5 20 1026 https://reephamarchive.co.uk/omeka/files/original/4f7550d673538954cbb417ca8e15cd98.pdf 84021371046455644dd288e95e2eedd9 PDF Text Text Poems from Reepham �2 Poems from Reepham These poems are selected from the large number of poems submitted to a poetry competition which was part of the Reepham Literature Festival in 1999. The winning poems in the various categories were widely publicised in the town. However, so many of the poems were of such high standard that it was felt that they should all see the light of day and be read by as many people as possible. The collection also forms a fitting contribution to all the events and activities of Millennium Year 2000. Included in this little book are the winning poems from all categories and many more poems from the Adult category. There were so many poems from schools in the area that we simply do not have space to publish them. Some of them were clever, charming or whimsical but, as they were read at school with their teachers and seen by others in this way, we felt justified in leaving them out of this collection. We are grateful to all the poets for their permission to print their work. There is great variety of style, imagery and content in the poems. Enjoy! 2 �3 Part 1 This first section contains all the poems that were deemed to have won their category in the 1999 Reepham Literature Festival and gives you some idea of the variety of poems contained in the book. 3 �4 Sparrowhawks Sparrowhawks are birds of Prey. Sometimes they fly And they hunt sparrows, Raid blue-tits and Rob them. Often fly high in the air Wild birds! High in the sky And in the woods, With sharp talons, long yellow legs, Kill other birds Guy Jackson Reepham County Primary School The Flower Flower like a jellyfish, Middle like bright lights. Bud like a fish swimming in the sea. Straight stem like a rocket Going up to the moon. Oscar Denyer Lyng V C Primary School 4 �5 Sleek Black Cat The cat burglar sneaks through the cat flap, She is a sleek graceful prancer. She is a wave of black light. Her eyes are Christmas lights glowing in the darkness. Her tail is a sleek black blur. She is thinking "Where shall I sleep? Where is the most comfortable spot?" Settles down and goes to sleep. In the morning she does not wake up. No sneaking through the cat flap, being graceful Her eyes are no longer glowing No black blur; no thinking. She sleeps forever Sarah Warren Reepham County Primary School 5 �6 My Dad. How would you feel if your Dad can tickle You and a few days later, he can't? When you fall over and he cuddles you And a few days later he can't? When you run and he chases you And a few days later, he can't When he picks you up from school And a little later, he can't. When he sings you songs, washes your hair, Cooks your tea, reads a story, goes snow sledging, Dances with you and swims with you And, suddenly, he can't do all these things And I know I still love him. Rebecca Vick Reepham County Primary School 6 �7 The Dove A dove is like leaves being blown around. A storm is a dove violently fluttering its wings. The wind twists and curls like the dove hunting for its food. A sleeping dove is a gentle breeze. The thumping thunder is the dove's heartbeat. The dove hops like small stones being lifted in the wind, The dove rests like a calm, shivery breeze, silent. The wind whistles like the doves' calls to one another. A baby dove is warm, like the air on a hot day. The dove sits in the tree like lingering air. The dove violently ruffles its feathers like a dying tornado. A dove looking for food is the storm hovering over the land, The dust and sand being lifted is the dove pecking and having a sand bath. A silent breeze is the dove flying through the air A dove is the wind, strong yet peaceful. A dove can be temperamental like the brewing storm. A dove flies like a fluffy white cloud in the sky, A dove is a peaceful whistling wind. Doves' eyes are the piercing winds on a cold winter morning. Katie Atkins Reepham High School 7 �8 Feelings. Blood rushing and rushing, Muscles tensing and flexing, Head racing and racing. It's amazing! Excitement, that's what it's called. Eyes gushing and gushing, Happiness fading and fading, Body slow and weakening. It's horrible. Depression, that's what it's called Heart beating and pounding, Joints slowing and freezing, Breath racing and racing. It's scary! Fear, that's what it's called. Mouth rising and falling, Face crinkling and scrunching, Tears sliding and falling. It's great. Happiness, that's what it's called Every day is exciting and thrilling. Nothing's depressing or boring, Tiring or jarring. It's wonderful. Love, that's what it's called. David Lambert Reepham High School 8 �9 Chops Look at this man chopping up the rhythm, Cutting into the song like the butcher to the bone. Hacking out the meat, throwing it to the hungry. He pulls on the sinews of the song, Tightening them to breaking point, Lets them go. Saws along the length of the bones, Splinters them into skinny chords, Plays on the hunger, Stretches out the notes to breaking point Then pounds them into chunks, Feeding them to the starving, piece by piece, To suit himself, Bit by bit. Leaves them wanting more. Kay Riggs Wood Dalling 9 �10 The Beginning My friend , lover, blue-eyed Adonis, Straight-backed and proud. Atlas, with the world of towers and tomorrows on your shoulders, Ice-cold and cruel. Your frigidity melts when I smile for your warmth. Tonight I want you, To cleave sublimity from your arms, To lie with my hair against your cheek, To drink in the sensuality of this chill April evening. I could say I love you But I would whisper those words silently, Lest my heart, full-blown with happiness, Would break into tiny slivers And pierce this solitude For I cannot spoil the feeling or closeness of this moment. Though Elysian illusion masks the reality of sight, Tonight, dream-child, you shall be my lover And, tomorrow, on the edge of our shadowland Reality awaits. Stephanie Harris Billingford 10 �11 Cow Talk Mummy cow and Baby cow were going for a walk. "Mummy cow," said Baby cow "How did you learn to talk?" "I learnt it from the milking maid when it was milking time, But, because she read me poetry, I can only speak in rhyme." Jackson Family poem The Fox Fur My eyes were wide and bright For seeing in the night. My teeth were sharp for hunting, Panting in the forest. My ears were pointed, my tail Bushy and furry. My feet were silent as the moon. Now I am old and sad, Scruffy, in a box Under the bed and forgotten. Mrs Yerby's class Reepham County Primary School. 11 �12 Part 2. Now follows a complete change of mood. The residents of Reepham have long been noted for being proud of their town! Yes, it is a town, not a village – and has had a market for seven hundred years. I think these poems tell you that we are still proud of our town. The poems were written by residents of Reepham and other villages in this part of Norfolk to express their feelings about the area in which they live. As you will see ,this is a great place in which to be at home! 12 �13 Arrival at Reepham We fled the city many years ago To seek a more congenial dwelling place, With fresher air to breathe, Where kids might learn to grow In harmony with Nature’s gentler pace. Once free of London’s manic pace, We drove by peaceful country ways Towards our promised land – the EastWhere we might quietly end our days. We gazed on hedgerows pink with ‘May’, Wondered at unknown flowers in the wayside grass. This was a paradise where we could stay “Quick! Fetch the map we will not pass!” But now the light began to fade. Our thoughts had turned to food and bed When through the trees we heard a church bell sound. “Hurrah a village welcomes us.” we said. “Perhaps we’ll make it Home.” Lov Lieberman 13 �14 Reepham: Spring Sunday Sunday at last! A curious hush Enthralls the sleeping town. Only an early morning thrush Reveille calls, with cheerful song. He has no seven-day calendar. All days alike he greets with praise, While we take Sunday to recover From six long tedious working days. But sleeping Reepham’s soon awake Resolving to make holiday. Each to himself a promise makes . . . To do his ‘thing’ in his own way. So some will potter round the home And some will read or snooze all day. Some will wait in for friends to come, But we’ll be cycling – far away. Lov Lieberman 14 �15 Reepham Rainbow town, A rich palette, When heady drowse swoons over sleepy Reepham. Azure sea of deepest blue delphiniums Breaks vividly on mouldy crisp white stone Bronze finished leaves shudder down When toadstools burst forth from rotten wood. Blue-grey bonfire smoke curls. A Russian cat Wears the berry choker of scarlet beads. Odd bleak days of monochrome, When plastic cones wear dark mourning crosses. Black clouds gather. Circling black rooks cry out Funeral songs to tear apart a white sky. Christmas light, of jewelled hue, When homemade candles wink in paper bags. Twin church windows that smoulder, hot Melting colours against the bitter cold. Leonard Spencer-Steed 15 �16 Booton Church Look there – Stop the car - ! Those towers, two rising high. Pinnacles and piers in profusion Absurd ! Look now ! From distant fields merged into one space Move and again become two, pierced by long windows Looking through to sky. Booton’s lofty one More Gothic than Gothic ! Crockets and crosses and corners embroidered. Lorna Gray 16 �17 Thoughts after seeing Reepham Brass The past is ever present here, Not that I do fear But rather wonder what the years Have seen that make it such a place With prayer folded hands content Ghosts about the house have spent Eternity in solemn thought, bent In thin clear lines of brass. The crispness of their many falling folds Have never altered place, but hold A soundless rustle as though cold With frosty nights spent staring. You armoured one hang meekly there Beside your wife, who does wear A stubborn mouth and both do glare, Hiding your thoughts from me. Lorna Gray 17 �18 Living in Reepham Run to the top of Pudding Pie Alley And stand in the Market Square Spread out before you in all of its glory, The essentials of life are all there. An unusual church, a chemist and hardware, Pianos and fridges galore, Antiques and health foods, and Johnny-come-lately, A superior Bridal store. We're provided with clock-mender, bus stop and library, Cafes and beauty shop too. The King's Arms delights us with jazz in the summer, And there's Bonhams of London to view. A stately hotel, two butchers, a fish van, And to add to all of those The. greengrocer's shop is the best-named in Norfolk, 'Meloncaulie Rose'. We arrived and were conquered by North Norfolk's beauty, Sea, country and villages, too. Mid-way between coast line and grandeur of Norwich, We really think Reepham will do! Betty H. Brooks 18 �19 Festival Here we come Round Reepham We are going to have fun. Literature and reading will be leading Churches and Schools, Multi-Arts pools! Adventure in the Bircham Centre. Music and Dance in the Kings Arms! Collections. displays. photographic ways: Gardening on the trail to Booton. Guestwick. Salle. Dorothy Hindon 19 �20 Golden Autumn An elderly lady from Corpusty No longer fetched her pension From Saxthorpe For the post office had closed. She cycled to Wood Dalling then, To the post office there. There she met old George Who was collecting his pension. And they live happily now In the old lady's cottage, Cycling together to Wood Dalling In the golden autumn of their lives. Adrian Taylor 20 �21 Weekend Walk Hat, coat, scarf round your throat, Sturdy shoes and bring the brolly; Rev the car, forget the supper Saturday's here and we must be jolly! Where shall we go to? What shall we see? Too much choice, so it's up to me. Weybourne's windy and Cromer's crabby, So Cley, just Cley - that's the place for me. Lofty church and grassy green, Smokery, Pottery oh! what a scene! Windmill, cobbles, and road to the sea, Fishermen, twitchers and birds flying free. Prawns at the pub, and the Delicatessen, Aches in the legs which take ages to lessen; Gallery, tea-room and windswept marsh; Cover your ears 'cos the wind is harsh. Cley, Cley, pie in the sky, Glinty, flinty, strange and free, Desolate, pebbly, stays in the memory, Cley's the place where I want to be. Betty H. Brooks 21 �22 Part 3 Once again a change of mood. This long section contains love poems and other poems which express emotion or are reflective in mood. 22 �23 Thoughts for the Millennium Strive not to chase the dreams that sparkle brightest, They may be those that break and fall like dust. Rather seek to peer beyond your line of vision, For joys and wealth and riches more robust. Stand still and look at all that is around you, Let not the scene distort and lose its form. Whilst climbing to the top may promise heaven, The view from lofty towers is oft forlorn. Money doesn't always bring all it may promise, It can court the most unsavoury of friends. And yachts and sprawling mansions' gold and silver, Are no comfort when the dark on us descends. You cannot buy a family or a friend, Though neither of them cost a penny piece. Yet may you be a rich man with a fortune, You're a poor man if your soul is not at peace. So invest rewards of friendship very wisely, Feast ever on the fruits of humble birth. Bank daily all that nature lays before us, And you'll be amongst the richest men on earth. Patricia Barnes. 23 �24 Of Consequence Do not mask your light to the dreams that edge reality Or feign to show your heart to vulnerability For yesterday and tomorrow could shroud today’s improbability. Yet tomorrow may never come. You were young when I caught your heart And love fell like a plump, ripe apple into my lap. I watch your smile that teases and lingers too long Before you sweep me up into your arms. Do not be cynical of my love tonight, Although you can catch the night air with your hands And hold its sharp cutting edge close to my cheek, Stinging my eyes with your touch. For there is something as intangible as fire When I hold you buried deep in my warmth. And if you can love me without cynism of thought Then we can see today, tomorrow and yesterday as one. Stephanie Harris 24 �25 December 1999 The tide has gone out of my life Leaving sharp rocks, Scattering shells like so many memories. Your sudden death froze my tears Until the day I threw your gardening gloves away And, waiting to be darned, I found your socks In my needlework box. And the tide came in and covered up the rocks And I must go on. But, however, long I stay My love for you will never go away. E K Olney 25 �26 Words I said it But how could I mean it? What prompted the words That long ago night? He said it, and meant it just then, But only just then. For on reflection I knew it never was As we saw it then. He took my words And threw them back. Back and forth, back and forth They went, those words. My words, his words, Never meant words. But words. Cooed the dove to the blackbird Sing your happy song Sang the blackbird to the dove Coo your plaintive one, my love. Elsa Munn 26 �27 Summer Love Take my hand in yours as we wander past the golden fields of high summer corn. Kiss my lips, and tell me that you do not feel forlorn; I love you more than words can say ... I love you dearly, today. Now the corn has been harvested, and from the womb of Summer, autumn is born. Today is not so warm. Burnished leaves on the ground now lay. I loved you dearly, yesterday. Philippa Wilton-Pattison. 27 �28 I ask not ... I ask not for roses, Nor diamonds, Nor pearls. I ask not for garlands To entwine In my curls. I like to see sunsets That redden the sky And dewdrops that compare With the tears in my eyes. I am restless Yet I ask for nothing more Than loving warmth And a tender look That can say so much. But as I reach out And try to touch The depths of you My heart is churned and tossed Like a wave on the sea For though you look You do not see . . . me. Philippa Wilton-Pattison 28 �29 Adams's Apple “Take the apple.” Adam said to Eve Smiling gently. The sunlight dappled golden through the leaves In that beautiful place. He held it cupped in loving hands, Eyes intent upon her face Expectant. Watching. Yet she stood still hesitant Unsure about the “commitment thing” And needing- more This wasn’t enough. He handed her the core. Diane Lambert 29 �30 The Helpline Call 'She listened and hardly spoke at all, while I ran on and on. The first time I had ever spoken of it, my words pouring like a mudslide. She listened as I released my pain, and I believe she cared, as the shame and bitterness spewed from me. She was faceless and could not see mine. The vacuum between us was my security. Her listening was my lifeboat.' Rosemary Birks 30 �31 The Piper of Dreams (based on a picture by Estella Canziani) What is that, deep in the forest? A little snatch of music Like water over sand! What is that, soft in the distance? Sweet cascading droplets Make music in my mind. I must find that music, pursue its magic spell. I need to find the player And tell him how I feel. Is it you, golden dusk, the bluebells surrounding, Wispy, floating goblins Darting here and there? Is it you, scented earth, your roots all entwining, Giving out your secrets Of an ancient alchemy? Is it you solid tree, centre of the picture? You've been there a long time, The elfin you see. Is it you early spring, with your brand new clothes on Bursting through the earth With a flourish of joy? Is it you, sky and sunshine, breaking through the branches Playing heaven’s music As I listen here? No, it's you little man, with your hobnail boots on A feather in your hat And a Robin on your toe! 31 �32 It's you tiny fellow, with a cheap penny whistle, A stanza of stardust And fairies in the air! It's you, earthling pixie, with flowers on your doorstep, A squirrel looking on And a mouse as well! You capture the song you hear in the woodland And then distil its essence Deep within your heart. It's all in the lovesong, with aching reminders Of apples in the autumn And winter in the snow. There's music in the air, with hobnail boots on, A feather in his hat And a robin on his toe. Rosemary Birks 32 �33 The Field As I walk through the swathes of shimmering corn I can feel myself reborn. The worries of life just ebb away As I walk through the fields on a summer’s day. In the autumn, there’s fresh chill in the air. Mists rise from the earth, now bare. The farmer has gathered that corn to store And all that hard work is done once more. In winter’s grip the creatures are hiding I walk on the frost, slipping and sliding, Home to a fire and thaw out my feet, To look through my window at the snow and sleet. In spring, the land wakes from its long sleeping, Buds and blossom and new life peeping. The scars of winter have all been healed. Another new miracle begins in the field. Diane Smith 33 �34 The City Dusty pigeons, Heat haze particulate, Arab voices on the Romford road, Slaves of the computer escalate to Mordor. Time rules the city, Schedules and train times, Microchips and Vodophones. The lover stumbles, his love Turned to nanoseconds. B. Somerville 34 �35 Portia Striped killer, white fanged, Gorged on the blood red carcass of A purr-loined strawberry. Frank Steed Kestrels Kestrels are birds of prey Easy to spot Soaring up high They pounce on their victims Ready to tear flesh Eat small mammals Live wild and free. D. Jackson 35 �36 Tether’s End The house at Tether's End is framed of wood Rooted in basalt. At one metre from the ground Granite walls end and serve as a base for cob, Clay and straw that could have made brick But preferred not to kill trees in the baking. The roof of slate, split with careful, skilled hands, Stretches like drip tips. Even the bats are welcome. And then the tall man came along, Rubbery lips and watery eyes, And smashed the house down. So far below him it was. A window sighed as it shivered. A door splinterd and shrieked. Quick as that, One! two! three! He built another house Of Lego bricks. Breaking bits off and twisting and pulling To fit them together. A metal stairway stretches and tips. Suddenly it has no banister And the walls have gone; It is suspended in air And only balance can support your steps. Provided that the one below is still there. Dinah Thompson 36 �37 Trees They stand erect, steadfast onlookers Of the passing years; The eyes and ears of centuries, Silent witnesses of love and war. Shyly they begin to clothe themselves To dazzle us with robes of lilac, Pink and white, prelude to Summer's verdant capes. Autumn then bedecks them With bewitching hues, Prior to costing them off To reveal their shapely limbs and torsos. Meanwhile, the evergreen In proud dissent Stays cosily clad From year start to end. Seeking comfort, some reach out To hold hands, forming canopies Of shade and secrecy From the inquisitive sun and sky. Others stand alone, guarding their solitude, Gazing down from their majestic height Upon those lesser souls Reaching upward with truncated limbs. Joyce Cox 37 �38 Rapunzel Poem inspired by a photograph of Benham's Place, Hampstead. My name's Rapunzel But I'm short-haired and fat No temptress am I One look and men fly. Trapped in this tower Bereft of all hope, My own silly fault Feel entombed in a vault. Climbed up the stairs Squeezed through the door Puffing and blowing Sweat freely flowing. Door slammed tight shut Guttering's cracked Window’s too small No hope at all! No hope of a rescue No braids to cast down No long queues to ascend Can't telephone a friend. But life's good for the figure It's stopped getting bigger Hair's growing longer And longer and stronger. My name's Rapunzel Now long-haired and slim. When I cast my hair down They can't wait to climb in. Joyce Cox 38 �39 A Quiet Corner of England Early morning, daylight begins Thro’ shuttered windows - a new day brings Perhaps some sun, perhaps some rain. Thank God each day is not the same! So rising early, my hens to feed Out they rush - no grace, just greed. I watch them search and scratch for corn Thank you God for a new day horn And so I lean upon my gate And view the world laid at my feet. How beautiful each season seems Oh, England, place of many dreams But for this moment I'll be content. My quiet reflective moment spent Now to return to make cups of tea. Just another ten minutes in bed for me! So a final word that must be said Before I rise again from bed And, gazing out upon the land, I thank you God - it looks just grand. Ruth Charville 39 �40 Anger I’ll take my spade down from the nail And dig awhile – A row and maybe back again. Another row. I’ll thrust into the tilth my mood And turn it up again Upon the blade and spread it out To worry it. Then, as I dig my spade will burn And I will cool – To breathe the air that blew my doubts away And see my labour Turn from hate to love along the row. Lorna Grey 40 �41 Seasons. When in the blustery showers the dead leaves whirl, And scudding clouds sweep clean a leaden sky, When swaying boughs bend to the west wind's will, Then lively Autumn heads for Winter's chill. When blue tits search beneath the sheltered sills, And thrushes cock their heads and stamp for worms, When raucous starlings joust for morsels rare, Then steadfast Winter yields to Spring's fond care. When snowdrops push their heads above the moss, And violets bloom beneath a shelt’ring bush. When hedgerows' leaves and blossoms poise to burst, Then lithesome Spring gives way to Summer's thirst. When weighted boughs with apples are well hung, And blackberries punctuate the hedgerows' green, When chestnuts pop out from their prickly case, Then Summer melts in Autumn's wide embrace. Anthony C Martin 41 �42 Three Short Verses Conker red against the wall, Polished by sun and rain. Layered leaves herald the Fall, First bright signs of Autumn come. *** Bib and Brace, a smile on his face A saucy twinkle in his eye. His name is Len, the stoutest of men, Fearless, bold and canny. *** A dragging brake, yet we made it, A "fag" at the end of the line. A pint of the best Then half a night's rest And tomorrow we'll start just fine. Elsa Munn 42 �43 Country Patterns. Azure blue the distant skyline, Brown, the winter trees stand high, Mingling with the fields' green furrows; High above, the plovers fly. Ugly grey and loathsome pylons Thrust their bony sinews out. 'Phone wires stretch their charcoal tendrils, Casting shadows all about. A tractor crawls into the distance, Turns to corduroy its wake. Undulating roads and hedgerows Rural patterns help to make. Rays of golden sunlight filter Through the low dark clouds' array, Showing earth's reflected glory Into which life's fancies stray. Anthony C. Martin 43 �44 Ghosts Lines written at a Village Cricket Ground, at dusk, when everyone else had left. Through the closed and dark Pavilion Shades of Cricket's past parade; Munroe, Orbel, Mead and Stillion Motion with the willow blade. Quiet now the clicking scoreboard That in the past great feats displayed. Ghostly shadows pace the greensward Though they know the game is played. Glories of the past recaptured, Failures now must play no part, For the noble game is chaptered By exponents of the art. Though the ball is but a vision And the stumps are just a wraith, Leather, willow make collision, Calls, appeals, just acts of faith. Once cheered 'Greats' pass into shadow, Days of cheer return no more, Moonbeams flit across the meadow, Life is gone - Death's turn to score. Anthony C Martin 44 �45 Ode to a Birthday What does it mean? This feverish mood That brings joy And anticipation? Perhaps it’s someone’s birthday. Two thousand years is a long time With troubles and trials, Good times and bad. But everyone’s smiling, friendly and glad. It has to be someone’s birthday. The flags are flying, Bad times behind us, Friendships mended, Quarrels forgotten. It must be someone’s birthday. Bells are ringing, children singing, Everyone’s having fun. But the reason is clear At the end of this year It’s a very special birthday! Olive Curtis 45 �46 Part 4 The poems in this section could be described as humourous , or perhaps whimsical would be more appropriate for some of them. 46 �47 Puddles Splish! Splash! Splosh! Puddles are fun. Puddles come on rainy days, Puddles vanish in the sun. Splash! Splosh! Splish! Puddles are nice. Puddles can be very cold, Puddles can be ice. Splosh! Splish! Splash! Puddles are great. Puddles are for jumping in, Puddles saturate. Splish! Splash! Splosh! Puddles are fun. Puddles come on rainy days, Puddles vanish in the sun. Grania Ward- Brown 47 �48 Car Boot Sale What rubbish some stalls offer! And you wonder how they dare Offer their goods as fare. But, on the other hand, Such bargains can be found When touts don’t understand The value of goods at hand. A tape measure is surely a must, Otherwise you have to trust And, often, when at home, The goods tried on make you moan. Furniture is my forte And hunted high and low for. Makes you wonder how big Some car boots are. On a good day I understand it’s so worthwhile To clear the cupboards and pitch for a while. When rain comes visiting, such drudgery, it seems, Can’t make up for all the schemes. Sylvia Bailey 48 �49 The Gospel according to . . . Hello, Doris. This is Ella. Have you heard about the fella Going out with Joan? So I hear. Between you and me, my biggest fear Is that Brian will find out very soon And that will certainly be his ruin. Although the story goes he’s seeing Jane. I find that woman such a pain! Keep it to yourself. Now I’ve got to go! I don’t like to gossip, as well you know! But I’m going to Pam’s. I’m in such a rush. She’s drinking again. She’s such a lush! Her daughter’s pregnant, no surprise! Just looks at a man with those limpid eyes. She told me in confidence, so don’t repeat it! The father’s supposedly Colin. He’s never been fit. I must go now! I’ll see you soon. Keep this quiet. I know I can rely on you. Hello, Elizabeth. Doris here . . . B D Barker. 