter by trade and employed by them. They had two daughters, Betty and Dorothy {P398}. Tragically both died young. Betty married Peter Edwards {P7415} of Needingworth and later died of cancer. Dorothy died of rheumatic fever, she was a ‘cow-girl’ minding cattle for smallholders who rented the roadside verges and the grass along Holywell front. It was thought that her fever was brought about by her being out in all weathers and not sufficiently protected against cold and damp.
[(Above) The White Horse, Croft Cottages, House of Dreams, The Granary. (Below) Tom Metcalfe at the door of the White Horse.]
The next house is the Fieldings home of Les Harrup {P7446} and his wife Norah {P373} the only daughter of David Tabbitt {P3927}. Norah was a qualified school teacher and taught at both Holywell and Over schools. During her years at Over she had a regular arrangement with the landlord of the Pike and Eel Inn at Overcote Ferry, that he would take her and her bicycle across the river by punt each morning and meet her for the return journey after school each afternoon
Continuing along Back Lane we come to The White Horse Inn where Mrs Elizabeth Carter {P394} held the licence for more than seventy years, and then handed it over to her daughter Beatrice {P3687} (Beatty). After a few years it was sold and is now a private house.
Reg Broadway {P9558}, writing to me from his home in America, recalls renting Quarterdeck whilst serving with the United States Army Air Force during the 1939-45 war. He and his wife Peggy {P9559} frequented The White Horse to which ‘the easy access was through their back garden'. The Farm folk taught them darts and how to score and how to play dominoes the English way. Beatty Carter instructed them in local 'how-to' and helped them get a good start with the locals. They refer to Aunt Mary {P367} as their dearest and most loved neighbour in Holywell. Their daughter Melissa {P9560}, aged four, spent many wondrous hours at the knee of Aunt Mary at Briar Cottage,... 'learning how to make tea. and how a refined young lady behaves; proper manners and countless other niceties’.
[Back Lane, Holywell. House of Dreams-Croft Cottages, White Horse public house, Briar Cottage]
In the first of a pair of Croft Cottages beyond the White Horse lived Bertha Lily Day {P289}, a retired schoolmistress who had the reputation of being a martinet. She died on 26th January, 1959 in her 89th year. Her gravestone a few yards from the side gate of the churchyard states with emphasis ‘Of Holywell’ as if to distinguish herself from all the other Days in the vicinity. It is one of the little mysteries which creep into village life. At a church service one Sunday morning when Eric Tabbitt {P7621} was but a lad, he sat idly tapping his toe against the draught board of the pew in front, much to Bertha's annoyance and she had him ejected from the church for unseemly behaviour. Since Eric's father sang in the choir there was no escaping the inevitable walloping on his father’s arrival home.
In the other Croft cottage lived Rudolf Berry {P9561}, known to everyone as Jack, and his wife Ann {P9563}. She was the sister[7] of Jimmy Hodkinson and they came down from Lancashire to work with poultry. Jack was a carpenter and no doubt his skill would be put to good use on the poultry farm. In time he built up a sizable flock of laying hens on his own account, which he kept on land behind the cottage.
The next cottage was owned by Beattie Carter {P3687} and let in the late 1930’s to Joan Greathead {P7437}. In the beginning she called it House of Dreams. It became a nightmare to keep it clean and warm, she wrote, with two growing boys and no electricity, no mains water or inside toilet They could have had three electric light points and one plugpoint free, but ‘No’ said Beatty, ‘It will damage the "thack"’ (Thatch). Joan bought a piano at Ekins Auction Rooms in St. Ives for her youngest son {P8210}, and one day as he was playing Home Sweet Home with the cottage door open, an old lady came along and spoke to Joan who was cleaning the windows. "That is nice, who is playing?" she asked. On being told and invited to step inside she exclaimed, "Bless me, that’s my old piano!" It was Mrs Spencer {P3914}, widow of Sanders and living at The Croft. Joan says that one of her greatest joys was to take the boys down Parsons Drove, pick a few violets or cowslips and have a picnic laid out on a large old tree stump in Pasture field.