49 �50 Hair’s our Work At 9 o’clock our work begins, our column full of sets and trims As ladies arrive we greet them with smiles, give them a seat and show them some styles We’ve washed their hair with plenty of bubbles, we fetched them a coffee and help with their troubles. In front of the mirror at our work station, with scissors in hand we start our creation. Whilst chatting and trimming, rolling and pinning. Broad smile on her face - we know we are winning! After finishing their looks with gel, wax and spray, our ladies then are Happy” to pay. As one lady says “Bye” another comes in. We give her A seat and start over again. Clare Hannant & Karen Davies 50 �51 Apathy I'm Ms Apathy, I don't care, Said quite glibly and without flare. I'm not involved in any way "Disconnected" some might say. When asked to help - I disappear, That isn't really quite my sphere! I really do not want to know If I could help a project grow. I have no feelings, I just don't care, About my face, my shape, my hair. Men look at me - they don’t ignite, And I, quite frankly, don t excite. Stock markets up or stock markets down, Will cause me neither smile nor frown. Conservatives in and Labour out... Or p'r'aps the other way about. I have no convictions to bother me, I think you'd call that apathy! Grania Ward Brown 51 �52 Friends Harry is a little boy Who's got a special friend, Someone who makes life a joy On whom he can depend. A friend who's always faithful, A friend who's always sure, A friend who's always truthful, A friend who will endure. A friend who's always loving, A friend who's always there, A friend who's understanding. The friend's his teddy bear. Teddy takes him hand in paw, Says "That's what teddy bears are for". Grania Ward Brown 52 �53 Questions from my son, aged 6. "Why are things different, Mum, and why are they the same? Why do fish swim in water, and why aren't tigers tame? Why is Laa Laa yellow and why is Postman Pat called Pat? Why do we live in Reepham, why can't we have a cat? Why do people grow older, why don't they grow young? Why is earth a planet and why have I a tongue? Why aren't dinosaurs mammals and why are they all dead? Why are flowers called flowers?"… …"BECAUSE THEY ARE!" I said. Wendy Jackson 53 �54 The Foxglove Pink Petals like a trumpet hanging their heads, The inside spotty like lots of little bubbles. Petals getting bigger like a child growing up. The stalk as tall as a beanstalk. Leaves blowing gently in the wind, With holes … Caterpillars lunch? by Mrs Tebbutt's and Mrs Crisp's class Lyng V.C Primary School 54 �55 Part 5 We are going to end this collection of poems with a group of much harder edged poems. Many, but not all , are poems about war and the effects of war. 55 �56 Easter Chair. It's sweet and sturdy, of good elm or beech, a model for us all, humble, strong in shape, well made, a hard place for a chapel or school, for creaking and polished floors, the syllabus in the cupboard and prayers. Underneath the seat is an iron clamp, through which was passed a wooden bar, from chair to chair, holding them all rigid. In this way the teacher or priest would be sure that no-one could move out of alignment, shuffle forward, join another row, or to put it another way, that all seated were safe, in the same place at the end as at the beginning, of hymns, lessons, pictures of a grown-up world. Here people live for ever, sitting up straght, until they die, passing away, fading like bromide prints into the afterlife; except for soldiers, who fall, rolling into holes from which they climb, at ease together, when the bugle blows. It's a monument to our lives, this straight backed chair, like shiny shoes or long Remembrance Sundays, poppies. Give this chair wings to match the look in your eyes, reclaim this chair, cover it with cloth, repair the back and, sink or swim, it will always know who it is, each little bar, each little bone. Ian Starsmore. 56 �57 A Shed at Night. Red clay tiles undulate along the roof, the walls bulge from the plumbline leaning into the shape of a prow. The doorway of square cut wood is stained and phosphorescent, the posts rotting at the base as though washed by the sea every day, each time the tide leaving more colour, transmuting timber into blue-green. Nearby, protruding wires and bolts, there are some parts of an old car, headlamps, a bonnet, a running board, worn red leather seats. I sit down; feet on the engine, watch its oil still spreading on the floor. There's a dashboard, wood veneer, outlined in cream, a radio. Idly I turn the knob, travel the dial and hear silence. Against the end wall are drainpipes of odd sizes like telescopes of different focal lengths, or containers of small black holes; and next to them, stacks of glass, smoky as dusk in the sky or photographic plates of the movement of stars. Their bright dark leaks into the oil and lies in pools of night on the floor and on the ceiling, where it leaks again to outside, into gaps in the lathes and plaster, creeping between the tiles where the ivy pushes through, seaping and rising, becoming the Great Bear or Andromeda, infinity. A new moon leans in the corner, a crack or tear 57 �58 at edge of the wall, pouring light on old newspapers, on pictures of walking figures in bright and ragged clothes, their stories once important, as they pass each other on the pavement, high on the bridge between here and there, above and below, then and now. When I leave, from somewhere across the garden comes a trace of song, and the curling sound weaves like the wind through the holes in the door, follows me as I walk back up the path to the house. Ian Starsmore. 58 �59 Making it Back As we stood , shivering, sweating, full of fight, All the men thinking will we make it back tonight, The sergeant stands behind us, all big and bold, Pistol at the ready in case we fold. The whistle shrieks out like a bird in the night. As we climb the ladders; enemy star Shooting , putting up light Running faster, faster. Men going down both left and right. BANG! As the bullet hit me, I fell screaming to the ground. The men with stretchers came all night. One patted me on the shoulder And said “You’ll be allright.” Ernest Adams 59 �60 The Blitz We sat there through the raid that night, and the Warden cried "Put Out That Light!" The ack ack guns sounded long and loud, But can they really hit Jerry in the cloud? Searchlights criss crossed in the sky, And I heard my young brother start to cry. The bombs came screaming, whistling to the ground. Will we ever forget that awful deafening sound, The sound of horror, the sight of death? We witnessed devastation and held our breath, And as we ran to the shelter weary and tired, Without shame, we admitted we were petrified. To us it all began to seem, that to sleep in a bed Was a bygone dream, For we woke each day feeling tired and sore, After trying to sleep on the shelter floor. Then at last the war came to an end, But we'll continue to pray there'll be no more fighting, No more dying, and no more broken hearts to mend. Instead we'll pray to our dear Lord above, To teach us to keep the peace. Spread our friendship and everlasting love. If the whole world prayed together With all their heart and soul, For peace to reign forever, We may achieve this priceless goal. Pat Harrison 60 �61 A Kosovan Mother. It is the mud That I shall remember. Not the sound of my child Screaming with terror of the unimagined; Not the cold, naked fear in the eyes of my man As he was led away with the rest; Not the cold haunted slit of the mouth Of the young lad with the gun. I may forget the stench of the smoke As my neat home went up in flames; And the jerky, rumbling journey, And the sting of the wind and the silent travellers When dignity and self respect were lost. All this will pass into visiting dreams. But what I will remember is the mud And the hope that was lost; The hope that was buried in the stinking mud That greeted us as we arrived in Macedonia. And some of these are Christians too. Sue Page 61 �62 Geography Lesson. The war was fought inside these heads. Here, propaganda slithered in beside them, figments murdering them in their beds and, safe above the heads, practised planes and plans, far above the heads in which they fought this war and the sounds from them became normal. I recall a pilot, you could see his face, looking from his visor at me digging, in the garden digging, where I found the head of Miss Pepper, ceramic, dimpled, bodyless. Over there are those other heads, faces caught on trees, blown into the ruts of fields, like Miss Pepper, but softer, jawless, and the war was fought inside these heads. Ian Starsmore 62 �63 Business as usual in Dubrovnik (on seeing a photo of Dubrovnik taken in 1993) The Foreign Office travel advice states Croatia is safe; Dubrovnik is not Belgrade. Its people walk in sunshine down crowded marbled streets, stand in doorways, dawdle under shades or stride with purpose home to families and friends, pursuing Wednesday's journey along narrow-gauge gutters, down pavement platforms, moving like shoe-shod engines running on familiar tracks, neither loving nor hating their neighbours. The tenements grand, square-shouldered, wear Greco-Roman smiles, hang round doorways, hover over arches and climb up three flights to pantiled dormered rooves, un-telling Thursday's story of bomb-blast smithered doorways and blasted-open shutters, the spoil of ethnic cleansing, mothers' sons and daughters, smashed or violated, men hating their neighbours. Dubrovnik is not involved in the Kosovon conflict Dubrovnik is not Belgrade -- today. Terry Phillips 63 �64 Author Index Ernest Adams Katie Atkins Sylvia Bailey B. D. Barker Patricia Barnes Rosemary Birks Betty H. Brooks Ruth Charville Joyse Cox Olive Curtis Karen Davies Oscar Denyer Lorna Gray Clare Hannant Pat Harrison Stephanie Harris Dorothy Hindon Guy Jackson D. Jackson Wendy Jackson Jackson Family David Lambert Diane Lambert Lov Lieberman Anthony C. Martin Elsa Munn E. K. Olney Sue Page Terry Phillips Kay Riggs Diane Smith B. Somerville Leonard Spencer-Steed Frank Steed Ian Starsmore Adrien Taylor Mrs. Tebbett’s & Mrs. Crisp’s class Dinah Thompson Rebecca Vick Grania Ward-Brown Sarah Warren Philipa Wilton-Pattison Mrs. Yerby’s class 64 � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context GB/REE/RS/Publications Title A name given to the resource Reepham Society Publications Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource The Reepham Society Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1976 to 2014 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Printed documents Box *** Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1976 to 2014 Reepham Description An account of the resource Reepham Society Publications Text - printed Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Poems from Reepham Description An account of the resource These poems are selected from a large number of poems submitted to a poetry competition which was part of the Reepham Literature Festival in 1999 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1999 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1999 Reepham Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context GB/REE/1707191608 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Reepham Society Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource A5 booklet Reepham Society Literature Festival 1999 [File 15, Archive Box 115] Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Reepham Society Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Reepham Society Publications Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Some of these poems have already been published elsewhere, The authors, who have retained copyright, have given us permission to reproduce them here. 1999 Adams Barker Barnes Cox Crisp Curtis Gray Hannant Harrison Lambert Page poem Smith Taylor Thompson https://reephamarchive.co.uk/omeka/files/original/bfe0a8c46b1405c60e08815c773a7962.pdf 3d76faaca5ee4c1b4b5d2efe608303e8 PDF Text Text �������������������������������� https://reephamarchive.co.uk/omeka/files/original/f506f7e078c91f52398264bae3da016e.pdf 613918267d00c9c8d51294fa5abc4d20 PDF Text Text Reepham Society Magazine Millennium Edition April 2001 �SJP J SOLICITORS Hunstanton & Guestwick DIVORCE WILLS LANDLORD AND TENANT ( PRIVATE OR BUSINESS ) COMMERCIAL LEASE PROBATE EMPLOYMENT CO-HABITATION CONVEYANCING PERSONAL INJURY DEBT CIVIL LITIGATION Legal Services Commission Franchised Firm So Public Funding may be axmilable FREE HALF HOUR Office Hours Tel. 01485 532662 After 5.30pm Fax 01485 534802 T el 01362 68423 I IL T LB a m Residential Care Home, Church Lane, Sparham, Norfolk T el. 01362 688702 email: ronny.hillbarn@virgin.net Hill Barn is an attractive family-run H om e for the elderly, offering an informal and homely atmosphere. It stands in attractively landscaped gardens with open views across the countryside. The proprietors have over 20 years experience in elderly care, and with their daughter Nicola Bryant, RGN, Dip M CS and a team o f highlydedicated and N V Q trained staff provide 24 hour care tailored to the needs o f the individual. Various hobbies are catered for and a wide range o f entertainment is regularly offered. There is also a visiting hairdresser, chiropodist, optician, mobile library and shop. All meals are home-cooked and special diets are catered for. The H om e has held a G ood Food Hygiene Award from Breckland Council since 1997. All rooms have call bells and TV points. Accommodation is ground floor with mainly en-suite facilities. For further information or to arrange to visit the H om e please contact the proprietor Mrs. Ronny Hawtrey-Eastwood or the manager Mrs. Bryant at the above address. �Contents Editorial Editorial 3 Why Reepham? 4 Public Access and Right of Way Tony Ivins on Whitwell 6 9 Hackford through the Last Millennium Childhood memories of Reepham A Thousand Years of Salle 13 20 22 Reepham Personalities and Institutions 26 The Reepham Society is established for the public benefit in the area comprising Reepham, Hackford, Whitwell, Kerdiston, Salle and Booton. The aims of the Society are: 1. To stimulate public interest in the area. 2. To promote high standards of planning and architecture in the area 3. To secure the protection, preservation, development and improvement of features of historical or public interest in the area Front coven Jolyon Booth, Chairman of the Parish Council, with the competent help of the local Fire Brigade, erecting the banner advertising Celebration 2000 which marked the turn of the Millennium in January 2000. Typeset by CRB Associates, Reepham Printed by Norwich Colour Print, Drayton We have to mark the Millennium Year in some way. The Reepham Society nearly let it pass but, seizing on the fact that arguments have been made for both 2000 and 2001 as the definitive Millennium Year, we have just about squeaked in with a Millennium Edition of the Magazine. Not before time, did I hear someone say? Well, it is true that the last magazine went to print in ... well, quite a time ago. As a result we do have quite a lot of material to draw on. To mark the Millennium, we want to look back at the history of Reepham and our group of parishes. We have included articles on the history of Reepham, Whitwell and Hackford because that is what this magazine has always focused on but we also thought it appropriate to celebrate some of the well-known people who have contributed so much to the work of the Society and to the community. We had intended to bring out new publications and hold a History Exhibition to mark the Millennium in 2000 but the renovations carried out on St. Michael's and St. Mary's churches made that impractical. Doesn't the tower of St. Michael's look splendid after its renovation? The work on St. Mary's is mostly internal so do go inside and take a look. There is more to come. However, we have decided to bestride the two Millennium years by publishing this maga­ zine and another book, Poems from Reepham and by holding the History Exhibition in May 2001. A preview for Reepham Society members will be held on May 10th, and the exhibi­ tion will be open to the public on May 11th, 12th and 13th. You may even have bought your copy of this magazine there. If you have not heard of Poems from Reepham, let me tell you that this is a charming collection of poems entered by local people for the Reepham Literature Festival in 1999. They were too good not to have a larger readership than the six judges of the competition so the Reepham Society has published them - with an ISBN number so that a copy will be retained in the British Library and Reepham will have made one more permanent mark on British history! 'Poems' is on sale in Very Nice Things and Echo Antiques. The Reepham Society is not, however, solely concerned with the past. We are a member of the Norfolk Society (CPRE), we have links with other Amenity Societies in the county and we are also consulted on planning for our area. This is a time of great and rapid change so we must look forward as well as back. Within the limits of our constitu­ tion we in the Society are concerned with preserving, protecting, improving and developing features of historical and public interest in our area. We have already embarked on the promotion of environmental awareness in relation to safe and effective waste disposal. These issues affect all of us at a time when we can no longer go on ignoring our individual responsibility for keeping our increasingly crowded planet a safe place in which to live and bring up children. What better time to look forward constructively than during the first year of a new millennium. Oh, in case you were wondering what Reepham did to mark the Millennium, we should remind you that Celebration 2000 was held in St. Mary's in January 2000. This was a really effective event in which over 200 children and a smaller number of grow-ups joined together to look back at the last 2000 years - not to mention parents and others from the town who formed their audience on three occasions. This was a very moving event and drew people together in a very appropriate way. �Why Reepham? Wesley Piercy One of the older and better known Reepham residents is Wesley Piercy. Now in his eighties, he has lived all his life in Reepham and has always taken an intense interest in the history of the town. He completed the local history course run here by Chris Barringer in the 1970s and', later, went on to receive an Open University degree. Whilst completing his history course he wrote this speculation on the origins of Reepham. Why does Reepham stand where it does? Why is it so different from the surrounding parishes? Perhaps most puzzling of all, why did its churchyard contain three churches, now reduced by fire to two. Read on if you want to know some very believable theories of the origins of this town. 'Reepham is a small market town which extends into four parishes'. So says the White's Norfolk Directory of 1845. Why these four parishes, Reepham St. Mary, Kerdiston, Hackford and Whitwell, should collectively be known as Reepham when Reepham St. Mary is the smallest and least important is a puzzle. People are puzzled, too, by the fact that three of these parishes had churches in the same churchyard, which is said to be unique. This paper is an attempt to give possible answers to some of these questions. If one looks at the district, either on a map or on the ground, the four parishes, with the addition of Salle, form a compact whole with boundaries following streams for most of the way. Salle has to be included as the boundary with Reepham is so complicated that it seems that they must originally have been one. It seems possible that these parishes formed one large pre-Conquest estate. This, I Reproduction drawing of All Saints Church, Hackford m ade in 1784 before most o f the ruins were pulled down. All that now remains is a fragment of one wall. suggest, would have been called Reepham. The AngloSaxon 'ham' ending is generally thought to be earlier than 'ton' and other suffixes. The question then arises as to where the original settle­ ment was likely to have been. This, I suggest, was somewhere in the vicinity of the market-place and churches. If we try to put ourselves in the minds of a party of immigrant farmers looking for a place to settle, this area seems to be the one they would be most likely to pick for the following reasons: 1. 2. 3. It is high enough and far enough from the River Eyn (Booton Beck) to be in no danger of flooding and yet is not so exposed to the wind as other parts of the parish. With an underground stream running through, it is easy to sink wells to give an adequate water supply, wells being the only water supply until very recently. The soil in this area is a good medium loam, easily worked and well drained, with a sandy sub-soil under much of it, whereas much of the outer area is stiff clay. A good deal of this land was grazing land and was not ploughed until very recent times. It can only be surmised where these early settlers came horn. Had they come directly from the continent or from a previously settled part of Norfolk? If the former is correct, it is possible that they landed at Caister-by-Yarmouth and followed the Roman road that led inland from Caister and crossed the Eyn at some point in the Reepham area before continuing on towards Bawdeswell. If this was so, they would have passed through many miles of heath and woodland with very poor soil. The same applies if they came from the Norwich direction where much of the ground between Norwich and Reepham grew nothing but bracken until a few years ago. For people approaching from either of these directions, the fertile valley of the River Eyn would have appeared very attractive. If, as we suppose, Reepham was an early Anglo-Saxon settlement, the original inhabitants would have been pagans. Though no pagan cemetery has been found, it seems possible that the present churches stand on what was originally a site of pagan worship.1 This we can only surmise but the site does appear to be very old if the height of the churchyard, several feet above the roadway, is anything to go by. It is a fact that when sewer pipes were laid in Church Street a great many human bones, appar­ ently very old and crumbling, were dug up. This seems to indicate that the original churchyard was much larger than now and that the churchyard was originally on the level of the street. If this is so, it may be supposed that the early burial ground must have been associated with a church. That would mean that there was a church on the site at a very early period, any remains of which would be many feet below the present churches. Who knows wrhat might be found if they could be excavated. The floor levels of the existing churches, being only a little below the level of the churchyard, seem to indicate that the churchyard was a considerable height above the street level even in the fourteenth century. These must be indicators of a very ancient site.2 1 With the development of metal detectors and increasing interest in historical research, further evidence is slowly emerging of early settle­ ments in and around the Reepham area. [Ed.] 2 It is interesting to note also that instead of stepping up into the chancel of St. Mary’ s there is a step down to a lower level. Was this the original site of a church? �This was the opinion of the late Rev. H.G.B. Follard, Rector of Bawdeswell and Foxley, who had studied Norfolk churches for many years. A similar situation was discovered at Bawdeswell during the building of the present church there. The previous church was destroyed during the last war when an aeroplane crashed onto it. Under the founda­ tions of the old church were found the base of a Norman tower of flint and the foundations of the body of the church which was apparently built of timber or wattle and daub. There would have been plenty of timber available which, being less durable than flint, may explain why so few Saxon churches remain in Norfolk. The first church in Reepham, then, was probably also of timber and not replaced until, perhaps, the thirteenth century. This docs not, however, explain why there came to be three medieval churches in one churchyard. If, as was suggested above, Reepham was a large Anglo-Saxon estate consisting of the four parishes of present-day Reepham and Salle, and the original settlement was in the present church and market area, it is possible that the other parishes were off-shoots of Reepham. This may explain why four or five parishes are still collectively known as Reepham. Reepham itself was known as Reepham St. Mary with Kerdiston. If these names came into general use for the separate manors, as in similar cases elsewhere in the county, it would be simpler to explain why they are still, and apparently always have been, called Reepham. Salle, of course, is not called Reepham. If, as suggested, it was part of an original large estate, it may have become a separate parish with its own church at an early date. Hackford and Whitwell, which could have become Reepham All Saints and Reepham St. Michael's, but did not, evidently take their names from topographical features. In the case of Hackford (the ford at the bend), it must be from the ford in Hackford Vale where the bridge now is. This is also the only ford in Hackford. It may seem logical to suppose, then, that this was the original settle­ ment in Hackford. There is another small hamlet in Hackford which is known as Pettywell, another name from a physical feature. This is probably a later date than Hackford, otherwise this could have been the name for the parish.3 However, Hackford extends into the town itself and includes the whole of the Market Place which must have been part of the original settlement of Reepham. There do seem to be some good grounds for assuming that these settlements were extensions of Reepham by people seeking new land as the population grew.4 For Whitwell, the details are rather similar to Hackford. It joins Reepham and Hackford near the churches. The parish boundaries have been arranged so that they meet at a point in the churchyard with each church standing in its own parish. The former Duke of York public house is said to stand in all three parishes. Bar Lane, the former Gracious Street, leads from the church into Whitwell parish. Whitwell Street could be the original Whitwell settlement but a more likely spot seems to be near Whitwell Hall where excavations have revealed traces of an ancient settlement. There is another group of houses on Whitwell Common and the White House, though now showing a Georgian facade, has been identified as on the site of an older manor house. Another small settlement on the outskirts of the parish, Jordan's Green, was probably fairly late as it has grown up on very stiff clay. Kerdiston appears to have had twTo centres, one connected with the 'Giant's Moat' near the Old Hall and one with Kerdiston House, a farmhouse now demolished at View across the moat into the Kerdiston m oated site known locally as the Giant's Moat. The m oat itself is now surrounded by trees, but the remains o f an old well can be seen inside the moat. the other end of the parish. The population was, appar­ ently, never very large and there wfas never a public house or shop, though there w'as a blacksmith within the last fifty years and, formerly, a brick and tile works. Much of the parish, it seems was wooded until fairly late. The last remnant of ancient forest, the 26 acres of Haw Wood, wfas only cleared and ploughed after the Second World War. Much of Kerdiston is also heavy clay and a good proportion of the present arable was grazing ground until the 1940s. The question remains, why three churches? And stranger, why are they all in the same churchyard? The old story of three warring sisters is nothing but a legend though it may contain a grain of truth. It is natural, when the original manor split, that each lord should wish to have a church on his manor or estate. Unless some pre-Conquest docu­ mentary evidence turns up we shall never know the truth. If, as seems likely, there was already a church on what may have been an ancient sacred site, what can be more likely than that all the daughter settlements should wish to worship on the same site as their forefathers, and be buried there, leaving us with the puzzle of our three churches. 