The last cottage on the north side of Back Lane was owned by Jack Butcher {P7690}. At one time it was used as a granary, and later lived in by Beatty Carter {P3687} on retirement from the public house.
[White Rose Cottage]
Crossing over and opposite the road to Needingworth is White Rose Cottage once the home of Arthur Anderson Fraser {P4324}, one of the artist brothers and mentioned elsewhere in this book. He died in 1904, his widow {P4325} outlived both her sons and continued in the cottage until her death in 1947.
Beyond White Rose Cottage there were, in 1930, no more dwellings until one came to the Manor Farm. On the left-hand side of the road was first the back entrance to Goodyer’s farm, then a paddock attached to The Rectory garden. On the other side of the road was, and still is, Coldham’s. A footpath from Needingworth crosses it with a kissing gate at either end. Manor Farm at the top of Conger Lane consisted of a modernised farmhouse, numerous regimented farm buildings and a pair of tied cottages opposite the duck pond.
[William H Newell with a Shorthorn Bull]
[Caroline A Newell with 'Kim']
My {P7919} father William H Newell {P7920} and my mother Caroline {P7921} purchased Manor Farm from the Churtons {P8183} who just a few years previously had it from Sanders Spencer {P329}. It was there that I first became aware of my surroundings and of my elder brother Henry {P7923} and sister Eileen {P7922}. The farm was a compact mixed arable dairy farm of about 250 acres. The grassland was mostly north of the river Ouse in the old Holywell Fen and was subject to flooding several times each year, as it still is. But it produced some of the sweetest hay in the county. Housewives in St Ives had a twice daily delivery of rich tasting milk from our farm land, ladled on the day it was produced into their jugs. Which reminds me that when milk-roundsman Dick Reynolds {P9564} left the farm to follow family tradition into the Grenadier Guards (he was later killed during the retreat to Dunkirk in 1940) his place was taken by his young brother George {P9566}. George was a member of the Thursday Afternoon cricket team at St Ives, mostly made up of shop assistants. One of these was his pal Stan Misseldine. When the cricket season opened George asked my father for Thursday afternoon off to play in the team. "If you go off to play cricket, who will deliver the milk?" asked father. “I hadn’t thought about that" said George. "Well you had better think about it and decide which you want to be, a cricketer or a milkman" was the reply. The subject was never referred to again and George has several times told me that his years at Holywell were the happiest days of his life. He went on to become much more than a milk-roundsman, becoming butter maker, gardener and was of invaluable help in many ways to my mother in the years following my father’s death. He married Amy {P9567}, John Coulson's {P8035} daughter, who lived in the first of the two tied cottages. John and his son Wally {P7391} both worked with our herd of shorthorn dairy cattle. Mrs Coulson’s {P7385} brother ‘Bolcher’ {P11369} was a cattle drover who taught me much about the countryside. The family were originally barge folk but turned to agricultural work when the coming of the railway destroyed their livelihood on the river.
[(left) John Coulson’s wife Elizabeth with her daughter Joan.]
[(Right) George and Amy Reynolds with Ruth. He was Milk Roundsman, Gardner and Buttermaker at Manor Farm]
In the next cottage first lived George Teat {P9568}, a Horsekeeper. He yearned for the woods of his younger days and eventually left to become a gamekeeper for Lord de Ramsey at Abbots Ripton. His place as Horsekeeper was taken by Alf Leach {P13666}. A Horsekeeper’s day started early. At five o’clock the horses had to be fed and their food digested before the ploughmen or carters took them out to work at seven. Tractors were in their infancy and there were none on the farm, all the work being carried out by the heavy carthorses. Each had his or her own stall in the stable and answered to their names. Blossom, Bonny, Boxer, Smart- and my special friend Beauty, are some I recall. The milkround pony, and his successors, were always named Tommy. Alf Leach was the son of William (Bill) Leach {P9570} who was responsible for the wellbeing of the Large White Pigs dominated by the boar Conqueror, an animal as much to be feared as the shorthorn bulls, Corner Stone and Old Tom. Bill came each day from St. Ives in a light cart drawn by a smart little pony called Kim. Then there was Floss the terrier and her rat-catching offspring, and Bob the old English Sheepdog who had no sheep to worry but was devoted to my father and lay for three days on the mat outside his bedroom door after he died on 21st January 1933.