3 Apparently the original name was Petter's Well which seems to include a name, perhaps of the owner. 4 We should not forget, however, that there is also a suggestion that Reepham Moor was the site of the original settlement which could offer another explanation for the development of the town. 5 �Public Access and Right o f Way Kate Nightingale Reepham has many footpaths and lokes in the centre of the town which are public rights of way. There are also many other footpaths and green lanes around the town which have been there; as they say; 'for time out of mind'. Having a public right of way on your doorstep makes you wonder what the phrase; Tight of way' actually means. It also gives you some insight into why some landowners should be so keen to resist the use of rights of way by the general public! After all, the general public does include some people you might prefer not to walk over, through or along the side of your property for a number of reasons. Having started this article; I was going to wait until the new Access to the Countryside Bill had passed through Parliament but, having waited some months, I decided that we could not afford to hold back a new edition of the Reepham Society Magazine any longer. As a result I must remind readers that some legal details on access and rights of way may have changed by the time they read this article. What is a right of way? It is one of those phrases which people use freely without really understanding what it means. When rights of way were first granted, they were granted by owners of land to others in their own local community who wished to cross their land, perhaps to access their own land or to work in the fields. They knew the people who would use this access, personally, and both the community' and the landowner, however large or small their holdings, respected each others' rights. Respecting others' rights was taken for granted in a small community where everyone knew everyone else. After all, living in community depends on mutual give and take. In our modern world, as communities grow in size, we do not all know each other. Different groups have different values and aspirations. It is much easier to infringe other's rights and liberties if you do not know them or have some lack of respect for those who belong to different social groups or are in a different age group from yourself, even if you do not mean to do so. There is also a tendency, in these days of consumerism, to put more emphasis on rights and rather less on those responsibilities which are the other face of rights. One reason that there has always been such contention over access and right of way over open land is due lo the fact that the public right of 'way' across land and the rights of those who own the land on and around a road or path are not the same. You can only expect your right of way to be respected if you act responsibly in respecting the rights of the owner or owners of land and property around the road. Some people will know of the celebrated case in the 1930s when the Manchester Ramblers made a mass trespass onto the grouse moors of the Duke of Devonshire in Derbyshire. Seventy years later, a modus viveruli has been worked out between those wishing for access to beautiful areas of countryside and large landowners. Not least was the initiat­ ive of the National Trust in buying up large areas of land to allow public access. However, we should remember that it is the preservation of moors and coverts for game by landowners which has preserved much of the countryside now available for access by the public. It seems only fair, in the circumstances, to respect the landowners' rights to close areas when needed to prevent disturbance to game or stock. It is this care and seclusion which keeps the land un­ disturbed for other wildlife and, we have to admit, not all members of the public exercise their responsibilities effectively. At the other end of the scale we could consider those rights of way in a small market town such as Reepham. Those who live on lokes and narrow paths and roads are all too aware of how intrusive the passage of others can be. People passing late at night, despite the lack of street lighting, chat loudly under bedroom windows. (You would be amazed at what can be overheard!) We will not embar­ rass them by recounting some o f the late-night activities or describing the debris left behind. During the day people look over fences into gardens; a young man stops to smoke an illicit cigarette whose smoke drifts into garden or sitting room, passing dogs make resident dogs bark or leave less pleasant evidence of their passing! Others sometimes park blocking the road, usually when a resident is late for an appointment or when there are several cars behind as you want to drive in. In this context It is also apprupiiate to mention the new European legislation on Human Rights which states that a person has the right to 'peaceful enjoyment of his personal property'. That would also include noise being created outside someone's property on any right of way, including a metalled road. This can include thoughtless noise and litter created by children who often have no idea of how disruptive to others their play can be. All of this makes you have some sympathy with farmers and landowners who discourage walkers from using rights of way on their land, especially when a path goes right across a growing crop. Is it too much of a disadvantage to walk round the edge of the field? It is far more difficult for the farmer to keep that path clear when he is sowing the crop. He did not cover the path with malice aforethought and the law makes allowances for this as the farmer does have a duty to indicate and clear the course of a right of way, even if it does go across the middle of a field. I, for one, can never understand why anyone wants to walk across the middle of a field with a standing crop just because there is an old right of way there. Why wilfully damage a crop? And if you are looking for interesting wildlife it is going to be in the hedge, not in the middle of the field. Another aspect of this issue is that of 'common rights'. Until very recently, land always belonged to somebody, ultimately, of course, to the Crown. In feudal times anyone who owmed land held it of someone else. Although the feudal system and its associated communal agriculture was replaced by money rents for tenancies and personal ownership of farms and land, the question of common land and rights of access has taken much longer to resolve. In the manorial system common rights did not mean that common land was open to all and sundry. A common belonged to the 'commoners', a group of specific­ ally designated people who held specific rights, in common, to a piece of ground. Those rights of access w'ere for prescribed purposes which may originally have been to graze beasts, gather kindling, dig turves and so on. The 'fen tigers' were particularly notorious for their riotous defence of their common rights when Charles I enclosed and sold off tracts of the Fens to outside landlords. This led to drainage and loss of their common rights on that fenland. �Commons were the last flicker of the age-old style of communal farming and were retained for the very purpose of ensuring that villagers did retain a place to graze their beasts and to gather wood for their fires. In this area they comprised the heathland and marshy land along the streams. Much common land has, of course, been sold off or enclosed. By the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries some comm on land became 'poor allotments', which were used either directly or indirectly to provide for the poor, and other commons have been opened to public access by a variety of means. During the last two hundred years the concept of a common has changed and commons have been defined under a series of parliamentary acts. The Commons Registration Act 1965 defined a common as follows: over our countryside. The Countryside Access Charter defines both rights and responsibilities in relation to rights of way: Countryside Access Charter 1. You have a right of way on: a] footpaths - on foot only b] bridleways - on foot, horseback and pedal cycle c] byways - on public roads designated as byways (see also below). NB. Public rights of way are marked as such on Ordnance Survey maps. Public rights of way have been closed in the past around reservoirs or if land was sold to the Forestry Commission though many of these paths are now being opened up again. Land which has been allotted under any Act for the exercise or recreation of inhabitants of any locality or on which the inhabitants ... have a customary right to indulge in lawful sports or pastimes ... or have indulged for not less than twenty years.5 This demonstrates very clearly how attitudes to and ideas about common land have changed since enclosure of c o m m o n s and the d e m i s e of communal farming practices. The only registered common in the Reepham area is Whitwell Low Common though there are other remnants of former common land indicated on old maps. Since 1981 Public Rights of Way in the County of Norfolk, as elsewhere, have been defined under the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981. Any changes had to be obtained under a Modification Order from the surveying authority, the County Council. This involved taking evidence that included a description of the path or road and local state­ ments of the traditional use of the right of way before the Modification Order could be confirmed, published and marked on the map. Local authorities have a duty to protect rights of way and must record them. They also hold a register of commons and village greens. It is to them that you should report any problems. In the 1990s, 'green' elements in the population have been much more insistent on the rights of access to the countryside for all. At time of writing (March 2001) the new Act confirming unlimited access rights to specified areas of open land is to become law. My own feeling is that there is already considerable access to open country and to extend this will mean disturbing land which not only needs to be undisturbed for farming but to protect the way of life of the animals and plants which live there. One aspect of unlimited access that is only now becoming clear is that farmers and landowners will have the right to close areas temporarily if necessary and that areas with unlimited access will be mapped. The Act will not be effective until the maps are complete and this could take one or two years However, in 1992, the Countryside Commission published the Countryside Access Charter which defined rights of way but also gave information on the respons­ ibilities of those making use of rights of way over land belonging to others. This is particularly relevant for town dwellers (and some country dwellers) who may have limited understanding of the disturbances, not only to farmland and farm animals but to wildlife, from the irresponsible exercise of any rights to roam uncontrolled 5 I am indebted to Sara Birtles for the information on comm ons in 'The impact of commons registration: a Norfolk study', 'Landscape History and 'Common land, poor relief and enclosure'. Past & Present, No. 165. November 1999. On a Right of Way you are allowed to: a] take a pram or pushchair or wheelchair (if practicable) b] take a dog on a lead or under close control (this means within ten feet of you) c] circumvent or remove an obstacle sufficiently to allow you to pass. 2. You have a right for recreation on: a] public parks and open spaces - on foot! b] most commons near older towns and cities - on foot, sometimes on horseback c] private land if the owner has a formal agreement with the local authority. 3. Some areas are open to the public by custom or consent. a| open mountain, tell or moorland and coastline. (Much of this belongs to the National Trust whose aim was to open the countryside for general recrea­ tional and aesthetic use, especially to town dwellers.) b] most commons c] some woods and forests (This includes those owned by the Forestry Com ­ mission.) d] country parks and picnic sites e] most beaches f] towpaths on canals and rivers. In addition: • Land being rested from agricultural use may be tempor­ arily open to public access - notices will display the fact. This may include use by horses and pedal cycles. • Some private tracks and paths may be opened to the public by the owner on a concessionary basis. This means you can use the footpath as normal but that the owner is reserving his rights to close the footpath, usually in response to some abuse by users. We have to remember that it is those who live and who have lived in and used the countryside who maintain it. It is they who have made the English landscape the beautiful place it is. This is not a natural, totally unspoiled environ­ ment. It is because it has been managed and developed over centuries by farmers and other landowners, great and small, that the countryside is as we see it today. If it is made uneconomic for them to continue their way of life, the land will lapse back, not to its previous state, but to over­ grown scrub. Without our protection and sympathetic use of our rights of access to our fragile countryside it will be �irrevocably damaged. This is a particular risk at a time such as this when farming is depressed and there is little money to spare for conservation, even as more and more people come into the countryside. You should always remember that the OS map that you are using could be out of date. Surveys are only done at lengthy intervals and reprints have, in the past, been based on surveys which could have been carried out some time previously. In this age of IT the whole process is being speeded up and the national map is available on-line. This allows the sale of up-to-date maps through authorised agents. These maps can be centred on your own home or other specified site and you obviously have to pay the agent to cover the copyright fee. Needless to say, Norfolk has been one of the last areas to be computerised in this wav. Further information about rights of way and countryside access can be obtained from: Countryside Commission Postal Sales PO Box 124 Wa Igrave, Northampton, NN6 9TL For a Rights of Way Action Pack (CCP 375P) please contact: Countryside Commission Publications Printworks Lane Levenshulme. Manchester M l 9 3IP The Country Code In return for your right to enter or cross someone else's land you have responsibilities that the Countryside Commission has enshrined in the Country Code: 1. Apart from main roads, motor vehicles are only allowed on byways and roads used as public paths (RUPP), which were indicated on the OS map. RUPPs are, however, in the process of being re-categorised as bridleways. 2. Respect the work and life of those whose living is earned from the land. 3. Close all gates and do not damage locks and catches on them. 4. Guard against all risk of fire. This is a very real risk as global warming results in hotter summers with tinder dry grass and undergrowth - even quite early in the year. 5. Keep dogs under control, especially in lambing time. In sheep farming areas the farmers can shoot a dog seen in the field and off the lead, however well behaved or just having fun. And there may be young birds and animals or pheasant poults in the undergrowth in any part of the country. Untrained dogs can do much damage quite unintentionally. 6. Do keep to the public paths, especially in farmland. Not all paths are open to the public. You can check this on the OS map. 7. Always use stiles and gates to cross fences, walls and hedges. 8. Never interfere w ith crops, farm machinery or livestock. Protect wildlife - plants, animals and birds. 9. Keep water clean. 10. Take your litter home with you. 11. Take care on country roads. The road may be empty but there is no pavement, the road is narrow and what is round the next bend? 12. Make no unnecessary noise! �Tony Ivins on Whitwell Part 7 Tony Ivins was a founder member; and remains the President of the Reepham Society for his life-time. This article is based on a recorded talk on the history of the parish of Whitwell, where he lived for many years. Unfortunately, the beginning of the transcript had some damage but I think we have recovered most of it. The talk began by acknowledging a debt to two wellknown local historians, Chris Barringer and David Yaxley, both of whom have, in the past, carried out a great deal of research in the area. At least two tapes of the original presentation are held in the Reepham Society Archives. Anyone who wishes to listen to or copy the tape should contact the Chairman or Secretary of the Society. A good place to begin the history of this parish is to consider its name. Whitwell is said to mean 'clear spring'. There are a number of live springs in Whitwell. In particu­ lar, there is a good clear spring near the southern boundary of the park of Whitwell Hall. This was embanked in 1842 to provide the water supply for the Hall itself. It has never failed and, coming from deep underground, it maintains a constant temperature for its population of frogs, toads and small fishes. Possibly, that old Roman Road, after the Roman's went home, was an access route for various Saxon groups who came looking for land to settle in. That really brings us to the earliest Whitwell village records. In the north-eastern corner of Whitwell Hall there are the remains of an old village. We knew through oral tradition that there was a village there but it was not until the early 1970s that an archaeologist came along called Helen Supermeister. Sadly, she is no longer with us but she spent that summer, with a group of friends, excavating there. They found the footings of medieval brick walls, quite a number of them. Under­ neath those she found staining in the soil that could indicate a possible Saxon settlement. The last mention of that village that we know7of is on Fayden's 1797 map of Norfolk and on the site of this village he has marked 'Whitwell demolished'. And we think that the last few7, possibly empty, cottages w7ere pulled down so that the owner of Whitwell at that time could enlarge his park. At the southern end of the hall grounds, getting towards the south-eastern corner, there's a site which we think may have been the first Whitwell Hall, probably an old timberbuilt Saxon Hall. There is a little clearing, still clear, strangely enough, surrounded by what our man called 'bottomless ditches', in other words very soft muddy ditches. An archaeologist friend who came to look at the site some years ago thought these ditches indicated a moat, possibly a drainage moat around the old hall. Of course, it would have had the advantage of being quite close to the Whitwell Hall when it was opened before the last war as the Forest School. The earliest history of the parish can be traced back to Roman times w7ith the presence of the Roman Road w7hich runs from Billingford and Bawdeswell, through Booton and on to Caistor-by-Yarmouth. The actual route of the road is not clear across Whitwell but in Whitwell Hall grounds it can be seen as a sort of small curved embankment. It goes on through Jordan's Green to Bawdeswell along Common Lane.6 6 One indication of the site of a Roman road is the use of the term ’ Street' in a village name. We should remember this when considering the route of the road through Whitwell even though the OS map marks it differently and the word 'Street' is common in Norfolk villages with no evidence of Roman presence. springs I mentioned earlier on so it would have had a good w7ater supply. Getting aw7ay from Whitwell Hall and back to the parish, there is a seventeenth century map, of which I have a copy, which shows the Whitwell Field with its cultivated strips. That Whitwell field lay between the present Whitwell Street and what is now called Whitwell Road, with Mill Road in the middle. That made quite a big cultivated field, one of the common fields of the Whitwell village. This map seems to be a copy of an earlier map, copied later to show which of the strips paid tithes to which of the three churches in Reepham because the various strips are marked 'W', 'R' or 'H\ 9 �This map of 'Whitwell Field' was probably used in the eighteenth century to establish to which church tithes should be paid. It is almost certainly copied from an earlier map as it still shows all three churches. The railway line now cuts across the west end of the field. The buildings of Leeds Farm are dilapidated today but they occupy the site of the Leeds Tannery. In the field behind here it is possible to see the remains of at least one o f the tannery pits. The other piece of common ground in the village is still there. Whitwell Low Common, some 40 acres of rather wet comm on has no ownership as far as the Commons Commissioners know. Their feeling is that it was a piece of manorial waste but, among the early Enclosure Awards, is an early nineteenth century one that says that this bit of ground should be set aside for the poor of Whitwell to gather fuel and, possibly, to dig peat as well. Such rights are known as the rights of turbary. One little bit of medieval history that is quite interesting is that there has been a long tradition of a chapel of St. Nicolas in Whitwell. We think this may have been sited on the Whitwell Hall grounds, just south of what we call the New Wood because there is an acre of ground there which, until 1880, belonged to the Dean and Chapter of Norwich Cathedral. This might possibly indicate that this was the site of the chapel of St. Nicolas. However, there have been no excavations there but we should note the site as a possible site of interest for the future. There was also, near the village, an old water mill that worked from the little stream that rises near Themelthorpe and runs through the Hall Farm grounds and then through Whitwell Hall grounds, eventually running into the Blackwater River and, thence, to the Wensum. This mill possibly ground the com for the old Whitwell village. After the village became derelict, the mill itself was probably abandoned but was rebuilt in the 1830s to break up the tan bark for the Whitwell tannery, of which I will say a bit more later and it did that sort of work until the 1870s when it was replaced by a steam engine. �Coming right along now to the nineteenth century, the principal landowners then were the Leamons of Whitwell Hall. They came to Whitwell in the early nineteenth century and left by the end of that century, three genera­ tions of them. They had a tannery. The Leeds of Whitwell Green Tannery were tan owners and farmers, too, whilst the Collyers of Hackford Hall also owned quite a lot of land in Whitwell.' There is a map of 1824 that shows interesting road changes in the parish. It shows how the first Robert Leamon, like many another landowner of the time, pushed the road away from the Hall because he felt it ran too near his house so he had it moved about 50 yards farther to the north. Several other little tracks were cleared out and a riding alley was opened - that is the little lane and a bit of footpath that runs between Whitwell Street and Mill Lane, crossing Mill Road and through to the Whitwell Road. It is still called Riding Alley. Fiddlers Alley runs from the top road above the Hall down to the bottom road through Whitwell. Bar Lane is an interesting road that runs out from Back Street in Reepham as a little footpath but until 1816 it was a cart road. A good many years ago now, 1 was given a bit of a notice board that had been used as a shelf in a cottage when one of the corners was cut off. It was a white painted board, and on it in black lettering were words to the affect that this road had been shut up 'By Order' at a certain session. The date was 1816. As it was found in a cottage on the corner of Bar Lane we are pretty sure it referred to the shutting up of Bar Lane. Another interesting little fact that one of my local friends told me is that when Bar Lane was open as a cart road it was called Gracious Street. I cannot tell you any more about how it should get that name but that is how it was. Nineteenth century people Some years ago 1was able to get a copy of the census returns for Norfolk and I thought it might be interesting to look at what Whitwell parish looked like, the people who lived and worked there, what sort of work they did and how many of them there were. And it goes rather like this. The biggest group of people was those whom the census called 'agricultural labourers'. Whitwell parish comprises just over 1500 acres so it is about the area of a reasonably sized modern farm. In this parish the Whitwell farmers employed 69 men, 30 boys and four women on 1500 acres. Now, those of you who farm or have connections with farming will contrast that with what happens today perhaps at the most half-a-dozen chaps. There were ten farmers. Interestingly, eight men and two women were farming then. Most of the farms were fairly small. I will go through them because quite a lot of the names keep going over the years and are still known now. Mark Eglington farmed 270 acres and employed nine men and five boys. John Billham - now that's interesting because a number of people will know that at the end of Whitwell Street is an area known as Billham's Hill and that is where he farmed. He only farmed 22 acres, but to do that he had three men and a boy.8 Peter Wilkin, his acreage is not recorded.7 7 Most villages used to tan the hides of their own beasts in the past so it is possible that these tanneries are on much older sites. h He is also named as a 'machine owner" in one census so he probably had a horse-drawn threshing machine which would be hired out to others. [Ed.] Sarah Barrett farmed 40 acres and she employed one man to help her. Stephen Leeds I mentioned earlier on he was one of the principal landowners in Whitwell, farmed 880 acres and employed 30 men and 16 boys. He also had his tan yard, t h o s e b u il d in g s near W h itw e ll Common, just b e y o n d the White House. That was Leeds Tannery which, incidentally, finished work about 1903. As a tanner he also employed ten men, three boys, three carpenters and a blacksmith. Thomas Dunger farmed 332 acres up by Jordans Green and he had seven men and three boys to do the work of that. Elizabeth Neil farmed 50 acres with 'one man and two sons', whether they were hers or the man's it doesn't say. Marianne Seeker we would really call a smallholder now. She farmed an acre and a quarter. Robert Leamon of Whitwell Hall farmed 340 acres on which he employed 21 men and ten boys. As I said earlier, he was also a tanner employing 17 men and five boys. John Bacon farmed 22 acres. I don't know where he farmed. if you have added up all those acreages, you will find that it comes to a lot more than the 1500 acres in Whitwell parish. The answer to that is that Stephen Leeds, who farmed that 880 acres, had a lot of land in other parishes. In total there were 89 farm workers, men and women. I will not list all those, although, here again, you find names that have persisted through to the present. There were three pages of farm workers then we come to the blacksmiths there were two blacksmiths in the parish. John Smith, who was a qualified tradesman, aged 46, and John Rudd. Rudd must have just come out of his apprenticeship because he was aged 16, born in Reepham as a journeyman blacksmith. The name of Rudd goes on in Reepham today. There was one brewer - Mark Brett, a man who combined the job of being a bricklayer and an inn-keeper. That happened quite often, I found, especially with the little beer houses. Very often the man followed a trade and his wife looked after the beer house. William Springell kept the pub called the Cock Inn which was in Whitwell Street and is now the house called 'The Old Star'. There was another inn-keeper at the Foldgate on Whitwell Common - Samuel Vile. A high proportion of these villagers were born in Whitwell, Reepham or the surrounding parishes. Hardly anyone comes from very far away. Well, one chap came from Cawston - that's a long journey. He was one of the three bricklayers. In a lot of Norfolk villages there was a brickmaker and bricks were made. I don't think bricks were ever made in Whitwell, but I suspect he worked at the Reepham brickyard which is just up where the road turns sharp right by Reepham Station. Now carpenters - there were lot of those. It is interesting to reflect for a minute that in these early records one never finds the term 'builder' - they're all of a named trade. If you wanted a job done you didn't send for a building firm, you sent for the tradesman you wanted to do the job carpenter, bricklayer, mason if it was stone work, and so on. As a result, you never find 'builder' listed. As for carpenters, I see there were a lot, about ten of them living in Whitwell, not necessarily all working there. One of them, Thomas Sawyer - good name for a carpenter - was also a wheel­ wright. 11 �Now, cattle dealers and shop-keepers - four of those. Three of them seem to be related - they all named Neil; and then dealers in fish - two of them - William Guymer and Peter Wilkin, both bom at Whitwell. This again shows the big variety in trades and tradesmen. There were seven dressmakers, so it seems quite obvious that no one went and got something ready to wear - you called in someone to make it for you. The seven dress­ makers were Jane Warr, Franklins, Galimer, Roland, Vile, Vone, Seeker. There was one washer-woman, Elizabeth Hunt and one char woman, Deborah Wilson. In the parish there were two grooms. They would probably have worked either at the White House on the comm on or at the hall. Shoemakers - again you see no buying of the ready-made things. Three shoe makers working here - Guymers again and a Rudd. Also a turf maker and fowl dealer. Quite how he made his turf I don't know but 1imagine he would be drying the turf for burning, possibly turf gathered on Whitwell Common. paupers lived with their grown-up children - their families. I didn't find one in Whitwell who was living alone. They were all in their seventies. One man was 84. The census gives the professions of some of them. Rebecca Whur, was formerly a stay maker, Thomas Barker a carpenter, the others were all agricultural labourers. In the parish at that time there were a 106 dwellings occupied and three empty. That includes the two listed as big houses, Whitwell Hall and the White House, but they were mostly cottages or very small farm houses. Listed in the census was a total of 477 people including children, 224 males and 253 females. Of that total, 173 were in jobs, leaving 304 not working. That is what the parish looked like in the middle of the nineteenth century. 1think that there is one really signific­ ant thing. That is how occupations and jobs were very local because they are pretty well all working in the parish or in the neighbouring parishes of Hackford, Reepham and Kerdiston. As I mentioned earlier, their ancestry, too, was local. Most of them were born in Whitwell and I think Finally, there was one wheelwright and then the house servants - nine of them. That is not very many compared with the other parishes. Admittedly, Hackford parish is a lot bigger than Whitwell and Reepham is about the same size. Though there were not many houses in the parish at that time who would keep servants, or keep many of them, there were nine of them living in the parish at the time. The directory- shows another interesting fact about what happened when people got too old to carry on with their job. The only pensioners you find are men who've been in the armed services, and here we had two Chelsea pensioners, Henry Rudd and John Right. Henry7Rudd was aged 73, bom at Whitwell and at the time of the census he was blind. John Right was aged only 45, also born at Whitwell, and he was a pensioner of the 77th Regiment of Foot. Then we turn to the tanners, of course, Robert Leamon and Steven Leeds, plus the number of men working for the tanneries. The two tanneries employed between them 27 men and eight boys. There's one woman listed working in the tannery and she was called the 'bark cleaner' - Lydia Wilson, aged 36, and she was born in Reepham. The other group of people listed are the paupers and, in all the cases I've looked at in the census returns, those practically none, in this particular census, were bom outside Norfolk. The other place I have mentioned is Whitwell Common. We thought that it would be a sensible thing to make it into a local nature reserve because of local interest at the time. This then happened - with a management group made up of a number from the parish council plus myself, as a trustee under the old Parish Commissioners who managed the common from the beginning of this century, and representatives from Nature Conservancy and from the County. Two other people, John Barkham, Environmental Scientist, who advised us on the management of the common and Lyn Garland, who lives in Whitwell and was very enthusiastic about enrolling groups of volunteers to do necessary clearing work on the common, made up the numbers. This article comprises about half of the content of Tony Ivins' presentation to a meeting of the Reepham Society. The second half, which considers some different aspects of Whitwell parish, will be printed in a further Reepham Society Magazine which we hope to publish later in the year. �A Brief History o f Hackford Parish through the Last Millennium Jennifer Roberts Jennifer Roberts lives in Pettywell and has been there now for several years. She is a qualified archaeologist. Though no longer practising that discipline she has a deep interest in local history. She is another of our authors who has completed a local history course under the aegis of Chris Barringer. This article is the result of the research carried out on her course and since. The view from a slightly different standpoint, that of Hackfordgives new details about the history of Reepham and its satellite villages. Hackford-by-Reepham is one of the three parishes sharing the communal churchyard in Reepham. The parish includes most of the town of Reepham and land on either side of the Eyn Brook. It is possible that the boundaries of the parish were determined by the heath and comm on on either side but this is by no means certain. It is possible that the name Hackford was derived from haca, a hook or haecc, a flood or sluice gate. 'Ford' is Anglo-Saxon for river crossing. The name then could either mean a 'ford at the bend of the river', or 'the sluice gate (for catching fish) at the ford'. At the turn of the last millennium, just before the Norman Conquest the principal lordship of Hackforda was held by a freeman called Wither. It is possible that Reepham was at the centre of a large Anglo-Saxon estate. After the Norman Conquest it was given to Earl William de Warrene, just one of the 139 manors he held. Although William de Warrene resided frequently at nearby Castle Acre, at the time of the Domesday survey the manor of Hackford was held by a person called Turold. There were few inhabitants, probably only 17 or 18 families lived in the area. The land was farmed, some was put down as meadow but cereals must have been grown as there was a mill. Honey and wax were important products. Beeswax was used for church candles,9 and it was the tradition for beekeepers to supply their local church. Hackford at that time had five skeps of bees. It had woodland able to support 30 swine. Sheep, rounceys (horses) and cattle were also kept. There was a church supported by 11 acres of land. It was valued at 15 marks. The manor passed through William de Warrene's heirs for the next 200 years. In 1276/7 a Saturday market and annual fair charter was granted to Sir John de Vaux, who owned both the manors of Hackford and Reepham. An unofficial market had existed in the 'cemetery of Reepham' for many years before the Bishop of Norwich, in 1240, ordered the Sheriff of Norfolk to ensure that a new market place was found. The market was held on Saturdays, with a fair on the 'eve, day and morrow' of the feast of SS. Peter and Paul (29th June). The present market-place lies in the parish of Hackford, but it is not known if this was the site decided on in the thirteenth century. By the following century the de Roos family held land in Hackford, probably as tenants of the de Wanenes. A few years later they are mentioned as being the holders of the knight's fees and paying returns to the Duchy of Lancaster. 9 It is interesting to note that a former name for the Cardinal’ s Hat in Back Street was Candle Court. Some of the local inhabitants during medieval times must have been fairly rich for the church of All Saints had a collection of rich vestments, communion ware and church ornaments, including silver chalices, a portable cross and a holy oil vessel. The vestments included some made from woisled, fusleyn (fustian) and velvet and silk. Margaret and Ralph Vernon, Hackford landowners, were possibly some of the major benefactors, during the later part of the fourteenth century. During that century several of the Hackford residents stood surety, along with citizens of other parishes, to locals who were in trouble with the law. Brice of Hackford stood surety when Agnes Renandgo and her sister Emma were released on bail after being arrested for the murder of Richard Brightman at Billingford. A Richard o f Hackford also stood surety in a murder case, when Robert of Holden was accused of robbing and killing Henry o f Clermont. Other fourteenth century crimes include robbery. One night William Rillo had one quarter-and-a-half of barley, worth 5/-, stolen from him. A Roger Willok was charged but acquitted for the offence. Some information about the medieval inhabitants of Reepham and Hackford parish can be gleaned from the old wills. For instance in 1429 Robert Baxter, a citizen of Norwich is mentioned as owning lands in Hackford. Fifty years later Hugh atte Fenn made a will leaving 6/8d. towards the upkeep of the church. He also left money, to be obtained from the sale of his lands and manors in Hackford to help scholars at Cambridge and Oxford as long as they were not wasters and haunters of alehouses. William Cubit, the Rector, in a will dated 1505, gave to the town and the church of Hackford a drinking house with two acres of land to have a yearly obituary kept in the church. He also mentioned that the guilds and 'drinkings' of all the four parishes i.e. Hackford, Whitwell, Reepham and Kerdiston be kept there if they desired it. In a will dated a few years later John Goddying gave 6/8d towards the making of a chapel in the south part of the church if one happened to be erected there. If not, the money was to go to the upkeep of the church. In 1543 a fire burnt down most of All Saints, the parish church of Hackford, along with its church goods, orna­ ments and jewels. The fire also destroyed most of the town. The tower and parts of the west gable were the only parts of the church that survived. They were pulled down in 1790/6. It is, however, possible that a part of the gable can be seen in the tower of St. Michaels. A drawing in 1784 by E.F. Boon shows that the surviving tower had a chequer-board parapet and diagonal buttresses. The south wall of the tower had a square sound hole and the porch an elaborate doorway. As a result of the fire, Hackford parish lost its independ­ ence and was joined with Whitwell. On the 18th April 1544 an agreement was made between Robert Coke, owner of the fee simple of the church of Whitwell, Christopher Lockwode, clerk, parson of Hackford and vicar of Whitwell, and Thomas Bayfield. William Brese, John Blofield parishioners of Hackford, that the church and rectory of Hackford was to be consolidated with Whitwell by William, Bishop of Norwich. According to this indenture all the parties were in agreement. However, some of the parishioners obviously intended that the church should be rebuilt. One, Anthony Sugate, bequeathed 20 marks (1 mark = 13/4d or 66.6p) towards its rebuilding. Some of the surviving church plate was sold in 1547 for £20, probably to stop the ministers of Edward VI getting their hands on it. Some of the church materials were used to 13 �repair roads in the parish and some were used to build the transept in Whitwell church. During the reign of Elizabeth I each parish had to provide a militia. The parish was involved in a muster in 1577. An inventory was taken of 'of all Common Armor, Artelery munition and wcponnc and every ptccular pson shewed' It was found that the town had 'one Corselet, one peke, too Curreors et Dom furnished'(!) Three people were also able to support arms. Vynse Hawude, Thomas Crotche and Roger Hase were able to furnish a few bows and arrows, pikes and helmets between them. The Bishops court had some dealings with local drunks. John Twithney and Henry Bagrave were brought before the Bishops representative on a charge of being common drunks. Henry Bagrave who swore and resisted arrest later confessed to being drunk every day of the week and was ordered to do penance. Around this time the inhabitants were having problems with a person called Robert Kirk. It seems he was extracting money from the people as fines and then keeping it for his own use. The parishioners paid him 61- as payment for a fine for not planting hemp. A Thomas Croche then paid him 2/6d and then swore on 'his book' to make a payment of 5/- yearly. Mr Berte, 'Gent,' also agreed to pay Kirk 5/a year for all years to come. Nathaniel Bacon set up an enquiry into Kirk's misdeeds but the outcome of this appears to be lost. Hackford gained some notoriety during the Common­ wealth when the parish refused to billet a party of troops because the commanding officer referred to the parish as Reepham instead of Hackford. At the same time the parish was paying £3.3s.l0d per month towards the upkeep of troops and the furnishing of ammunition for the Royalist cause. As in Elizabeth's time, the inhabitants were expected to attend musters. Hackford men formed a Foot Militia under Sir W. Doylys, which mustered at Heydon Ollands on September 24th 1661 to be inspected. During the seventeenth century, weavers in Hackford, as in many of the local parishes supplied worsted. During 1657 Henry Juby a local worsted weaver must have been having a period of prosperity. Surviving records show that he took on several apprentices; Matthew Bale, Roger Hammond and John Humfrey were indented for seven years whilst a John Crotch was indented for eight years. The social make-up of the parish changed during the next hundred years. The worsted weavers gradually disappeared, a result of cheap products from Yorkshire, and tanning became important as a local industry. The tanners were wealthy enough as a group to make wills. There was also an increase in the number of shops and professionals in the parish. Grocers, bakers, brewers, a surgeon and an excise officer were all wealthy enough to make wills. The provision of services increased rapidly so by the middle of the next century the inhabitants of Reepham and Hackford were well provided for. The town of Reepham had all the services that would be expected from a local market town. All needs were catered for, ranging from the people supplying the local brewing and malting industry with barrels, to those who made hats and dresses for the local female population. The town was well served by bakers, butchers, grocers, confectioners, cabinetmakers, gardeners and drapers. There was even a hairdresser. The parish was also served by a number of inns and taverns, most in the town but at least one, the Lamb Rppr House, stood in the countryside. Links with Norwich, and thence the outside world, were maintained by a coach and carrier service. Local people believed it was the purity of the water which led to the excellence of the local ales. Although there were several brewers and maltsters in the parish, the Birchams were the major producers, so much so that when they were bought out in 1878 they had fifty associated pubs. In the parish generally though there was very little industrial activity. Like the worsted weavers of previous centuries, tanning also seemed to have disappeared from the parish, although there were tanneries in the local area. At the beginning of the nineteenth century the poor children of Hackford were reported to have been receiving a sufficient education. They attended a mix of Sunday school, evening school and day school. In 1837, however, the Land use in Hackford 1846 (based on the Tithe Apportionment Map). �Rev. Holley established a school in the Old Poor House consisting of a boys' school and a girls' school and a house where the schoolmasters and mistresses could live. By 1844 the rector's daughter had begun to hold a Sunday school in the school building. These were church schools for the children of Hackford and Whitwell. The children of Reepham parish had to wait until 1847 when St. Mary's School was set up. An inspector's report in 1869 said the National School was conducted in a highly satisfactory manner. The Methodists had also set up a schoolroom when they built the chapel in 1817. Mr Goodwin Kilburn had run a day and boarding school in Reepham since 1836, when in 1846 he decided to sell up and emigrate. A Mrs W oolm er also ran a school for girls. The pauper children received an education in the workhouse. The poor Hackford children at this time went to Buxton. Their education must have been a somewhat patchy one for there seems to have been a problem in keeping and finding suitable mistresses. A Poor House had existed in Reepham for the inhabitants of Hackford for many years, but, by the 1840s, the poor of Reepham and Hackford were sent to the Aylsham Union Workhouse,10 which also included the old Gilbert Union workhouses at Buxton and Oulton until the new workhouse was built in 1849. Hackford parish paid around £100 annually towards the cost of housing its paupers. Some of the older inhabitants were receiving outdoor relief, which allowed them to live in their own homes. This came to around 2/6d per week. There were also several charities, which provided relief by paying out money for emigration and for people who had sudden illnesses and accidents. Most of the charity payouts were under the control of William Bircham. REEPHAM To Be Sold By Auction By M r ] VERDON Wed 21 O ct 1846 Neat and m odern Household Furniture and other effects of M r G Kilburn w ho is removing to a distant country. Catalogues had on the premises and of the auctioneer. Great W itchingham . TO SCHOOL MASTERS The house and premises where In April 1846 smallpox made its appearance in Hackford and the workhouse medical officer was asked to vaccinate the inhabitants. They protested. The outbreak continued and by October it had been decided to give extra money so all in the Reepham area could be vaccinated. Life must have been miserable for the poor of Reepham and Hackford, with the majority living in little more than hovels. However, the more able poor and the lowermiddle classes were able to emigrate to a better life in the colonies. Mr Goodwin Kilburn, the schoolmaster, is an example of this trend. He was 36, married with two small children, when he put the above advert in the Norfolk Chronicle. He was not the only local to emigrate between 1836-1842. The St. Stephen's charity had paid for some people in Reepham to go to America and it also paid for a W idow Beales to go to Ireland. In common with the rest of Norfolk, by the nineteenth century Hackford was celebrated for the growth of its barley. Other crops grown included turnips, peas and beans, clover and wheat. A certain amount was kept under grass, especially by the river and stream margins. Stock keeping was also important and provided some local employment in the form of drovers, tanners and cattle dealers. The annual stock fair continued to take place on 29th June. In 1804 William Bircham who farmed 840 acres of the parish was the major landowner. He improved his soil by marling and liming, used a six-year rotation but did not have any of the new threshing or drill machines. By 1846 the major landowners included the Rev. J. Bedingfeld Collyer who owned 182 acres and resided at Hackford Hall, the Rev. J. Humphrey who owned 144 acres and John Sewell who farmed 108 acres. Most of the land seemed to be farmed by small tenant farmers. Hackford escaped the wholesale destruction of machinery and property, which the rest of Norfolk suffered during the Swing Riots. Maybe this was because the small tenant farmers could only afford to farm in the traditional way. By the nineteenth century around 23% of the local population were employed in agriculture on a permanent basis, although many more were employed doing seasonal work. Children were able to earn as much as 5d a day bird scaring, while gangs of women were employed hoeing, planting beans and thinning turnips. Many of the local clergymen were concerned for the morality and welfare of the field-working women especially as the gang masters were 'rough bullying fellows who would bluster and swear'. A number of Hackford women, once the fieldwork was done, earned a few more pence by weaving straw hats. In 1804 a farm labourer would earn l/6d daily rising to 4/6d at harvest. During the last millennium Hackford has been an essen­ tially rural parish dependent on the small market town of Reepham for its infrastructure. This has remained largely unchanged although recent changes in mobility have brought Norwich and the wider world into commuting distance, thereby bringing new sources of money into the parish. a profitable school has been carried on for the last 10 years are now to be let w ith imm ediate possession. Enquire of M r Kilburn on premises. 10 Union Workhouses sewed a 'union' of parishes and these larger workhouses replaced the smaller parish workhouses. �An aerial view of Reepham's three churches. The last remnant o f Hackford church can just be seen at the right of the clump o f yews. The photograph can be dated by som e differences from a present-day view. For instance, York House (top left) can be seen in the process o f restoration in the background. Hackford Hall. In 1846, at the time o f the Tithe Apportionments, this was home to the Venerable John Bedingfield Collyer, Archdeacon of Norwich. 16 �Pettywell Place now lived in by Howard and Margaret Blondford-Boker was formerly owned by the Eglington family. In 1846 it was owned by John Sewell but occupied by Margaret Rodham. This plaque adorns the wall in the yard o f the Old Brewery. It marks the site o f the former Bircham's Brewery erected by William Birchom in 1839. 17 �There was no piped water supply to Reepham until the 1950s. This well which has now been restored, also in the Old Brewery yard, was the source of water for the brewing of Reepham Ale until 1876. �This was the site o f the shop formerly run by Mr and Mrs Ron Gibbs at Towns End Corner. It has now been pulled down and replaced by the new development containing the hairdresser, DIY shop and electrical shop. [ I This model combine harvester was made by Ron Gibbs and was later presented to the Reepham Society. In this photograph it was on display with other agricultural implements at our previous Historical Exhibition. 