Finally, if this book should happen to come into the hands of my barber-shop companion I hope he will be encouraged to make that extra mile ‘down there’ to Holywell to stroll about the meadows by the river where, in the words of Arthur Mee, he will find “as sweet and dear a piece of countryside as England has".
Chapter 20 ‘To My Brother’
A poem by Jeffery Game Day {P8354}
At first, when unaccustomed to death’s sting,
I thought that, should you die, each sweetest thing,
Each thing of any merit on this earth,
Would perish also, beauty, love, and mirth :
And that the world, despoiled and God-forsaken,
Its glories gone, its greater treasures taken,
Would sink into a slough of apathy
And there remain into eternity,
A mournful-minded, soul-destroying place
Wherein there would be seen no smiling face,
Where all desire to love and live would cease,
And death would be the only way to peace,
And when one day the aching blow did fall
For many days I did not live at all,
But, dazed and halting, made my endless way
Painfully through a tangled growth of grey
And clinging thorns, dismal, towards belief,
And uncontrollable, heart-racking grief.
It could not believe that one so fair and strong,
So honest-minded, and so void of wrong,
That one who made such splendid use of life,
Whose smile could soothe the bitterness of strife
And make a cold, hard nature warm and soft
(who used to smile so frankly and so oft)
should die, and leave our spirits numb and breaking,
grief-stifled, and yet empty, sick and breaking.
I prayed that God might give me power to sever
Your sad remembrance from my mind forever.
"Never again shall I have heart to do
the things in which we took delight, we two,
I cannot bear the cross. Oh, to forget
The haunting vision of the past!": and yet
Surely it were a far more noble thing
To keep your memories all fresh as spring,
To do again the things that we held dear
And thus to feel your spirit ever near.
This I will do when peace shall come again -
Peace and return, to ease my heart of pain.
Crouched in the brittle reed-beds wrapped in grey
I’ll watch the dawning of the winter’s day,
The peaceful, clinging darkness of the night
That mingles with the mystic morning light,
And graceful rushes, melting in the haze,
While all around in winding water ways
The wild fowl gabble cheerfully and low
Or wheel with pulsing whistle to and fro,
Filling the silent dawn with sweetest song,
Swelling and dying as they sweep along,
Till shadows of vague trees deceive the eyes
And stealthily the sun begins to rise,
Striving to smear with pink the frosted sky
And pierce the silver mist's opacity;
Until the hazy silhouettes grow clear
And faintest hints of colouring appear,
And the slow, throbbing, red, distorted sun
Reaches the sky, and all the large mists run,
Leaving the little ones to wreathe and shiver,
Pathetic, clinging to the friendly river;
Until the watchful heron, grim and gaunt,
Shows, ghostlike, standing at his favourite haunt,
And jerkily the moorhens venture out,
Spreading swift, circled ripples round about;
And softly to the ear, and leisurely
Querulous, comes the plaintive plover's cry.
And then, maybe, some whispering near by,
Some still, small, sound as of a happy sigh
Shall steal upon my senses, soft as air,
And, brother! I shall know that thou are there.
Then, with my gun forgotten in my hand,
I'll wander through the snow-encrusted land,
Following the tracks of hare and stoat, and traces
Of bird and beast, as delicate as laces,
Doing again the things that we held dear,
Keeping thy gracious spirit ever near,
Comforted by the blissful certainty
And sweetness of thy splendid company.