19 �Childhood Memories o f Reepham Ann Dickinson This account of life in Reepham in the 1920s and 1930s was handed to the Chairman recently. Mrs Ann Dickinson now lives in Hunstanton but she was born in Reephami, a member of the Gibbs family who have contributed so much to the records of the recent past of the town. Ann's parents were married in 1918 and she was born in 1923. She looks back on her childhood in Reepham with great affection. After receiving a copy of the Reepham Society' Magazine from my life-long friend Peggy Hum, I began to reflect on my wealth of memories of Reepham. To begin ... the sermon to end when we could hear the congregation in St. Mary's singing their last hymn. The Rev. Moore, in charge of St. Mary's, invariably finished his service first! With the retirement of the Rev. Moore, and when the Rev. Geake left the parish in the early 1930s, the parishes of Reepham with Kerdiston and Whitwell with Hackford were finally united into one parish. The Rev. B.P.Lipscombe was installed and the present communicating door constructed between St. Mary's vestry and the chancel of St. Michael's. Often 1had to pump the organ for my mother, watching a lead weight rise and fall, paying attention so that it should not fall below a certain mark otherwise the organ let out a tremendous sigh and faded out. Mother had played a church organ from the age of fourteen and she later took over St. Mary's from a Miss Jewel. The Rev. Lipscombe was extremely musical and could coax ability from the least able. Under his jurisdiction my mother became an excellent organist. The Reepham Post Office and postmen in 1913. In those days it occupied what is now Meloncaulie Rose. It is possible to recognise the door into the cafe at Diane's Pantry on the left. At the age of three years, we attended Miss Bull's Kindergarten, situated at the back of the Brewery House. There was me and Peggy and her brother John, Pat Hall, Kenneth Hilton and Joyce Wagg. A year or two later we were attending dancing classes at Miss Holah's at Rookery Farm. The dancing school put on shows for parents and friends at the Town Hall. I remember dancing in The Wedding of the Painted Doll with John Kerridge, son of the bank manager, who was Jumping Jack. Sunday school was conducted by Mr Donald Chapman who, with his sister Olive, ran the Post Office at Iona House.11 Donald ran a flourishing and well-attended Sunday school. We had wonderful outings and prizegivings. Miss Wasey taught the senior children and, when we reached her class, she insisted that we learned the Collect for the coming Sunday off by heart and we had to recite it in turn. I remember her with great affection and appreciation. My mother was organist at St. Michael's when the Rev. Geake was the incumbent at Whitwell Rectory. Both churches were used for Sunday worship then. Frequently, the congregation of St. Michael's would still be waiting for 11 Iona House is in the Market Place and is now 'Diane's Pantry'. The postoffice was where 'Meloncaulie Rose' now trades. We had a fantastic choir tinder his leadership, singing oratorios at special church festivals - the Messiah, Elijah, Olivet to Calvary, to mention just a few. Occasionally we incorporated the voice of Mr Broad from Heydon although Donald Chapman did very well in solos, supported by his fellow tenors, Fred Alford among them. Apart from church music, various members of the choir founded a group to entertain during the year, putting on many Gilbert and Sullivan operettas. This group included Donald and Olive Chapman, Elsie Varley, Mabel Utting and Mr Cocking. The latter ran a boot and shoe shop which later became Gwen Hardesty's fruit and vegetable shop and which is now the Bridal Shop. The Market Place was a grandstand for the Reepham Town Silver Band under the baton of Mr Ruffles from Fakenham. When the weather was kind, and it invariably was, they played for the town's entertainment after the evening service at church on Sundays until nine or ten o'clock. Reepham also boasted a fine Salvation Army Band. They shared the Market Place as their meeting place on alternate weeks. I have memories, too, of carol singing with the choir and the hand-bell ringers in the snow. In those days, the seasons seemed more seasonable! In the spring we would pick primroses at Broomhill; snowdrops �Ron Cibbs. He was a man o f energy and imagination who refused to give in to illness. Rev. Ceakes with members of his choir outside the porch o f St. Michael's. grew like a carpet at Catchback and the perfume from the violets at Reepham Moor was unbelievable. Father, who was invalided out of the Navy with tubercu­ losis, put his talents to good effect when he settled in Reepham. My mother loved to tell of when motor cars became the 'in thing'. My father built one around an engine and chassis and, so anxious to try it out was he, that one Sunday afternoon he drove mother and an aunt and uncle to Cromer and back. Father, being the driver, sat on the kitchen chair and his passengers on upturned orange boxes. The sides of the car consisted of chicken wire draped with old curtains but when they reached 10 mph the curtains flapped alarmingly and had to be removed! In between bouts of illness, Father dabbled in photo­ graphy, watch and clock mending, garage and battery charging and, when confined to bed, built models, two of which, a ship and traction engine, drum and elevator (threshing machine) were housed with the Reepham Society.12 Mother started a business making hats, which flourished and this eventually became a fully-fledged drapery, millin­ ery, tobacco and confectionery shop. The garage, erected to sendee the growing car trade, was built at the rear and side of the shop, over an old Baptist immersion pool. This site has now been rebuilt as Lesley Tooley's hairdressers and Reepham DIY. I am sure it needed very little demolishing as it was built chiefly of corrugated iron but the side facing our garden was all glass, consisting of photographic plates of almost every photograph my father ever took. Part of the garage was given over to the engine room where Father had a generator from which he produced electricity and proudly wired our house - the first 12 We still have the threshing machine but does anyone know what has happened to the ship? in Reepham to have electric light. This was in 1928 or thereabouts. He also made me a doll's house and fitted that with battery-powered electric light. Towards the end of my Father's life I remember that the trees in our orchard had to be felled as they were old and barren. They had given shelter to the goats and bantams that we kept there. Mother's ambition of having a tennis court built in the old orchard began to take shape. Father wanted to oversee the project and make sure the ground was quite level. This proved a problem because he was now on constant oxygen. Not to be thwarted, he asked Dick Hatley, who worked with him, to get an inner tube from a car wrheel and inflate it with oxygen, added a piece of rubber tube to connect with the valve and, by slinging the tube over his shoulder with a clip to control the flow of oxygen, he was able to walk up the garden and inspect the new' tennis court for himself, returning before the tube was deflated. We wrere now able to have tennis parties, comprising Donald and Olive Chapman, Jean Hawes, Evan Symonds, Ricky and John Lambert, Ruby Barnes, Len Wilkinson, mother and myself. My great friend, Peggy Hum, and I had other delights in common. Her father, and both of my uncles, Edwrard Gibbs senior and junior, were among the company which formed the 'Black Minstrel Troupe'. We look back with such affection to our childhood in our beloved Reepham. A tennis party at Towns End Corner. Ann C ibbs (now Dickinson) is seated on the right next to her mother. 21 �A Thousand Years o f Salle During the Millennium Year, Salle village, church and estate celebrated the history of Salle on a beautiful June day. Morning service was attended by most of the villagers, followed by drinks at the hall with Sir John White before everyone joined in a barbeque at the Village Institute. The afternoon was spent in watching a cricket match or climbing the church tower for a glimpse of the splendid view from the top. This was a real traditional village event made all the better by the blessing of good weather. To bring memories of the past into the present, Claire Buxton, Chairman of the Parish Meeting, with help from long-time inhabitants of the village, such as Ben Stimpson, had organised an exhibition in the church. This included archive material and a fascinating display of metal detector finds dating back across most of the last two millennia and collected by Richard Saunders who lives and works in Salle. This article is based on a brief history of Salle which was available as a handout on the day. Origins Salle lies on the top of the Norfolk watershed between the Bure and Wensum rivers. It is, in very many ways, a typical Norfolk village. Its history from before the beginning of this millennium illustrates what was and is happening in many other Norfolk villages. The name 'Salle' is usually taken to derive from sallows, the old name for willows but other suggestions have been put forward. Is it a corruption of 'aul' the old English word for hall? One of the manors in the village was once known as Kingshall which could easily lend itself to shortening as 'Sail'. Or perhaps it is related to an old northern word describing a high, windy place that appears in the Cumberland name - Black Sail Pass. Salle is high and windy - for Norfolk. The land of the village has always belonged to one or other of the manors in the parish. Now, it is almost entirely part of the Salle Farms estate. Before the improvements of recent centuries this would have been regarded as poor soil Salle church from the south on a winter's day in January. This huge and beautiful church dominates the skyline. 22 and used for sheep, much perhaps remaining as common land which was important also for the poorer villagers. In the past, those with common rights not only grazed their animals on the common but also collected wood and kindling and wild fruit. This left their own small plots, or 'pightlcs', to be cultivated to feed the family. As in the rest of the county, enclosure started quite early in Salle to meet the changing needs of the farms. Commons and small pightles and closes have now long been enclosed and those old open fields, themselves, have been changed to meet the needs of modern farming practices. A small landowner in the village is the church but it is the large and beautiful church itself which is the jewel in Salle's crown and perhaps the best known building in this part of Norfolk. Salle church has recently figured in England's Thousand Best Churches by Simon Jenkins (1999). No one should leave the village without making a tour of this unique church. Built on the wealth of the wool grown on the sheep which grazed the local heaths, its presence emphasises the change from stock farming to arable which has taken place over the centuries as the farming families who built it grew wealthier. Heath, pasture and woodland have now largely given place to open arable fields. The building of Salle church by a group of leading sheep farmers in the fifteenth century and its maintenance, since, by leading local families shows how such families have always been important in supporting the life and people of a village and its surroundings. The families and manors of Salle Perhaps the most important historian of Salle is Rev. Walter Parsons who was the parson here for over 30 years. As a former scholar of Pembroke College and Dean of Selwyn College, Cambridge, he took great interest in researching the history of his parish. His book Salle saves all of us much time and effort when researching the early history of the village, the manors and the church. It provides invaluable information on the history of the village and is available from Reepham Library'. Salle also figures in the Paston Letters. One of the Salle manors belonged to the Mauteby family, one of whose daughters married into the Paston family. Although litigious and concerned about keeping a grip on their lands, like so many medieval Norfolk farmers and lords, the letters concerning Salle directly are often concerned with the promotion of a courtship between John Paston and Margery' Brewes. The Pastons remained closely associated with Salle for the next 100 years. Salle itself is mentioned in Doomsday Book when it was said to have four manors. The history of the manors is well testified. Today, Salle Moor Hall and Stinton Manor House probably represent the site of two of the manors whilst a third was probably finally destroyed when Salle Hall was built. Parsons speculates that the fourth manor house was sited on the Wood Dal ling side of Gatehouse Farm near the bridge over the stream. Salle Moor Hall was a Bullen (Boleyn) possession from the fourteenth to the sixteenth century. Yes, that is the family of Anne Boleyn! But there is no evidence that she ever lived in Norfolk! More recently in the hands of the Stimpson family, Salle Moor Hall now belongs to Mr Ardisher Naghshineh who is farming this land organically. Ben Stimpson is now the only member of the Stimpson family still living in Salle. Though now past his ninetieth birthday, he remains a forceful member of the community and was, �until very recently, still a churchwarden. His knowledge of the past and present of Salle village and its church and people is unsurpassed. Stinton Manor is the manor which was formerly a royal manor but that was before the Conquest. Doomsday Book tells us that this 'Kings Manor' belonged to Godwin - the father of King Harold. Harold, himself, held Cawston. By the time of Doomsday, both were held by one Ralph who was made Earl of Norfolk. He rebelled, and his lands were given to the new Earl, William de Warenne, one of William's major lords who built Castle Acre. Stinton House, having passed through the hands of the Townsends of Raynham and Bulwer Longs of neighbouring Heydon, is now part of the Salle estate and is, at present, the home of Paol Hovesen, the Salle Farms estate manager who came here from Denmark some 13 years ago. Many other well-known Norfolk families have held land in Salle, the Briggs, Fountaines, Pastons, Townsends and Earles, to name but a few. After Edward Hase created the Park and built the hall in 1765 it passed to the Jodrell family after Richard Paul Jodrell of Lewknor in Oxfordshire married his daughter. She had inherited the right to a baronetcy from her uncle, John Lombe, which now passed to the Jodrelk. The Jodrells were squires here until Major Timothy White, who owned the chain of chemist shops, now absorbed by Boots, bought the estate in 1890. Both these families have done a great deal to both preserve and to develop the estate and parish of Salle. Farms and farmers of Salle One interesting point emerging from early history is a suggestion that this was an area with many 'freemen' in the Middle Ages. Their counterparts, after the sixteenth century, were the yeomen farmers, tenants of the remain­ ing farms in the village, all of which now belong in one capacity or another to the estate. These were the successful men who prospered by buying up and enclosing land after the collapse of the feudal system. A number of their old farmhouses have been sold off as private houses though some remain as part of the estate. A typical example of an old farmhouse is Park Farm, formerly Bog Farm, standing on the edge of old water meadows which lie between Salle and the former royal manor of Cawston. This is now the home of Andrew and Claire Buxton. Andrew farmed with his brothers in Heydon and now works for himself whilst Claire is Chairman of Salle Parish meeting. Park Farm stood empty for some years until it was used as a film set for the television production of M ill on the Floss which was filmed largely on location around mid-Norfolk. Since then, it has been restored with a considerable degree of sympathy to retain much of its original character. The date 1770 can be discerned in the brickwork on the front of the house but the house is older than this. Like many Norfolk houses it has been refurbished or rebuilt repeatedly over the years. Manor Farm, which may have been closely associated with Dorothy Repps, mother-in-law of the builder of Salle Hall, remains an integral part of the estate as the farm office. It probably started life as a common-edge manor house in the Middle Ages. The late eighteenth century estate maps indicate that the area that is now Bluestone Wood was then common land as was an area near the bridge on the way to Cawston. The name 'Brake Pasture' of a field next to the park, also indicates common. A 'brake' was a field cut out of common or heath. The insertion of an older staircase into Manor Farm may have been carried out because Edward Hase lived in Manor Farm after the destruction of the former manor house. The date on Park Farm also seems to link the improvements to these two farms with the creation of the park and building of the hall in the late eighteenth century. Practically next door to Manor Farm lies Cherry Tree Farm. This still belongs to the Bulwer Longs of Heydon and illustrates how closely inter-linked all the villages, manors and farms of this group of villages are. This probably stems from t h e o l d m an orial system when strips of land were held in a variety of open fields, not always close together or even in the same parish. Later, we find farmers owning strips belonging to different manors. This is shown particularly clearly on the 1864 Tithe Map where the few remaining strips still held by individuals show where the old open fields existed. This intermix also affected the parish bound­ aries. Until very recently a long strip of Reepham parish cut right across Salle Park, balanced by a strip of Salle, which reached down to Reepham Moor. The parish boundary has now been changed to adjust this anomaly which had been perpetuated over time, possibly due to old land ownership Manor Farm as it is today when it is in use as the Solie Farms estate office. �boundaries, perhaps to allow a manor or tenant to have a mix of arable land and water meadow. Salle Village The village itself is not large, consisting of a scatter of houses leading down past the cricket pitch from the church. It comprises cottages probably built on the sites of the old 'tofts and crofts', formerly worked by tenants who may also have been craftsmen and whose family would have spun and woven woollen cloth in the time between all their other tasks. Even in the past the number of brick built or stone houses would not have been much more than now. There would, however, have been many more residents, working the land, carrying out their trades in the village or working as servants on the farms. Families were also much larger, and expectations lower, until well into this century, so each house supported more people. The old school house still stands opposite the church. The school was originally a 'non-provided school', that is to say, it belonged to the estate and was administered under an agreement with the Board of Education, as a church school. As owner, the squire was, therefore, Chairman of the Board of Managers and appointed several of them Surviving correspondence in the White family archives gives interesting insights into the running of the school around the turn of the century. Education was already fairly closely controlled and inspected and the school developed over time to include examinations and scholarships as opportunities opened up. The staff consisted of a head­ mistress, most of whom seem to have come from southern counties and were required to have musical skills and to be able to teach physical education as well as the other more usual attributes of any teacher. The headmistress was supported by one assistant teacher and/or a 'monitress' who was a senior pupil of promise. The letters of these women, written when applying for the job, indicate that they had very little money. Shades of Jane Eyre! Before the First World War children would have finished their education by 12 years of age. In such a rural area, holidays were taken to allow the children to help with the harvest and these had to be specifically requested from the Education authorities. Mrs Williamson, the last teacher is buried in the churchyard. Next door is the Lynton White Institute, built by the White family, which provides a home for the Parish Meeting and a site for social events, not least cricket teas, as the Institute stands on the edge of a splendid cricket field. On the other side of the field is the forge, owned by the church and still a fully fitted working forge, though no longer regularly used. The first of the houses in the village is the former 'White Horse' public house now converted to a dwelling house since its closure in the late 1960s. The Street continues down to Gatehouse Farm between two rows of cottages, some of which are occupied by estate workers. There were more cottages around the eastern fringe of the park and a dairy farm in the park but there is very little more than a few bricks left from these buildings. More interesting are the houses in the park itself and the pictur­ esque style lodge cottages at the four entrances to the park. These have one unique feature as lodges; they are on the opposite side of the road from the Hall. Most of them have now been adapted or enlarged by the estate to meet the needs of their inhabitants. The village is, obviously, dominated by its magnificent church but nothing has been included here, as booklets on the history of the church are available in the church. Suffice to say that the church of St. Peter and St. Paul continues to attract visitors to view its architectural splendour and music lovers who wish to take advantage of its excellent acoustics to perform and listen to concerts and to make recordings. Salle Park By far the largest house in the village is Salle House. Edward Hase created the park itself in the late eighteenth century before he built the house. A map, still in existence, shows how Edward Hase bought up small closes and strips to make the park, processes know to historians as 'engrossment' and 'emparkment'. When Edward Hase died he fortunately, left a Memorandum Book which Sir Richard Jodrell continued to use after he succeeded in 1804 so we can date and follow some of the early developments in the park. Gardens and trees were planted, a beautiful walled garden still remains in use and there is an icehouse in the shrubbery. Work continues to maintain house and gardens in their present good order. Pat Dennis, who has now returned to the village of his birth, keeps the gardens in order without the army of under-gardeners and boys of former days. He still lives in the old gardener's house next to the walled garden. Fortunately, pleasure gardens were not fashionable when the house was built and were never planned to be very large though extended across the South Lawn as far as an ornamental ha-ha before 1846. One particularly happy aspect of the park is the number of magnificent trees it contains. Of course, creators of parks, following the ideas of Humphrey Repton (now buried in Aylsham church yard) and Capability Brown, looked for a natural effect in their new parks. Trees were often planted in clumps or as shelter belts but also in 'rows'. One way of achieving a rapid mature effect was to retain the trees which had formerly stood in hedgerows along field boundaries. It is possible to identify these former hedge lines from aerial photographs and old maps even though, in their more mature state, the lines are not always obvious as trees succumb to old age or storms. Many trees have been felled during the 200 years of the park's existence. However, one major oak tree, which must predate the park by some considerable time, still remains. It is now a huge and venerable veteran supporting considerable amounts of wild life. The park trees have always been well cared for and a new avenue of horse chestnut trees is now beginning to grow up along the main drive across the park. New plant­ ings of park trees also include turkey, evergreen, red and English oaks Salle House Salle House was built in 1763. It is a mid-Georgian neo­ classical building influenced by the emerging forces of romanticism. It consists of a two-and-a-half storey central wing of seven bays, built in red brick with a stone Ionic pediment on both north and south elevations and a hipped roof surrounded by a balustrade. The architraves of the principal doors are also of stone. A single-storey wing extends to both east and west where two courts were converted to an orangery on the east and a billiard room on the west in Major White's time. The Victorian upper storey, added over the billiard room, has since been demol­ ished. Beyond the wings, low two-storied buildings extend on either side - to the coach house and stables on the east. The appearance of Salle House is now almost identical to a �Salle village street looking west from the church. The larger house on the left was formerly the White Horse public house. Salle Hall from the southern garden. The park is so thickly planted with trees that there is only one sight line from which the hall can be seen drawing on an estate map of 1807. This, however, is due to work carried out by Sir John White who has now restored the house both inside and outside whilst retaining its original character extremely well. Salle Farms Estate Salle Farms is now entirely arable. Crops include large-scale cultivation of barley, beet, beans, peas and wheat on land which, before the improvements of recent centuries, would have been regarded as poor soil and used for sheep, The estate also remains conscious of its stewardship of the countryside. Successful modern farming is contract farming to meet the needs of large-scale food suppliers. Output is constantly monitored by the use of satellite technology. In addition to the large-scale production of grain, pulses and sugar beet, a recent addition has been the appearance of plantations of Christmas trees which provide work during quieter periods of the year. Areas of set-aside supplement other conservation innovations that are now possible. Attitudes to the countryside have changed in recent years and many who formerly knew little about it are able to get out and about and have demanded access to a countryside which they regard as a common heritage. This can be a twoedged sword. Unlimited access can be disruptive to wildlife habitat, to game birds and to growing crops alike. However, many footpaths and green lanes marked on the OS maps are maintained to provide walks across the estate. Some paths have been diverted round the edges of fields rather than cutting through the middle. Those who wish to quibble at this should remind themselves that walking along the hedge is much more interesting as this is where the greatest variety of flora and fauna is to be seen. In addition to the more conspicuous pheasants and partridges reared on the estate, and the ever-present rabbits, there are less evident denizens of this land. Stoats, weasels and other small mammals are much shyer but are still in abundance where there is a large rabbit population. Though many small birds have disappeared in recent years there are a number of larger birds to be seen. Herons and kestrels are regular hunters in the area. Bam owls are becoming re-established and three are nesting on the estate. Recently, a group of Canada geese have settled near one of the ponds. These birds can be a mixed blessing and have become a nuisance on some farms elsewhere. The more remote part of the estate is hare country and numbers of mad March hares are to be seen every spring. Yes, there are large fields but many new hedges have been planted and old hedges preserved. Other conservation measures are being undertaken. These include the planting of broad-leaf trees along the old railway line near the Cawston boundary and maintenance of existing patches of woodland on the estate. One important conservation measure now being implemented is the scheme whereby 4-metre strips along watercourses are left as permanent set-aside to reduce the risk of contamination of ground water by pesticides and so forth. The watercourse, which crosses the estate from beyond Wood Dalling, winding round past Cawston to Booton, is a case in point. Anyone who walks down the road by the side of Wood Dalling church should note the ditch on the right-hand side which is full of wild flowers, especially primroses and orchids in springtime. This ditch now has a preservation order on it. Yet, it was dug very recently, showing that modern farming activity is not always destructive. Much of the information in this article was obtained from the White papers and Bullen papers now held in the Norfolk Record Office. 25 �Reepham Personalities and Institutions At the beginning of this century Reepham was a small Norfolk market town with long-established families living in a smaller community than today. They all knew each other very well often being related by marriage, mostly working locally in the town or on the surrounding farms and estates. Some of the older families still remain and have contributed immensely to the records of the recent past of Reepham. As Reepham has grown and new houses are constantly built, new people have increasingly moved into the town. Many of them will be unaware of the contributions to the community made by former inhabitants and the origins of some Reepham institutions. Following the long gap since the publication of the last Reepham Society Magazine, this seems an appropriate time to record a little about some of those who have contributed to the life of the town and who have helped to make Reepham the lively and caring community that it is. One message which comes over very strongly, even in these short profiles, is just how much people's lives were disrupted by the effects of the two World Wars of the last century. Miss Jessie Brown MBE Jessie Vera Lawford Brown died on 14th April, 1983 at the age of 95. She had a remarkable career, one achievement being the foundation of the Reepham Housing Trust - eight bungalows for the elderly or disabled known as Sunbarn Walk. 'My hope is that there will be accommodation of this kind in every village in the country/ said Jessie. Jessie was the only daughter among the seven children of Colonel F.D.M. Brown VC. Her early education was directed by a series of governesses but, later, she studied history at the Oxford Home Students, now St. Anne's College. Her academic career was discarded when she joined her friend, Olive Sankey, and answered an appeal from Agnes Hunt,13 the founder of a new hospital at Baschurch in Shropshire, to train as an orthopaedic nurse. After two years, Jessie went on to pass the examination lor the Society of Trained Masseuses, later to become the Chartered Society of Physiotherapists. At the outbreak of war in 1914, Agnes Hunt and Jessie went to France but were very soon frustrated with condi­ tions over there and returned to Baschurch which had then become a military hospital. It soon became obvious that after-care clinics had to be established in the main market towns in Shropshire but transport was a problem. Undaunted, Jessie acquired a second-hand motor bike, learned to ride it and, by 1917, 13 orthopaedic clinics had been established throughout Shropshire. In 1918 Mr G.R. Girlestone asked Jessie to help set up clinics in Oxfordshire, Buckinghamshire and Berkshire. He could offer no salary but arranged a small sum from a special Red Cross fund if a survey of all disabled people could be carried out - just the sort of challenge Jessie enjoyed. In 1924 Sir Robert Jones, the prominent orthopaedic pioneer, received a call from Nepal. Princess Mani, the five-year-old niece of the King of Nepal, was ill with 13 Agnes Brown and Sir Robert Jones, a pioneer orthopaedic surgeon, were responsible for the foundation of the orthopaedic hospital in Oswestry which carries their names and remains one of the leading orthopaedic hospitals in the country. poliomyelitis and it was decided to send Jessie to help. Within three days she had set off by sea to Bombay, then overland to Kathmandu. There was no road from India into Nepal in those days so Jessie was carried or rode on the back of an elephant for the three-day journey. During the next ten years Jessie visited this brave little girl several times and after Mani's death in 1935 a ward was built in the Nuffield Orthopaedic Centre as a gift from her grateful parents. Everyone who knew Jessie Brown was constantly reminded of her aims - that every patient must be instilled with the joy of life, irrespective of their handicap and that one must work until each disabled person is as independent as possible and able to contribute to their community7. It became necessary for Jessie to return home to Yateley to look after her ageing mother but she soon had the outbuildings of her home converted to be a unit where physically handi­ capped people could learn hand-block printing. Grace Finch, a patient at the Henley Clinic, was persuaded to go to Yateley to help and, together, they soon had money raised and a training scheme for handicapped girls was launched. New buildings were opened in 1952 and bungalows in 1956. Yateley Industries is a successful residential sheltered industry* and employs more than 40 men and women. Jessie placed little importance on personal possessions and was able to move on without regret, always full of enthusiasm for a new venture. In 1952 her work was recognised by the award of an MBE. But she was always far more interested in the success of her many projects. In 1968 Jessie 'retired' to Reepham. It was during her retirement that she became the inspiration behind the building of the eight bungalows on Sun Barn Walk which formed the core of the Reepham Housing Trust. Today, the Trust is managed as a charity by local trustees, sharing a warden with the Wherry Housing in Ewing Close. Many in the town feel privileged that she touched our lives and hope to pass on her enthusiasm and joy of living to the full. We are grateful to jan Henry for this piece on Jessie Brown. Ben Stimpson Ben Stimpson was born at Salle Moor Farm in 1910, a member of a well-known local family here in Mid-Norfolk. He is a forceful and well-respected character in both Salle and Reepham and has given much service to the two Ben Stimpson �communities both as an active member of a number of organisations and as a benefactor to the communities. The Stimpson family farmed at Salle Moor for several genera­ tions as well as running the family business based in Reepham. It was Ben's grandfather who opened the Salle Coal Company at Reepham Station, a company that contin­ ued in business as a general agricultural merchant under several names until 1980. Some of you will have read the book on 'Salle' written by the Rev. Parsons who was Vicar of Salle from the early 1920s until after the Second World War. It was Rev. Parsons who married Ben and his wife Margaret in 1937. They came to live in Salle House, the house in which they still live and Ben gradually took on the management of the family business as well as his other work in the community. For many years he was chairman of the Salle Parish Meeting and succeeded his father as churchwarden there, a post which he held for over 40 years. Added to his father's tenure of 50 years this gives nearly a century of continuous service to Salle church by the Stimpson family. To this can be added the tireless work of Margaret who was also a member of the PCC. The role of churchwarden was not a sinecure as there have been a number of major problems, including a lightning strike, in keeping up the fabric of Salle church one of the medieval gems of rural Norfolk - as well as the day-to-day routine of the church. It is largely due to Ben's efforts that Salle church has been able to maintain itself so successfully in recent years. A tribute for this work for the church was published in the November 2000 issue of Town and Country when Ben retired as churchwarden and was given a tremendous send-off by the congregation. Needless to say he remains a member of the PCC. During the war Ben played his part in the local Home Guard as well as helping his father with the family busi­ nesses. The activities of the Salle and Reepham platoon are well documented in Standing up to H itle r'14 which tells the tale of the Home Guard in Norfolk. It was Ben Stimpson 14 1997. A. Hoare: Standing up to H itler. The Story of the Norfolk Home Guard. Published by Geo. R. Reeve, Wymondham. ISBN 0 900616 50 4. who provided the comprehensive records of the local units which now form a considerable portion of that book. Ben had led the local platoon since May 1940 but by the latter part of the war the 17th Battalion Norfolk Home Guard was based in Reepham with its HQ at 'The Bays' in Norwich Road, and led by Lt Colonel G.E. Gurney with Ben as his second-in-command. Duties included airfield defence, defence of bridges and liaison with other units backed up by weekly training and regular battle exercises. Stimpson's Piece Perhaps the most memorable mention of the Stimpson name to present-day Reepham residents is in reference to Stimpson's Piece. This piece of land was originally six acres, leased to the parish of Reepham by the Stimpson family for use as a playing field. Following the Second World War a pavilion was built as a war memorial and in thanksgiving for victory. The pavilion has been rebuilt since then but the memorial plaque remains in the present pavilion built in 1995. In 1987 the land was gifted to Reepham and extended by the parish council with a further seven acres to form the present Stimpson's Piece. Despite all he has contributed to Reepham, Salle remains Ben's first love and he has become closely identified with that village and, as you can imagine, he knows a very great deal about Salle, its past, its present and its people. Wesley Piercey Wesley Piercy is the man we all turn to when we want to find some elusive detail of the past of Reepham. Wesley was born in Reepham in 1917, in a farmhouse on Saleyard Hill. For those who are comparitive newcomers to Reepham, this was the old road going up from Town's End Corner towards the old sale yard and curving up behind the cottages which presently look down onto Station Road. Later, the family moved to 'Cabbage Court' - Railway Cottages on the New Road - before moving back to the farm until 1940. After leaving the Hackford and Whitwell School, now the site of Reepham Primary School, Wesley first of all worked in �Wesley has spoken to many organisations in the town over the years. He remains an active member of the Reepham Society - and still the fount of knowledge on the past of the town. Tony Ivins Wesley Piercy Cawston before going as apprentice to Reeder's, the baker in Back Street. The premises were known as 'house and baking office' and are now represented by the house known as The Old Bakery. Although he had moved just before the war to work in Wells, as a member of the Supplementary Reserve, Wesley was called up immediately. He had quite an interesting war! He went out with the British Expeditionary Force to France in 1939. In the confusion of the retreat from France, Wesley was separated from his unit when he had a brief spell in hospital. He was discharged from hospital to the base depot near St. Nazaire which was then being readied for a division of Canadian troops who were, at this stage, the only available unit still fully equipped to fight. However, it became necessary to evacuate all troops following the capitulation of France. Wesley then spent the next six months out in England before embarking for the Middle East and the Western Desert in 1941. His unit was now with an army group later known as the Desert Rats (the Eighth Army) which then crossed to Sicily and fought its way up Italy. In 1944 'time expired' men were replaced by new recruits and Wesley returned to the UK. He then returned to Aldershot where he found that all the bakehouse jobs had been taken over by the women of the ATS. After the end of the war Wesley was demobbed in 1946. As you can imagine, returning to civilian life was some­ what of a culture shock and Wesley left baking for more active jobs. He eventually found his way into the Eastern Electricity Board, for whom he worked for 23 years until he retired in 1982. His love for history and the past of the Reepham area was never lost. A number of historians and archaeologists had an interest in the local history and ran a number of WEA courses in Reepham during the 1970s. Wesley enthusiastically joined to expand his knowledge of the past. Following his retirement in 1982 he was able to follow up his great interest in history. He started an Open University course, wherever possible completing history units, to qualify for his BA. His life also changed in another way around this time when he met his wife Olive on holiday. By this time the Pierceys were living in the bungalow where Wesley and Olive still live in Park Lane. As a result of his encyclopaedic knowledge of Reepham and its people 28 Tony Ivins remains the President of the Reepham Society to this day though increasing age and frailty prevent his active involvement. He was also a founder member and, with Susie his wife, a driving force in the development of the Society. Bom in South London in 1915, Tony gained a diploma in animal husbandry at an agricultural college in the south of England. In the late 1930s, he joined the staff of the Forest School in Hampshire. The school was a progressive co-educational boarding school in the New Forest. Its ethos was to teach children how to respect the countryside and make use of natural resources. In 1938 the school had to move to new premises and an educational trust was set up to enable the purchase of Whitwell Hall and grounds. This is where Tony met Susie Dommen who became the Matron at the new Forest School where Tony was now the bursar. Not long after the move the Second World War broke out, the school was evacuated and the army requisitioned the Hall. Tony Ivins Tony enlisted in the Air Force where he became a navigator. His war years were spent in Africa where his squadron's role was to reinforce the British role by ferrying diplomats and heads of state around that country. From this he acquired an abiding love of Africa and has many albums of photographs from that time, especially aerial views. Meanwhile, Susie joined the Land Army and worked as a farm secretary at Sparham Hall. At the end of the war Tony and Susie were married and returned to Whitwell in 1946. Due to the financial costs involved, a decision was made not to re-open the school. Instead, Tony set up a pig farm at Whitwell Hall which brought in sufficient finance to enable Tony to set up a Country Centre offering schoolchildren an opportunity to enjoy a week under canvas, or in the house, and to experience the country, the wildlife and the natural resources. Tony and Susie's children, Sally and Hugh, were born here and Hugh still lives with his family in one of the cottages which was bought from the estate. �Tony came to love Whitwell as well as the educational trust which had always been dear to his heart. It was his interest in finding out about Whitwell and its past which stimulated Tony's broader interest in history. With Susie's drive and enthusiasm, they not only developed the Coun­ try Centre at Whitwell but gave a great deal to the village and to Reepham. It is largely due to them and several other early members of the Reepham Society that we have been able to develop such comprehensive archives for the Society. Tony's work at Whitwell Hall enabled him to meet numerous well-known Norfolk folk. His friends included Ted Ellis, Dick Joyce and Philip Wayre of the Norfolk Wildlife Centre who shared many of his interests. Tony was also Chairman of the Norfolk Deaf Children's Society and one year he was able to show the Queen Mother round the NDCS stand at the Royal Norfolk Show. As Wardens of Whitwell Hall, Tony and Susie had lived in the Hall itself but when he retired they moved to Hillside Cottage on Whitwell Hill. Tony now became Chairman of the Country Centre and continued his life-long work for Whitwell Hall and its 40-acre estate. Whitwell Hall Educational Trust A great many people are unaware of the existence of Whitwell Hall Country Centre, its unique history and unusual development. We think it is worth telling a little more about one more interesting aspect of the Reepham group of parishes. Whitwell Hall itself was, of course, a private house. The previous history of the hall, park and deserted medieval village has been described elsewhere in earlier Reepham Society magazines, often relying on infor­ mation fro m T o n y Ivins himself. Forest School was started in 1928 near Godshill in the New Forest and consisted of 100 acres of woodland over­ looking the Avon valley in Hampshire. It was bought by Earnest Westlake, the son of a Quaker and wealthy indus­ trialist from Fordingbridge. He became a humanist and educationalist and, as a result, founded the order of W ood­ craft Chivalry - the Woodcraft Folk - where families met together under canvas, later in huts, and learned to live in and appreciate the natural environment. Loosely built on the ideas and culture of the North American Indians, its aim was to enable children to find out about themselves by offering opportunities for development and self-discipline rather than by imposing learning and discipline. Other schools, such as Dartington and Summerhill, developed from similar roots as did organisations like the Guides and Scouts. After the war, it was decided by Tony and Susie and the school secretary, who lived in Cambridge, not to re-open as a school as such a large financial investment would be required to renovate and repair the buildings. Instead, Tony set about earning an income for the trust by utilising his training in animal husbandry and set up the pig farm in the existing outbuildings on the site. Each summer, former pupils of Forest School continued the tradition of camping activities with their families until the late 1950s when the Forest School was set up again to continue elsewhere. A young Tony Ivins working with older boys in the kitchen garden. In the early 1960s contacts were established with teachers and education authorities in Norfolk and Suffolk at a time when such bodies were keen to encourage children to spend time out-of-doors. From this grew a thriving Country Centre which continues to provide opportunities for many groups of children to spend a week or weekend camping in the grounds, or living in dormitories, whilst undertaking country activities which are totally new for some city children. Tony Ivins, the original Warden of Whitwell Hall, was assisted by Susie as House Mother until the 1970s. By this time, it was necessary to take on more staff. Sue and Brian Evans joined the staff and later took over the running of the Centre which they continue to manage down to the present. On his retirement, Tony became Chairman of the trust and worked tirelessly for the Centre, a role which his son, Hugh, has now taken on after him. The CountryCentre is always looking for ways to broaden its activities and a number of local groups and pupils from Reepham High School use the house and grounds for a variety of activities. Any group can contact Brian and Sue Evans to see if the Centre can accommodate their requirements - always bearing in mind that it is limited by its status as an educational trust. Our grateful thanks to Hugh Ivins for his help in preparing this profile of his father and the outline of the development of the Whitwell Hnll Country Centre. 29 �Reepham Society History Exhibition Friday, Saturday and Sunday 11th, 12th & 13th May, 2001 Friday: 10.00 am to 4.00 pm Saturday: 10.00 am to 6.00 pm Sunday: 10.00 am to 12.00 noon Local history of Reepham and the surrounding villages Members preview 7.30 pm Thursday 10th May The editor is very aware that the articles in this magazine talk about footpaths and access to the countryside in some detail. At time of publication the country is ravaged by Foot and Mouth Disease. Fortunately, this part of the country has remained free of infection. We would like to remind visitors to the area to observe footpath restrictions. Whilst this is a largely arable farming area there are numbers of animals in many places. Please only use those footpaths, like the Marriott's Way, which you are sure are open and do not venture into farmland. �Hendry & Sons Funeral D irectors Private C h a p els o f Rest R ic h a r d H e n d r y , DIP. F. D. M e m b e r s o f th e N.A.F.D. Station Road, Foulsham, Dereham Norfolk Tel Foulsham (01362) 683249 MUCK & MAGIC Garden Serviced From on e off solutions, to all-year-round maintenance Whatever your gardening n eed s w e’ ll cov er the ground for you. VEGGIES & GRASS HEDGES & PATHS PONDS & PATIOS GUTS & STRIMS COMPOST & MULCHES PLANTS & SEEDS TURFS & WEEDS I ! ! A FIRST-CLASS SERVICE Call JON PURDY for a quote H o m e 01603 308093 M o b ile 07771 926582 Brantleyj, 10a New Road, Reepbam Reepham Beers Distinctively Different \0orth Seeking Out �BONHAM S {BROOKS Thinking of selling? This small oil on panel by John Moore of Ipswich was sold in our June 2000 sale of East Anglian related Works of Art ‘The East Anglian View’ for £8,500. For valuations for probate, insurance or sale and general enquiries contact: James Glennie, Caro Flower, Angela Ellis Bonhams & Brooks East Anglia Office The Market Place, Reepham, Norwich NR10 4JJ 01603 871443 eastanalia@bonhams.com � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context GB/REE/RS/Publications Title A name given to the resource Reepham Society Publications Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource The Reepham Society Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1976 to 2014 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Printed documents Box *** Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1976 to 2014 Reepham Description An account of the resource Reepham Society Publications Text - printed Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Reepham Society Magazine Millennium Edition Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource April 2001 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant April 2001 Reepham Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context GB/REE/1707191706 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Reepham Society Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource A4 booklet Reepham Society Publications {Archive Box 15] Events/2000 {File 5, Archive Box 105] Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Reepham Society Description An account of the resource The Archive holds a stock of about 30 Magazines in 2020. There are some unfortunate errors in this magazine. A photograph of Ron Gibbs appears as Ann Dickenson's father. Her father was Fred. J. Gibbs. GB-REE-1707191706a.pdf is the OCR version of the PDF. Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource All Rights Reserved 2001 RS Magazine https://reephamarchive.co.uk/omeka/files/original/062d4e310a348d6f02a9a830ca2a81fa.pdf aa2fc11e7ea1e0a8f37fcbd05b481610 PDF Text Text ������������������������������� Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context GB/REE/RS/Publications Title A name given to the resource Reepham Society Publications Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource The Reepham Society Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1976 to 2014 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Printed documents Box *** Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1976 to 2014 Reepham Description An account of the resource Reepham Society Publications Text - printed Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Harry Hawes' Walk Description An account of the resource Written to accompany the Reepham Society 2003 History Exhibition this publication uses quotes from Harry Hawes' memories of the town in the late 1800s to illustrate a history of the main buildings and their occupiers and their trades in the centre of Reepham. First published in instalments in the local parish magazine between September 1978 and January 1980. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2003 Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context GB/REE/2105031300 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource 32pp A4 booklet, cream cover Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Reepham Society Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available The Reepham Society Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Reepham Society Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Kate Nightingale, Joyce Cox Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource All Rights Reserved https://reephamarchive.co.uk/omeka/files/original/06cc9c61185b35abc8196fba7a34a7e7.pdf 01a114df677bad9a4c0a1b50ef88a2b4 PDF Text Text St. Michael’s, Booton  There has been a church on the site at Booton since the 14th century. The fabric of  the original church was not of any great interest in an architectural sense. The nave  was perpendicular in style and the chancel was of an earlier date. The windows were  filled with stained glass and depicted donors of the church with their coats of arms.  The original roof decayed and was replaced with one created by a churchwarden.  Unfortunately, this work cost the church its four bells, they were sold to cover the  cost of the new roof. Various changes to the church during the five hundred years to  the mid‐19th century and general decay and lack of attention had left the church in  an extremely sorry state of repair.  Whitwell Elwin had been rector of Booton for a number of years when in the 1870s  he began at his own expense a complete rebuilding of his dilapidated church.  Whitwell Elwin was an amazing man with an output of writing, so prodigious that the  letterbox still to be seen in the boundary wall of the church was put there as he  produced so much post. He was editor of the “Quarterly Review” for seven years and  was a friend of the author William Makepeace Thackery.  Whitwell Elwin had initially built himself a fine rectory, which stands next to the  church, his son persuaded him that since a fine rectory could not stand next to such a  ruin as the church, he should extend the architectural skills he had just used and  build another church.  The Rector was not trained as an architect or a draughtsman, but he became one  through trial, error and constant alteration during the 20 years or so it took to  complete the church. He depended on a well‐stocked architectural library, many  details of which he had collected from his tour of churches and cathedrals  throughout this country and France.  If the church is to be given a style, then it is basically Early English but jackdaw‐like he  stole designs from other buildings near and far.  