And in the lazy summer nights I’ll glide
Silently down the sleepy river’s tide,
Listening to the music of the stream,
The plop of ponderously playful bream,
The water whispering around the boat,
And from afar the white owl’s liquid note
That lingers through the stillness. soft and slow;
Watching the little yacht’s red homely glow,
Her vague reflection, and her clean cut spars
Ink-black against the stillness of the stars,
Stealthily slipping into nothingness,
While on the river’s moon-splashed surfaces
Tall shadows sweep, Then, when I go to rest,
It may be that my slumbers will be blest
By the faint sound of thy untroubled breath,
Proving thy presence near, in spite of death.
[(Left) Jeffery Day, R.N. (Right) Memorial in St. Ives Borough cemetery erected to the memory of Jeffery Day.]
And for the 21st century-
All their life in this world and all
Their adventures had only been the cover
and the title page. Now at last they
were beginning Chapter One of the great
story which no one on earth has read.
Which goes on forever; in which every
Chapter is better than the one before.
The Chronicles of Narnia by CS Lewis
[Moonlight over floodwater, 1919 by WF Garden {P334}]
Back Cover
Holywell and Needingworth
Another fascinating book from Joe Newell {P7919} to follow 'The Holywell Story' (1991). In this narrative he reveals some unexpected connections between famous personalities and these small Cambridgeshire villages, while allowing us glimpses of country life from Saxon times to the present day. As usual, the author's compassion and humour are evident throughout.
ISBN 0 947672 26 5
£9.99
Graham-Cameron Publishing
ISBN 0-947672-26-5
The lake at Dipsey Co Cork. Francis Arthur Fraser {P4324} “F. A. F” 1846-1924
Near Buckden by Robert Winchester Fraser {P7858} “R. W. Fraser” 1848-1906
Garden William Fraser {P334} 1856-1921 signed his paintings “W. F. Garden”
Benjamin water meadow, Holywell by George Gordon Fraser {P7860} 1859-1895
Berrie House, Holywell by Arthur Anderson Fraser {P4324} 1861-1904
The bridge, St Ives by Gilbert Baird Fraser {P378} 1865-1947
The Ferryboat, Holywell by Robert James Winchester Fraser {P323} “Robert Winter” 1872-1930
Ambrose Nicholas {P8147}
The author {P7919} with his brother {P7923} and sister {P7922} and the retired milk round cob, Tommy, gathering driftwood to fuel the washday copper
Bertha Spencer {P336} (née Warren) with her children Nancy {P337} and Katherine {P338}. Bertha was F.M. Warren's sister.
Sanders Spencer {P329} 1840-1930
Sam Wright {P125} in 1909
Mavis {P127} with her brother Trukki {P128}
Mavis {P127} at 14
Mavis {P127} in the Women's Land Army in WW2 riding 'Tommy'
2nd Lieut. Alistair Hay Fraser {P4327} RAF (1894-1918)
Scotty Young {P8266}, 1941
Sgt Veamie Young {P7235} (née Watchman) Women’s Auxiliary Air Force 1939 to 1949
Warrant Officer William R F Young {P8266} Royal Air Force 1939 to 1949
Able Seaman Kenneth Sandifer {P7703} born 1919
Grandma Sandifer {P3556}, the mother of 15 children
Alfred Sandifer {P433} 1856-1927
Sculpted angel Memorial to Alfred {P433} and Mary Jane Sandifer {P3556}
William D Sandifer {P7705} 1880 - 1962 and his wife Ethel née Odams {P8138}
Rev {P8179} and Mrs Saunders {P8180}
Needingworth side of 1933/4 who won the Hunts Lower Junior League and Cup
1) George Coulson {P21617}
2) Reginald Tabbitt {P7884}
3) Sidney Tabbitt {P7883}
4) Eric Tabbitt {P7621}
5) Les Norman {P8295}
6) Capt William Edwards {P7419}
7) Cliff Cooper {P5730}
8) Tom Marriott {P578}
9) W White ??
10) Sam Pyett {P220}
11) Leonard Marriott {P579}
12) L Simons {P7589}
13) Thomas William Mason {P94}
1947/8 winners of the Robinson Charity Cup
1) Frank Tabbitt {P6970}
2) Jack Parr {P7531}
3) Cyril Reed {P8281}
4) Ron Davis ??
5) K Sandifer {P7703}
6) D Millington ??
7) Mr Aubrey ??
8) Oliver Norman {P7522}
9) Albert (Ebba) White {P7656}
10) Harry White {P8071}
11) Alan Blakesly {P7344}
12) Robert (Bob) Smith {P8122}
13) Arthur Howlett {P7458}
14) J Dicks ??
15) Mr Robinson ??
16) Sidney Peacock {P7535}
Providence Baptist Chapel at Needingworth. It was erected in 1861 destroyed by a gale in 1928.
The new Providence Chapel. Erected in 1928.
The Renault car once owned by the Rev J A Ross {P7980}, Rector of Holywell, seen here with its new owner Dick Wilderspin {P9581} and his friends.
The mother {P8316} of Rev J A Ross
Gerald Leslie Bailey {P7673} (born 1889) at Okinagen Valley Fruit Farms, Canada in 1909
Gerald L Bailey {P7673} with his wife, Madge {P7333} and children Gerald {P5400}, John {P5394} and Janet {P8323} (born 1933)
The Croft
"The Friars", taken before Sanders Spencer's {P329} letterbox was let into the wall by the gate.
The Easton’s cottage which was demolished in about 1950, by which time George Easton {P358} could lie in bed and see the stars through the thatch.
Hill farm
Hill farm, Holywell. W H West {P8342} and Harry {P7654} at feeding time on the poultry farm
Three generations, circa 1936. William H West {P8342}, his son Harry {P7654} and his grandson Eric {P8340} with the improvised water carrier
A younger Fred Tabbitt {P2791} -about to go a-mowing for pony fodder
Lillian Fawkes {P8345}
Walter Fawkes {P8344}
Alan Fawkes {P8346}, sent running down Parsons drove for Doctor Grove {P29591}.
David {P3927} and Nora Tabbitt {P3951} with their six sons Walter {P6968}, Sid {P7883}, Eric {P7621}, baby Stanley {P7625}, Frank {P6970} and Reg {P7884}, plus dog.
Nora Tabbitt {P373} who grew up to become a much loved teacher at Holywell School and married Les Harrup {P7446}
Fred {P2791} and Amelia Tabbitt {P1095} with their daughter, Mary {P367}
Brooklyn, Anchor Cottage and Reed Cottage
Dolly Metcalfe {P607}. Her pony "Kitty" grazed Colonel Ramsbottom’s {P13592} paddock behind the Anchor Inn
Dolly {P607} with her retriever dogs.
Gilbert Baird Fraser {P378} with his daughter Mary {P380} in the garden at Reed cottage, Holywell.
The Flood bank, leading from the Ferryboat to the Pike and Eel at Overcote
The White Horse, Croft Cottages, House of Dreams, The Granary
Back Lane, Holywell. House of Dreams-Croft Cottages, White Horse public house, Briar Cottage
White Rose Cottage
William H Newell {P7920} with a Shorthorn Bull
Caroline A Newell {P7921} with 'Kim'
John Coulson’s wife Elizabeth {P7385} with her daughter Joan {P7388}
George {P9566} and Amy Reynolds {P9567} with Ruth {P9584}. He was Milk Roundsman, Gardner and Buttermaker at Manor Farm
Jeffery Day {P8354}, R.N.
[1] An historical source has it that "the public executioner Richard Brandon said he would not behead Charles. He was fearful of the assassination by fanatical royalists if he killed the King. Brandon’s usual assistant could not be found. Eventually two unknown men were found willing to do the job-only if they were allowed to wear false beards and wigs so that their identities were not revealed"
[2] Huguenots
[3][Did he mean John Thang Harradine {P1216} - see D02294j?]
[4] Sid's wife had died and Jane Elizabeth was his sister
[5] [Not sure who her sister was, but her daughter {P3823} Alice Maud Kezia Mortlock was in the house with her in 1935]
[6] [Or Roul?]
[7] [I am confused by this – see {P9563} and {P29598}