The nave was copied from a Warwickshire church, the west window from St.  Stephen’s chapel, Westminster, the north door from Burgh‐next‐Aylsham. Most of  the workmen used were employed from local unskilled available labour and they and  Whitwell Elwin proceeded to build by trial and error, with many amendments, for 24  years.  The slim, twin, diagonally placed towers, so striking when seen in the distance over  the trees, and possibly inspired by those of Milan Cathedral, had to be re‐erected on  the stronger foundations.  �The walls were constructed of knapped flint and Bath stone. All the pinnacles and  florid decoration were unfortunately of this soft stone, presumably chosen by Elwin  for ease of carving by his workmen.  In the nave the glass of the windows, with greens and blues predominating,  represents on the north side female saints and attendant angels, and on the south  side angels with musical instruments.  The Church is dedicated to St. Michael, the armed Angel of Light who strikes down  the dragon of evil. So, he is represented in a niche over the north door, standing on a  dragon headed serpent, re‐sheathing his sword in its scabbard, triumphant.  The angel theme is continued in the chancel, where the windows depict angel stories  from the scriptures, and huge wooden angels with upswept wings launch themselves  from the hammer‐beams.  Above the chancel arch there is an enormous, rounded triangle of a window, lighting  nothing and giving no light.  Whitwell Elwin wanted to build a church which would influence everyone that  entered into it that they were in the house of God, the house of prayer. He said he  wanted to build a church that “would withstand an earthquake”, unfortunately the  soft stone, which he found easier to use, and the passing of the 20th century has  deteriorated the church at an alarming rate.  The parish is now faced with a similar task and an appeal for money to repair the  worst of the deterioration needs to raise £28,000 by the end of the year. Total  restoration will cost about £300,000. It is indeed sad that the church has recently  been closed due to the danger of falling masonry, and that the House of God can  only now be entered at the visitor’s own risk.  The late Sir John Betjeman, a great champion of Victorian Gothic (and all things  Victorian), became a patron of the restoration appeal, stating of St. Michael’s, “There  never was so strange an upheaval on the Norfolk landscape as that which caused the  stones of Booton Church to be placed one on top of the other until they reached the  sky. Such a chapel as Booton will never be built again, long may it dominate the East  Anglian scene.”  Rodney Mason  From a talk given at The Old Brewery House on 27 September 1984, published in the  Reepham Society Newsletter, October 1984  � Text-digital Any text item for which there is no previously existing hard copy in the Archive. The text can be stored on CD, DVD, memory card, USB stick, on hard drive or 'cloud'. It may have been sent electronically to the Archive or it may be a text owned by someone else which we have scanned or photographed. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource St Michael’s, Booton Description An account of the resource Text of a talk by Rodney Mason published in Reepham Society Newsletter October 1984 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 27 September 1984 Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context GB/REE/2105042030 Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Reepham Society Newsletter October 1984 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Reepham Society Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Rodney Mason Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource A4 PDF Booton St Michael the Archangel Whitwell Elwin https://reephamarchive.co.uk/omeka/files/original/0604987886f126f2b9283618cbb085f7.jpg ae026582a526cd9ad0c0054e7e365c64 Text - printed Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context GB/REE/1603071013 Title A name given to the resource Model Bye-Laws Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Rural District Council of Aylsham Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1928 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource 8 page booklet 140 x 217mm Green paper cover Local Government [File 9, Archive Box 109] Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1928 Hackford-next-Reepham Market Place Description An account of the resource Bye-Laws for regulating the use of the Market Place of Hackford-next-Reepham, and for preventing nuisances or obstructions therein, with table of tolls and list of rents and stallages. 2 Copies held. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Reepham Society RS Database 811 1920s bye-laws Market Place https://reephamarchive.co.uk/omeka/files/original/8474b6d08bfe24e64dbc534b3acf4fec.jpg 6a21f5aef9f9202dbc8e1fda5dcdab97 Photograph-printed Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context GB/REE/1605311135 Title A name given to the resource St Mary's Sunday School Nativity Play Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource S.T.Gooch Photographer Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource B&W photograph 136 x 85mm Groups/St. Mary's Nativity Players [File 7, Archive Box 107] Description An account of the resource 7 costumed figures at east end of St Mary's Chancel. Mary seated and holding infant (doll?) Jesus beside empty crib. Flanked by two kneeling winged small girls. Joseph and white robed man standing behind flanked by older winged girls. Back row: Olwen Hardiment, David Bird, Jim Best, not known. <br />Front row: Rita Grout, not known, Penny Wilkinson<br /><br /><em>Identified from details given for GB/REE/2006251019</em> Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Reepham Society RS Database 386 Hardiment Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1949/1950 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1949/1950 Reepham 1950s nativity St Mary's https://reephamarchive.co.uk/omeka/files/original/66f112883db4ee07f797c45b3d20904b.pdf ffc080f42aff63af5f904743b4ee09c0 PDF Text Text CtllLDREN OF BooTON ' lOOOrolOO5 �TIlE CHILDREN OF BOOTON AT SCHOOL BETWE.EN 1000-1905 EXTRACTS FROM ST. :MICHAEL THE ARCHANGfl. MONTHLY PAPERS BY REV. W. fl.WIN Researched with drawines 1-13 Lorna GralJ 2006 �fOREWORD: BOOTONIN"1QOO In 1900 Booton is a vetlJ small villaae of around 40 households and 100 souls, The villaae is located one mile south-east of Reepham which is eleven miles north-west of Norwich in Norfolk. As a Parish it spreads over a lar.ge area of 1,079 acres. The villaae consists of a number of separate .groups of houses without a central.green. Some dwellin.gs duster around Town Farm, run bl} Mr Horace Iioward, on the Norwich Road, while Booton riall, a lar.ge red-brick buildin.g, is the home of a farmer, Frederick Richmond esg. The Manor Iiouse, home of Fountain P Elwin, stands in its own lar.ge .grounds near Rev. Elwin's .group of Victorian buildin.gs; the School Iiouse and School, the Church and RectotlJ, with its twenty-three acres of .gardens and .glebe. 3 �Further alont) Church Road is Miss E A Holle-y's residence, and the farm cottat)es built for the farm workers in Grove Road and Grove Farm owned b-y Mr William Ireland Ga-y. The villat)e has a Post Office operated by Mr Charles John Flatman, a Public House, the Kinas Iiead, run by Mr Robert Starman and small shop nm b-y Mr Thomas Lont). There are some da-y pits plus more dwellint)s and farms further afield. frj:kHP 1$'" 1"1 c..·~M~N o ; .. WINO"'J!..!. 4 �The Rev. Whitwell Elwin rebuilt the ne$leded old church over the past twenhj~five lJears. It is now a £ine buildin$ of flint with stone dressin$s, consistin$ of a chancel, nave, north porch and western towers with all the windows stained, and seatin$ for '230 worshippers. The Dedication Festival of the church was held on 30th September, dedicated to St. Michael the An$el. Sadly our Rector passed awalJ this lJear 1900, aBed 83. Queen Victoria's lone rei$n comes to an end and Edward VII's coronation festivities are delalJed due to his ill health but are eventualllJ celebrated with the Holy Eucharist at 9am, Evenson$ at '2pm followed blJ meat tea, sports and fireworks. n.e Boer War which started in 1899 is bein$ ±au$ht and Mr F Cae and Mr JPeelin$, who are on reserve list have been called to South Africa. Mr WeslelJ Carson has joined Baden Powell's Police Force and in South Africa while Ser8eant Allenden, of the Royal Field ArtillellJ is recommended for Distin$uished Conduct for Gallantnj. There are local charities resultinB hom 19 acres of Common Land which were allotted to Trustees in 1811 for the benefit of the poor. The Poor Fund helps towards a Clothin$ Club Bonus, Meat and Coal. The Annual Interest hom Sewell's Bread Charity supplies bread to eleven vellJ poor families .. The distribution is made at the discretion of the vicar. In spite of local povertlJ there are collections for the Poona Mission and help is Biven to help pal] for an Indian BOlJ's education. There is much BoinB on in the villa.8e as there is a Parish Libran]; a Women's Workin$ PartlJ on MondalJ and Girl's Sewin$ Class sewin$ for Missions; The Men's Ni$ht School on FridalJ; SundalJ School and Sin$iIl$ Class on ThursdalJ and a Men's Social Evenin$. The Clothin$ Club has 105 members of whom 37 palJ '2d. a week and Bet 1'2s.8d. tickets and 68 pay 1d. and Bet 6s. 6d. tickets. Of the members 40 are Cottaeers and 65 belon$ to the Sin$in$ Class and Sunday School. Children are free to wander about the countnJside and think nothil1$ of walkine lone distances across the fields. EvellJ child between 5 and 14 must attend the National School built in 1897 where Mrs Isabel M Goueh is the Mistress in char$e. 5 �CompulsorLJ elementan] education was introduced by the Education Acts of 1876 and 1880 because so many children were illiterate and found workin8 at an early aBe in dan8erous and dreadful conditions or involved in crime. There are no exceptions under the aBe of 11. Up to aBe 13 there are various restrictions as to employment; the pupil has to have passed a Labour Certificate, or have reached the 4 th Standard, or have 350 attendances each year for five years before they may leave school. Much consideration is 8iven to learnin8 the Catechism and Quarterly 'Certificates are 8iven for each 100 marks 8ained. A.bsenteeism is :frowned upon as it deprives the school of Grant Aid. The school was built for 90 children but only about 75 attend, and in 1900 the averaBe attendance was 63. The School buildin8 is under repair. It has been impossible to hand the premises over to Trustees as there are le8al diHiculties owin8 to the way the property has been left in the late Rector's will. To preserve the School's connection with the Church, the Squire is to keep the Deeds in his own hands at present. Mr Edward Barrett, the farmer at Fun:e Lane, collects the VoluntarLJ School Rate which Miss Holley tops up with a 'Liberal Donation'. Miss Holley who was horn ill 1853 now lives at the Green Lane Iiouse, later to he known as "The Iiollies" and 8ives the preseut Rector, much support in funds to the church, the villaBers and especially to the children of Booton. The followiu8 PaBes take a look at their lives in the first years of the 20th '1 new D , " \ AT 1:;1. .,.,1 . 1 n. 1 1 \...,enturLJ as t:J.e l\.eCtOr, vv LlWln wrnes In tne Pansn U1arLJ, t 1,,1'. lVllcnae the Archan8el, Monthly Papers'. This hook is dedicated to The Children of Booton 's' r", Lorna Gray, resident ofBooton 2006 6 �INTRODUCTION 1900 The extracts from the Monthly Papers start in July 1900. A major and recunin8 focus through the papers is the level of :funding required to maintain the local school. The situa.tion is made more di££icult due to the poor attendance of some of the pupils. JULy 1900 'The irreeularity of some children still causes a eood deal of trouble and loss. It does not seem as if treats were altoeether eoad for a school. The day before tea in Mal,] there were 80 children present, and on the next Mondal,] mornine there were 44. This shows it is a mistake to eive a treat to those that are not steadill] reeular throueh the year: Baptisms 'The rule of the Pral,]er Book is that Baptisms should be on "Sundays or Holy Dal]s, when the most number of people come toeether". So when a weekday is preferred, it is best to choose a Saint's Day . The Pral,]er Book says people are to be admonished not to put oil the Baptism of their children loneer than the first or second Sundal] after their birth. 1£ is not alwal]s possible to arranee for the Baptism so soon, but it should take place as soon as possible." A Pa.rish Library throu$h a kind ei£t of books At present the books are mostll] for children, and are lent to the members of the Sundal] afternoon Catechism, beine chaneed in the vestry. As the Library increases, we hope to make it useful to a la.reer circle of readers. AUGUST 1900 Miss Holley's Treats "Miss Holley has most eenerously eiven her annual treats to the Sundal] School, Choir and SineiD$ Class. 7 �On Saturda"':) Jul"':) 21st, she arrived to her house all the "':)oun,ger children, and those not qualified 1",:) attendances for the sea-side outin,g. After an excellent tea, the children plal:)ed about vet"':) happillJ in the ,grounds. ThelJ numbered just sixtlJ. On Saturda"':), Jul"':) 28 th, the older detachment went to Lowestoft, the partlJ startin,g from Reepham and Cawston Stations 1",:) train. It numbered alto,gether 68 persons. A threatenin,g momin,g turned into a beautiful da"':). An excellent dinner and tea were provided. The rest of the time was spent as dalJs at the sea-side usualllJ are spent. Evet"':)thin,g went off exceedin,gllJ well, and evet"':)bod"':) enjolJed the dalJ. The whole of it was Miss IiollelJ's kind ,gift, and her ,generosit-y was ,greatllJ appreciated." The Catechism 'The QuarterllJ Festival of the afternoon SundalJ Catechism was held on SundalJ Jull:) 29th. Certificates are ,given to the children for even] 100 marks obtained for verbal answers and written "anal"':)ses". The followin,g were ,given out: Ernest Geor,ge Groom earned in 10 Sunda"':)s; and James Buntin,g, in 12 Sundal:)s. The work of the past quarter was ,gone throu,gh in question and answer." The Annual Grant The annual 8rant amounted to £64 8s. 6d. About £20 has been lost in Grant b"':) ine,gular children. The Sch901 Rate '11~· school rate is a voluntat"':) rate as the ratepalJers have been saved a considerable sum b"':) the Booton school, and the separation of this parish from the area of the Reepham School Board. It is confidentl"':) expected that all will be wilhn,g to pa"':) it cheerfull"':). l1e Squire havin,g ,generousl"':) decided to ask no rent for the buildin,gs, it has been possible to put the rate at a lower fi,gure than most school rates, so that it will not press heavill:) on anyone. l1e parents of irre,gular children ma"':) be reminded that quite Id of the rate is caused b"':) ine,gularitl:). The attendance has improved this last month." 8 �Baptisms June 25th July 4th Jul':) 151h Iiorace, son of Robert &' Jane Ann Fuller (privately). John Geor8e Redvers, son of John &' Annie Allenden. Am':) Ma,:), dau8hter of Elijah &' Geor8ina Baxter. Burials Horace Fuller a.eed 2 months. SEPTEMBER 1900 1t has been found impossible to hand over the buildin8s to the Trustees, as the Squire intended, without 8reat le$al difficulties and risks, O\..-in$ to the way in which the propertl) has been left, under conditions, by the late Rector's will. It is thou$ht safer, for the purpose of preservin$ them for their use as a school in connection with the church, that he should keep them in his own hands at present. He will allow the school the free use o£ them, so this will make no difference, and hereafter it mal) be possible to make a permanent arran$ement for securin$ them to the church" OCTOBER 1900 rne S('.1.001 'Durine the school holida1Js the school buildin$s were painted and cleaned throu$10ut, so that they were spick and span when the children returned on September 10th. 9 �The report of the special Diocesan Examination in Reliaious subjects, held on June 4th, has been received. We put in five scholars, and £Our have passed. ~ Ernest Geor8e Groom is in second class. Evelyn PiM, James Buntin8 and Eva Parker in the third. As it is thel] have been in tor a wyitten examination of a kind, the result mal] be considered satisfactory. We shall this month be askin8, throu8h Mx. Barrett's kind oilices, for .subscriptions in the shape of a voluntary rate, calculated at 4d in the pound. The paintin8 of the school and several of its expenses has been defral]ed by other donations so as to make the rate as low as possible. It is hoped therefore that the ratepal]ers of the parish will be willin8 to 8ive the voluntanJ help asked, which is much less than would be levied under a school board rate." Baptisms September 2 nd Septeml,er 23rd Sl]dney Ernest, son of Ernest William &' Julia Capes. Murial Eleanor Maud, dau8hter of Charles James &' Frances Baskett. Ma1ekin8 Anna, dau8hter of John &' Sarah Ann Townsend. NOVEMBER 1900 The School "Owin8 to the removal of one or two families, our numbers are reduced at present to 75, instead of 85. There are some articles from the needlework to dispose of especialll] woollen work. There are not ellou8h to make exactll] a 'Sale' but thelJ can be ha.d at the school, at small prices 11) anl)one who would like to apply. It is an excellent thin8 for children to make up their own 8arments ill school, if the work can be spared until it has beell seen by the inspector." 10 �The Catechism The certificates Biven out on the Quarterly Festival, October 28 th for each 100 marks $ained were:Two to Ernest G Groom, earned respectively in 8 and 7 weeks; One to Eva Parker, earned in 21 weeks; Evelyn Pi$$, in 11 weeks; Possie Gou$h, in 16 weeks. "Except where allalyses are written the marks mount up very slowh:J, and therefore, in spite of much excellent answerinB in church, several are still workin$ up their hundreds by very slow de$rees. The Technical Education Committee under the County Councll, $ive three months trainin$ to a certain number of $irls in cookery, laundry etc work, without fee, at an establishment in Norwich. Girls must be 14 years of aBe: DECEMBER 1900 The School H. M. Sub-Inspector MY Harrison, visited the school 011 Tuesday November 20th. He made criticisms alld ordered a fresh timetable to be made out of some work, ill order to suit the presellt mode. all the whole he 11 �thoue,ht the school quite up on avera$e and in some respects above. He called special attention to the case of a child who had been taken away hom the school under a$e and said the Mana$ers would be required to e,ive a more satisfactory reason than appeared as yet, before the next School Grant was recommended. We acknowlede,e a liberal donation of £10 to the school from Miss riolley. Aut.hor~Notes 1900 Queen Victoria died 22nd January 1901, a$ed 81, on the Isle of W ie,ht, havine, reie,ned since 1837. For most people she had been M~narch all their lives. Edward VII as Prince of Wales, had waited to become Kine" much like the present Prince Charles, until he was 60 years old. The Boar War was foue,ht in South Africa 1899 - 1902 between Dutch settlers and the British Army . For a Bread Charity and a Clothine, Club to have operated in Booton, there must have been some very poor people in the villa$e at the bee,innine, of the Twentieth Cenhln} Poona is the Ene,lish spelline, of Pune in India - Booton villa$e was supportine, an Indian boy called Nicomende. . Before the arrival of cinema, radio and TV, people entertained themselves by plaljine, musical instruments and sine,ine" and attendine, social activities which were an essential aspect of villa$e life. The extracts from the Monthly Papers start in July 1900. A major and recurrine, focus throue,h the papers relate to the level of tundine, required to maintain the local school. RECEIPTS Balance. Jan 1" 1900 £ 109 £109 s. EXPENDITURE d. 2 £ 18 6 F. Gunton, Repairs 18 18 4 F.Cce,PaintinB 22 10 0 Balance in hand 57 14 4 £109 2 12 d s. 9 W. Gidnetj, Well Sinkna 2 �ilBap ~cbooI RECEIPTS Balance, Jan 1" 1900 Government Grants £ s. d. 64 100 12 10 4 I 6 i I £ Salaries EXPENDITURE s. 127 7 Rates, Rent, and d. 5 2 0 9 j Insurance I 6~~ 20 15 0 4 0 0 11 :5 I Books and StationetlJ Fuel and Cleanin8 I Balance in ha.nd £200 18 7% ! Voluntarq Rate Donations Sales of Needlework 27 12 22 Furniture and Repairs 5 18 12 15 18 :5 £200 6 1% 1 2 T,., ~unha!, ~cbool £ s. 12 0 10 13 £13 3 RECEIPTS Donations Offertories d. 0 1 EXPENDffiJRE Salaries Catechism Papers, etc Balance in hand £ s. 12 0 10 12 0 0 :5 £13 d. 0 6 7 1 INTRODUCTION 1901 For 1901 school funding and attendance is still a concern but so also are the standards being achieved, the outcome of the Annual School Report and the Report from the Diocesan Inspector. The Treats' from Miss Mollel} the local benefactor continue and there are interesting references to the choir and the School Savings Bank Author~ Notes 19oJ School Attendance: For children aaed between 10 and 12, a minimum of 250 attendances per annum had to be made, while for over-12's the £i8ure was 150. Le8a! exemption from school could thus only be 8ranted on a parttime basis if the child had passed the aae of eleven and if the specific attendance had been completed. Complete exemption below the aae of 14 depended on the child passiD8 the 'Labour Certificate' at the standard laid down hy the education b)-laws in his/her school district (usualllJ Standard IV or V) or havin8 reached 13 and made the 150 attendances per annum for the previous five lJears. 13 �In 1862, Robert Lowe - Vice-President of the Committee of Councll produced his Revised Code with a set of rules for schools to abel] before thel] received anl] Brant. It was a sl]stem of pal]ment bl] results. EveYlJ l]ear an Inspector would visit the school and $ive the children an examination in readin$, writin$ and arithmetic - the famous Three R's. These were arran$ed accordin$ to the Standards. Monel] could be lost if a pupil failed anl] one of the three subjects. For eveYlJ pass in each subject the Government paid 2s. 8d. So a child who passed in all three subjects earned ei$ht shillin$s for his school. After 1890 the Three R's Grant itself was replaced b1] hi$her pal]ments for attendance and an additional 'discipline and or$anisation' criterion. The Fixed Grant was 4s. 6d. for each pupil so alto$ether a $ood pupil could earn 12s. 6d. for the schooL Bl] 1901 these sums had nearll] doubled so it was vital that children had $ood attendance. Such $rants made a hU$e difference to schools which could then spend it on books, fuel, school equipment and the buildin$. . A VoluntdYlJ School: These were built and looked after bl] voluntanJ or$anisations with trustees. Thel] depended on Government Grants and monel] Biven voluntaril1] bl] private individuals. The majoritl] o:f these schools belon$ed to the Church of En$land. Where such schools were unable to meet the needs of the 10calit1], a School Board was elected from amon$ the ratepal]ers who financed the school partll] out of rates, and enforced attendance bl] all children over the ae,e of five. After 1893 full-time attendance was required for children between five and elevell. Diocesan Examination in Reli$ious Education The School Rate: This was a voluntaYlJ amoullt paid bl] the adults ill the villae,e to support the school. In the case of Bootoll, the local Rector, had the school built in 1896 and left it to the Squire who didn't char$e a rent so the rate was veYlJ small. This subscription was calculated at 4d. ill the pound, much less than a School Board Rate. School Boards also char$ed school fees. SinBinB Class: Considerable tirpe was devoted to this; SOll$S chosen varied accordill$ to the taste of the teacher. VIell-kllown titles such as 'rne Daisl]', 'Fresh Air', 'It's Never Too Late to Mend', 'If I were a Sunbeam', 'The Ash 14 �Grove' were sune. One that most people today have heard of is 'Home Sweet Home'. In prosperous schools sineine would be accompanied by a hrumonium or a piano. Catechism: In Victorian Britain, many schools beloneed to the Church of Eneland so the':l taueht the Ane1ican version of Christianit':l' Aver':) important part of this was the Catechism which ':lou will find in the Prayer Book It was a subject in itself: children were tested on it and awarded marks and Certificates for their knowledee. It was used as a means of instructine children in the basics of the Christian Creed often as preparation for baptism or confirmation - in the form of questions and answers. The Annual Grant: The first arants to schools were made in 1833. The':l were ven] small and intended to help new schools pay for their buildines. In 1861 the Government appointed a Royal Commission to see how this money was bei11e spent. The Newcastle Commission, (after its Chairman Lord Newcastle) concluded that schools were 110t doine their job properly because many children drifted in and out of school, or stalJed awalJ truantine. ManlJ pupils left school illiterate and ienorant. Standards: These mneed from I huainl':l tor 7 to 8 ':lear olds} to VII (13 to 14 ':lear olds). To move up the child had to pass an eX:amination conducted hy the Inspector. If the pupil failed he stayed in the class at that level even it this meant beine with ':l0uneer children. Brieht children could jump standards and mieht find themselves workine with pupils three ':lears older. Sunday School: Up until the 1970's (date correct?) most children in the countn]side below the aee of eleven still attended this Sabbath-day re±Uee hom the lenethy Church Service. Most of the time was taken up with Scripture readine from the Bible and study in the Catechism. Prizes were eiven and there would be a Sunday School treat. Choir. Durin8 the 19th centur':) choir festivals became a popular teature of musical life, promotine mixed-voice sin8ine by amateur eroups. It continued a lone tradition of sacred music - responses, hymns and psalms - sune by choirs in churches and cathedrals. The lack of musical instruments and other entertainment made this a popular past-time from childhood onwards. 15 �JANUARY 1901 "Even] child between 5 and 14 must 80 to school, or in some walj receive 'efficient instruction', unless exempted for some reason. l1ere are no exemptions under 11 and up to 13. l1ere are various restrictions as to the emploljment of children who are partllj or entirely exempted from attendin8 school in one of three waljs. Either first, havin8 passed for a Labour Certificate or second havin8 reached at least the 4th standard or 3rd havin8 made 350 attendances each ljear for the five ljears precedin8. At 14 a child is free from attendance under anlj circumstances." Baptisms December 23rd Ernest Geor.ge Ivor, son of Edward &' Ethel Cae. Also Re.ginald Solomon, son of Solomon &' Mabel Amlj Jefferies. FEBRUARY 1901 l1e Catechism At the Quarlerllj service on January 8iveawalj. 27th there were 19 cerlificates to l1e followin8 received Cerlificates:- John Lon8, Edward Baxter, EmestGroom, William Hardin8ham, William Townsend, Lancelot Gou.gh, G. William Hall, Re.ginald Baker, Vidoria Allenden, Emma Lee, Eva Parker, Evelljn Pi8.g, Ella Curson, Possie Gou.gh, Violet Allenden, Alice Smith and IvyPi.g.g. MARCH 1901 This ha.s been a tryin8 month for school attendance. On the dalj of our heaviest snow we had to dose one afternoon. Considerin.g how bad the weather was, and the distance many had to come, the attendance has been creditable. l1e Board of Education has allowed £6. 12s. Aid Grant to the school for the infants' desks and seats ordered last ljear. l1is about pays for them, and it comes usefully as we are rather exceedin.g our income this year, most of the school expenses havin8 increased. 16 �MAY 1901 The Catechism 'The children entitled to certificates at the Quarterly Festival on April th 28 are:C. Edward Baxter Robert Hudson, Launcelot Gou8h, William Townsend, Geor8e Waller, John Lon8, Re8inald Baker, Victoria Allenden, Eva Parker, May Townsend, Gertmde Webb, Alice Smith, Possie GOU8h, IV1.J Pi88, Ella Curson. Baptisms Edwin Iierbert ThreHall. JUNE 1901 The Mana$ers at the meetin8 on May 3 rd were the Rector, Miss Iiolley, Mr Richmond and Mr Barrett. The matters before them were almost all business details of no special interest to report. It was discussed whether coHa$e 8ardenin8 should be added to the subjects but it was considered that the number of boys eli8ib1e for it, under the new code would be too few to be worth the difficulties of ca.rnJin8 it out. The Mana$ers approved a sU88estion for the openin8 of a Savin8s Bank for the children in connection with the school. It was decided to 8ive certificates to all those who had made above 90 per cent aHendance last year." The followin8 eiBht children made over 95% attendances duril18 the last school year, out of a possible 438:Walter Lee 436, Fossie Gou8h and Iiilda Lou8 432, Ella. Curson and John LOnB 428, Flossie Bateman 426, Eva \Vhyer 422, Clara Curson 420. 17 �The bllowin8 nine made between 90 &' 95%:Iiarriet Lee 414, Florence Smith 413, Re8inald Watkin 411, Ernest Gaskin 409, Eliza Beckerton 408, Albert Blt)th and Eva parker 407, Florence Watkin 406, Geor8e Bateman 405. It will be observed that only two boys made 95% and only three of the whole 17belon8 to ant) standard hi8her than a 3 rd. This is unsatisfactol'l). The attendance has improved but it is far from satisfactonJ. About flO has been lost throu8h absences for insufficient reasons. JULy 1901 The Day School The annual report was received on June 8th. It runs as follows: Mixed school - Discipline is satisfactol'l), and instruction is 8iven in a careful and accurate manner. Infant class - The improvement noticed in the last year's report has been well maintained. The infants are under suitable discipline and are nicely tau8ht. This is a ven] 800d report and does credit to the teacher. "The Board of Education has paid the hi8hest of the two 8rants, 22 shillin8s for each of the older scholars and 17 shillin8s for each of the infants in avera8e aHendance. TIle only thine to ree,ret is that our averae,e attendance was onlt) 84% and it oU8ht to be 90. There are nearll) alwat)s children plal)in8 about in the villae,e who oU8ht to be at school and as lone as this is so, the school will be difficult to cal'l'l) on." 18 �The new admissions since April 30th are :Percival Baxter, Edward Geor$e Woods, William Bacon, Grace Thetford, Maud Tubbl,], Rosalia Baxter, Grace Allenden, Vidoria Allenden. Two of the scholars Robert Iiudson and Edith Tubbl,] have obtained Labour Certificates, exemptin$ them from further attendance. Besides these the followins have left since April 30th, qualified in otherwal,]s; C Edward Baxter, Geor$e Waller, Minnie Iiall, Blanch W oads, Ruth Fields and Florence Allenden. " The Diocesan Inspection by the Rev J. Ii. Beevor will be on Wednesdal,] Jull,] 3 rd in the morninS. Even) child should be sent to school that morninA without fail, This is important. AUGUSTIQOl The School "The followin$ is the report of the Diocesan Inspedor, The Rev John Ii Beevor, on the reli$ious instmdions at the school-"The school passed a vel'lJ $ood examination. The Infants were mostly readl,] with their answers and did extremell,] well. The knowleJae of the standards showed improvement as their answers, when taken a little out of the $eneral track of lessons, were both thou$htful and intelli8ent. I was pleased to find the Pral,]er Book subjed taken. The discipline and tone of the school are excellent: The summer holidal,]s will be fixed so as to fit in with the harvest thel,] will last for 4 weeks. 19 �Miss Holley's Treats "Bl,) the kindness of Miss liollel,) a pariy of 52 children mostly the l,)ounBer ones in the school were entertained at Green Lane House on Saturday lull,) 6 th. After tea the children had Bames and races for a liberal allowance of prizes. On lullj 20 th her Benerous annual Bift of a seaside excursion to Lowestoft for the older children tOBether with members of her sinBinB class, was repeated this ljear. The parilj numbered 60 ~ half went from Reepham Station and half from Cawston. The weather was beautiful and the dal,) was Breatllj enjoyed. Miss Holley provided the pariy with an excellent dinner and tea besides makinB all the arranBements with the railway. One boy slipped into deep water near the pier from which some man fortunately fished him out in time, he thus happily escaped without serious damaae. Otherwise we had no accidents or disappointments. The whole party is ven] Brateful to Miss Holley for her Benerous kindness". The Choir The followinB boys have been added to the weekda1.J surpliced choir:Bertie Keeler, Montaaue Fieldon, ReBinald Baker. 20 �SEPTEMBER 1901 A Savin$s Bank in connection with the school will be opened on September 9th. Any child whose name is on the school books can pay in anlj sums or draw out anlj part of the account at any time that the bank is held, on production of the Savin$s Bank card on which all entries will be made. As an encoura8ement to save interest will be allowed on sums in the bank on the last dalj of February and the last dalj of AU$ust, at the followin$ rate; Id on Is and Id on each complete 2s, beljond - that is, 2d on 3s, 3d on 58, 4d on 7s and so on. The total sum to which interest will be restricted will not be fixed at present. The bank will be held in school on Mondays after momin$ service. OCTOBER 1901 School AUendance The new blje-Iaws of the St Faiths School AUendance Committee under which we are, have now been sanctioned by the Board of Education and are iuforce. The School Savin$sBank lias opened very well. The first day there were twenty depositors and over 5 shillin$s was put in. Since then others have joined, so that about half the children have an account in it. A Savin$s Bank is therefore an excellent part of children's trainin$ for mand$in$ their monelj. A Niaht School Will be held at the rectory on Friday evenin8s at 7pm, commencin8 Oct lllh. It will be open to lads who have lett school and are resident in the parish of Booton. 21 �NOVEMBER 1901 The Choir "In a parish like ours it must alwa-ys be a small choir but probabl-y it will be suHicient for this purpose, which is all we require, eiBht boys have been workin$ at it steadily for the last 3 months and a ninth - Herbert PlJe has just been added to it: The DalJ School The followin$ have left; Eva Parker for service, and Alice Smith, Gertrude Webb and Charles Self. Alice and Edward Green have been admitted. DECEMBER 1901 The DalJ School A Manaeers meetine was held on TuesdalJ October 29th at 7.3Opm in the school- room. Present: W . Elwin (in the Chair), Miss liolley, Mr F Richmond and Mr Barrett. Mr liorace lioward was prevented from attendin$ b-y the death of his father, Mr Iioward of Cawston. The school.will break up for its Christmas liolida-y on FridalJ December Durin$ school holidalJs, if anlJ of the children want to attend the Savin$s Bank, thelJ should come to the Rector's StudlJ door, at Rectory on MondalJs,between 12.00 and 12.3Opm. 20th. �INTRODUCTION 1002 The recently formed Choir comes into its own in 190'2 and is rewarded early in the year with a 'holiday' An Industrial Exhibition in April enaa,5es 48 villa,5ers in a ranee of competition events. One wonders how much excitement knife polishing and boot cleaning competitions would evoke amonest 21st Century children. Perhaps the cricket match would be a little more to their liking? JANUARY 1902 Christmas Havin$ the advantaee of a choir, we be$an the Festival on Christmas Eve, with a sun8 Evenson$, followed b", carols. The carols this year, both then and on other days, have been sun$ separate from the service, at the end, instead of durin$ the service, as ill former years. The choir-boys have been sin$in$ them vert] nicely. The Church looked well with simple decorations. We only had 15 Communicants, and the con8re8ations were not ven] lar$e on Christmas Day, but the services were bri$ht and heart",. On Saturday December 28 th, the scholars in the Sunda", School were invited to Tea at Green Lane Iiouse. After enjoyin$ this, a performance was 8iven 1"9 Da"9 School children, under the Teacher's mana,5ement. In spite of the wet ni$ht the room was dosely packed with parents and friends. The pro$ramme 1ee,an with a prett"9 Recitation, welcomin$ the audience, bt] seven e,irls. The Infants sane three son8s, and performed some excellent drill under lvIiss GOU8h's superintendence, besides contributine, two Recitations. The Bills under Mrs Isabel Goue,h's direction did some pretty Fan Drill. Mr Goue,h, Mr Ii Goue,h and Miss F Goue,h sane, and recited durine, the evenin$. The whole went well and e,ave much entertainment. 23 �FEBRUARY 1902 Baptisms December 8th January 9 th Iiarriet Easton Lee, dau.ghter of John & ElleJ.ftancis Lee Iierbert1ack Newton \ The Choir Went for a holiday to Norwich on January 4th, and after inspectin.g the Cathedral and Museum, spent the afternoon at Gilbert's Circus. The Day School In consequence of the Inspector's objection to our usin8 children still under instruction to help in the Infant Schoolroom, an older 8irl is now bein8 employed for the purpose. At present Edith Tubby is el18a.ged on the work Our numbers are still sli.ghtly reduced by sickness and removals. The Board of Education has sanctioned Aid Grant to the School this year, to the amount of £8.lOs. to be used for specified purposes. TheSundalJSchoolP~ The Infants did their part capitally, especially in 'Busy People'. The boys .gave a .good exhibition of the new Physical Drill. Amon8 the Recitation, 'Patchwork' by E Beckerton and E Ratman, was particularly well done. Two little pieces were nicely acted: 'Dr Killumquick' by S. Baxter, W . Lee, D. Iiall, A Townsend, Ii. Lee, A Tubby and A Bacon; and 'A Different Sorts of People' by J. LonB, R Baker and Ii. Seeley. ~~ , -! 24 �MARCIi1902 ) SchoolSavin8sBank The resuN' of our first half-year's experiment of this bank has been that £7.17s.8d has altoBether been paid in, and £1. 16s. Id has been drawn out, leavine a balance of £6 still on deposit. ) APRIL 1902 Industrial Exhibition It seems that we are BoinB to take Aylsham by storm on April 2 nd, as we have no less than 48 competitors - one quarter of our population - Boine in for the Industrial Exhibition. Division II Hilda Everett - Piece RU[J &-'Pin Cus.hion Mrs. Gaff - Piece Ru[J Mrs. Thetford, Mrs. Fred Coe - Pdtchworlc Cushion Florence Townsend - Pdtchworlc Division III Mrs. Bacon - Ni[Jhtdress Mrs. Thetford and Miss E. M. liollel] - Child~ White Dress Mrs. J. Groom and Mrs. Iiardineham - Mdn ~ Shirt DivisionN Jane Coe - Pdir ofStoclcin[Js dnd Muffdtees Mrs. Barrett - Vest Mrs. Hudson - Counterpdne ) Division V Mrs. Gaskins, Mrs. Stackwood, Mrs. Smith - Bredd Mrs. Iiudson - Pldin Ca.lce Division VI Miss GouBh - Pidno Solo 25 �Division VII Violet Allenden, Ella Cuson, Fossie GOU8h, Madeleine Baxter, Ivy Pi88, Ethel Flatman, Elizabeth Beckeston, Albina TubbLj, Harriet Lee, Eleanor Plje, Daisl,;] Hall, Florence Smith, Nellie Waller, Flossie Bateman, Eva Whyr, Ida Hudson, Mabel Flatman, DaisLj TubbLj, Winnie Stac"kwood - Pinafore Hilda Lone - Dressed Doll Division VII MontLj Fieldon, Albert Watkins, Walter Waller, Bertie Blyth, Sydnel,;] Baxter, Alfred ToWllsend, Georee Bateman - Knife PoliShing Herbert Pye, J 06 Lone, Ernest Gaskins - Boot Cleaning MAY 1902 Aljlsham Exhibition We were fortunate in carn]ine off the followine prizes: Miss Goueh _1st prize for piano solo Mrs J. Groom- 3 rd prize for plain needlework Mrs. Pritchard and Miss E. M. Holley were hiehllj commended. The smallpox mmours prevented the attendance of our youne competitors in boot and knife cleanine. 26 �JUNE 1902 Baptisms March 30th - Easter DalJ Edward Hen~, son of Charles Edward &' Elizabeth Stackwood Eliza Aueusta, dauehter of Ernest William &' Julia Capes Alice Elizabeth, dauehter of Thomas William &' Emma Eliza Hawes May 18 th - Whit SundalJ Mildred Maud and Frederick, dauehter and son of Wa.l.ter William &' Ellen Maria Wa.l.ker Burial April 29th - Alice Elizabeth Iiawes, d$ed 3 months. AUGUST 190'2 Miss Holle1]'s Treats Owine to our narrow escape of serious accident at Lowestoft last lJear, Miss Hollel] decided to take the school children, thus clividine the partl] into an elder and ljouneer division. The Cromer trip took place on Saturday July 26th , provisions beine taken by Miss Holley, as in former Cromer expeditions. The journel] was made from Whitwell Station, the lone distance children beine driven b1J wd$on. 27 �l1e elder division, which consists this year of men and lads, will 80 to Lowestoft on Au8ust 2nd. l1e small children's home treat "Will be at Miss Iiolley's house on some date to be fixed. SE.PtEMBER 1902 Baptisms AU8ust3rdAU8ust lOth _ Burial AU8ust 18th _ Bertrand Frank, son of Ernest & Edith Maud Dawson Frederick Geot8e, son of Frederick Geor8e & Julia J oUel) Helen Winifred, dau$hter of James Robert & Maria Elizabeth l1etford. Mafekin$ Anna Townsend, aBed 2 years. The little child died on AU$ust 151h from the effects of bein8 kicked bl) a horse. We are ven] sorflJ to have to record so sad an accidellt. Cricket l1anks to Mr. Richmond's kindness, a fair amount of crici<et has been plal)ed all the lawn this summer, and some of the lads be8in to pIal) crec1itabll). A match was 80t up with a team of Reepham bollS, and played on the Reepham cricket 8round, on Aueust 14th. Reepham Wall the toss and went in first. ReephamXI WAustin NComell SBarnes LHowell WPeM FFord A Rowland Ii Collison lComell A Self HBarker B~es Total 1. Hall c. Richmond 1. Richmond 1. Richmond 1. Hall 1. Richmond run out c. Richmond 1. Richmond not out c. Richmond Booton XI Rliall W Hardin8ham 1 0 4 2 3 0 1 0 1 0 0 1 13 '28 CP~e 1. Howell 1. Iiowell 1. Bames JFlatman Ii Richmond LGoU8h BKeeler JLon8 MFieldol1 c.Austin hAustin run out b.Comell hAustin not out 1 3 9 0 15 0 0 3 0 B~es 4 Total 38 �OCTOBER 190'2 School Savinas In the course of the haH l:Jear £6. 16s. 2d was paid bl:J 42 depositors. Two~ thirds of the children use the bank The smallest amount paid in durin.g the six months bl:J one depositor was Sd, and the lar.gest 11s. Onll:J 19 of the 42 members have withdrawn aut:) of their money this half 1Jear. The total withdrawals amounted to £4. lOs. Sd., leavin.g a balance alto.gether in the Bank of £8. lls.1d The small interest allowed came to onl1J 3s. 9d. The Bank seems to answerven] well indeed. DECEMBER 1902 Smokin$ Someone, seein.g the Report of our School Savin.gs Bank, writes; "We 'Nere quite surprised at the amount of l:Jour Sa.vin.gs' Bank. I wish our tovVll children did as well but so much .goes in cheap smokes and cheap papers, that thel:J ha.ve no mqne1J to put bl:J." 29 �Burial April 4th - Ida Hudson, aaed 10. Several children at the Da1] School fell in at the school, under Mr. and Mrs. GOU8h, and followed in the funeral procession. The coHin was met at the e,ate 11] the processional cross and a few choir 101]s and the Rector, and a hymn was sune, in the Church. Miss Goue,h plalJed the Dead March as the 10dlJ was taken out of Church, and a second hymn was sun8 at the 8rave. ~tbllol ~abing.s' JJjank QEa.ster 1901 to QEa.sttt 1902 RECEIPTS Deposits Donation £ 9 0 £9 s. d 3 :'> 8 4 1 Ii EXPENDITURE WHhd..w,," Balance in Bank 5 £ 3 6 £9 30 s. d. 7 0 8 9 8 5 �INTRODUCTION 1903 Tbe records lor 19()Jlayout a wonderful l'anse 01events and activities for tlze cluIdren tlzrouoh the year. Clearly tlze measles epidemic took aD. seriousproportions requirins tlze school tObe dosedlor two weeks.. How interestinl1 tlzat the dates lor tlze summer holiday are .11ot fixed UIltil it is dear when tlze harvest Will start. FEBRUARY 1003 The 'Men &' Lads' pariy was Biven by Miss liolley, on December 30th. After a noble Meat Tea, thel} and several other Buests, were entertained bl} a capital performance of conjurinB and ventriloquism bl} Professor Walker. This was a new departure, and a veTl} successful one for makine an enjol}able eveninB· TheSundaySchoolParly Given by Miss liollel] on New Year's Da-g, be8an earll] in the afternoon, and lasted until late in the evenin8. Some hours were spent in 8ames, broken blj a substantial Tea. The evenin8 performance was 8iven blj the school children, and was witnessed bl] a crowded audience of parents and friends. Evet1JthinB was done exceedin8 well, thanks to the 8reat pains Biven to eettine it up b13 Mr &' Mrs and Miss Gouah. Day School The Manaeers met on Januan] 5 th. There was a hIll attendance. The chief subject was the makin8 of returns required blj the Board of Education and the Countlj Council, under the new Ad. The most important point had reference to the new manaeement, and application has been made to The Board of Education for an order to appoint four 'Foundation Manaeers'. Two others will be appointed apparently by the Countlj Council and the Pansh Meetin8. Some financial business was discussed and the Chairman was empowered to have the School-liouse well seen to. 31 �APRll..1903 Harriet Lee and Iiarriet Gaskin have left school, havin$ reached the aBe limit, Albert Watkins on a Labour Certificate and Charles and Grace Thetford on removal from the Parish. It is very inconvenient that the re$ulations as to school exemptions are diHerellt in St. Faith's and Aylsham Unions. Booton and Brandiston children live in St. Faith's District, where the aBe limit is 14 and the Standard the 5 th. Cawstone children live under the Aylsham mle, which is a ':lear youU$er. It is best for the prospects of children if parents keep them at school till they have passed at least the 4 th Standard, 'irrespective of aBe. MAY 1903 Owin$ to our epidemic of Measles the school had to be closed on April 21st as there were 50 absentees. It will re~open on Monday May 4th. Recent admissions to the school have been Thomas and Geor$e Sampson, Herbert, Arthur, Elsie, Charles and Frank Ewin$. A Cricket Club Will be started aBain this year. kindly to let us have a pitch. Mr Richmond havin$ aBain aBreed ven] (Mr Richmondlived d t Booton Hall) Burial April14th Ida Hudson aBed 10 years. JUNE 1903 The Catechism Fossie G01l8 h has been appointed an 'Assista.nt', on completin$ 100 marks. A quarterl!] return will be sent home at the end of each quarter showiU$ the attendance and marks $ainecl by each member of the Catechism. 32 �The Cricket Club Has made a e,ood bee,innine this season, thanks to Mr Richmond's kind ?2nnission for a pitch on his e,rounds. Arthur Plje has kindly undertaken to cd as Captain with Ernest Groom as Vice-Captain and W Townsend as Secretary. JlJlYl903 Da1J School The Annual Government Report has been received. Both the 1epartments of the school have been awarded the hie,hest e,rants, amountine in all to £56. 2s, besides the Small Population Grant of £20. Thus the school is maintainine, its satisfactoYlj condition. Trips Some of the Church Lads made an excursion to Yarmouth blj the Bure, from Wroxham on June 10th and the Choir Boys spent the afternoon of June 13 th on the Broads. The first partlj had the best weather. A Shorthand Certificate for Proficienclj in 'TheoYlj' has been e,ained blj This qualifies him for a Junior Clerkship where Ernest Groom. m rrespondence shorthand is required and he would be e,lad to hear of a suitable post. 33 �AUGUST 1903 The Birls' sewinB class had an enjolJable picnic on Sahudal], lull) 4th, under Miss Elwin's care. ThelJ drove to Felthorpe Woods where thelJ boiled their kettle and prepared their tea under the trees. Games occupied the rest of the aftel'l1oon, and Miss Elwin took several photoBraphs of the BrouP. The Dalj School The holidays will have to bereBulated bl) harvest and the date is not ljet fixed at present. We hope there will be none of the slackil1e, off of attendances as the holida"l}s draw near, which has happened sometimes. SEPTEMBER 1903 A Cottaae Garden and PoultrlJ Association has been started for Cawston, Booton, Sall, Brandiston, liaverine,land and Felthorpe with a Committee representinB each of the Parishes. A Show will be held in 1904. The particulars are not l)et settled, but everlJone had better be Bettil1$ their Bardens into condition for Browil1$ prize vee,etables. OCTOBER 1903 The Schools pass into the new mana$ement on 1st October. The chief chane,e is that nearly all important matters will now be manae,ed b"l} the Countl) Council and not bl) the local Manae,ers. These have to meet, accordinB to the Act, four times a l.Jear. The Foundation Manaaers appointed 1lJ the owner of the 1uildinBs, are the Rector, Mr F Richmond, Miss lioUel] and Mrs Barrett. The Couni"lj Council Manae,er is Brandiston. Mr W Iioward of the Church Farm, 34 �The Parish ManaBer was appointed at the Parish Meetina, called for the _::rrpDse on Thursday September 24th. Mr Herbert Ewina was elected on the =-=.::lination of Mr Iiorace Howard, seconded by Mr James Parker. _-OVEMBERl903 The Day School has now come under the County Councll. :JECEMBER 1903 H. M Inspector paid a surprise visit a few weeks aBo in order to 8et >peeimens of stitchin8 done, to be submitted to the Board of Education's ~ -e€Cliework Inspectress in London. 35 �AUGUST 1903 The airls' sewina dass had an enjulJable picnic on Saturdalj, lullj 4th, under Miss Elwin's care. Thelj drove to Felthorp€ Woods where thelj boiled their kettle and prepared their tea under the trees. Games occupied the rest of the afternoon, and Miss Elwin took several photoaraphs of the $roup. The Dal:) School The holidays will have to be re$ulated by harvest and the date is not ljet fixed at present. We hope there will be none of the slackin$ off o:f attelldances as the holidays draw near, which has happened sometimes. SEPTEMBER 1903 A Cottaee Garden and PoultYlJ Association has been started for Cawston, Booton, Sall, BrandistO:il, Haverin$land and Felthorpe with a Committee representin$ each of the Parishes. A Show will be held in 1904. The particulars are not ljet settled, but eveYlJone had better be Bettina their $ardens into condition faY $rowin$ prize ve$etables. OCTOBER 1903 The Schools pass into the new manaeement on 1st October. The chief chan$e is that nearllj all important matters will now be manaeed blj the Count"\] Council and not blj the local Manaeers. These have to meet, accordina to the Act, fotlr times a "\]ear. The Foundation Manaeers appointed b"\] the owner of the buildin$s, are the Rector, Mr F Richmond, Miss Holle"\] and Mrs Barrett. The County Council Manaeer is Mr W Howard of the Church Farm, Brandiston. 34 �The Parish Manaaer was appointed at the Parish Meetina, called for the ::lrp0se on ThursdalJ September 24th. Mr Herbert Ewina was elected on the =.:,::llnation of Mr Iiorace Howard, seconded blJ Mr James Parker. The DalJ School has now come under the CountlJ Council. =:>ECEMBER 1903 H. M Inspector paid a surprise visit a few weeks <180 in order to 8et SJ>2Cimens of stitchin8 done, to be submitted to the Board of Education's _-eedlework Inspectress in London. 35 �INTRODUCTION 1904 The year brinBs some welcome introductions for the school 11.e Education Committee decide to adopt a recommendation for the introduction of Cottage Gardening into the curriculum for the boys . Secondllj, the passinB of a Bill in parliament prohibitinB smokina at school seems to have been warmly welcomed by the Committee. One wonders if the Bill is still in torce in the 20th Century. JANUARY 1904 The Day School Re-assembles on Janual1:J 11th, and it is hoped that parents "\.\Till do their best to improve our attendance returns bl,) sendine; their children regularly. Our school ranks very low on the Education Committee's list, as ree;ards attendance. Nearll,) all the schools of the district e;et a better percentage, and there is no reason whl,) we should be below others. 11.e habit of keepine; children awal,) once in a week, as it once was of no consequence makes havoc at attendance averages and adds extremely to the chfficultl) of the teachers in keepine; up to the standard of teachine;. FEBRUARY 1904 The roadside ditch outside the school has been filled up, and a path laid... doine; it ourselves under advice of the survel,) or. MARCtIl904 The School A Manager's meetine; was held on FebruaI"l) 9 th. Present - the Chairman, Miss Iiollel,), Mr Richmond and Mr Ewine;. The business was the question of whether to make the best of the field hede;e against the road, or to e;o to the 36 �=::::-...e::1S€ of replacin$ it by an iron railine which would make a lar$e hole in "2'Serve fund. 11.e majority of the Commjttee was in favour of the ratline • - ~ - e Chairman and Mr Richmond were appointed a Sub-CommiHee to ~~ out the scheme. 11.ey have arraneed with Messrs Boulton and Paul to __ . ·4 e the railine and the work will soon be completed. Mr Richmond has -=-~ =-i::. most kindly $iven a $ood deal of the labour, besides the use of his carls. _.2 Later picture of the school showin$ the rallin$s - see below. APRIL 1904 The Day School The removal of the heJee, like all alterations involved more than could '-J€ forecasted beforehand But the work has been worth doine. It has s rJare.ed both pla1J$rounds, has enabled us to improve their levels so as to Crain them better, has $iven us a dry path outside, has led to the :..mprovement ot the road and in most people's opinion has $reatly improved : e appearance of the premises. 1he SaVin$s Bank The last half-year of the Savin$s Bank shows increased fi$ures. The d eposits have been £4. 15s. gd., the withdrawals have been £2. 7s. 3d. The n umber on the books is 35 and the balance in the bank is £g. 5s. 6%d. 37 �(faster 1903 to (faster 1904 ;map ~tblloI RECEIPTS Balance, Eastey £ 12 s. 2 8 d lYz EXPENDITlJRE Repairs &" Alterati=.s £ 24 3 d. 7 82 11 O~ s. 1903 Collection Donation Grants etc to Sept School Salaries 7 11 2 3 15 7 o G 0% 34 5 7 7 5 & _J.ai.r.. ce 2 0 o 96 18 3 Sept Supplies) Rates, lnSutdllce etc 5 o o Balance in Iiand £118 7 5 1903 Rent of House 0% to lnHand £118 ~unbap ~tblloI RECElPTS Balance, Easter 1903 OHertories Donations Deficit, Easter 1904 £ s. d EXPfr...TDITURE £ s. 3l<2 3% 0 0 o Assistance Coal & Clean inS Education Co!!llninee payments 10 10 0 13 0 18 5 £11 12 0 o o ~tboor RECEIPTS Balance' Sunday School o 12 1 0 d. 0 0 0 £11 12 0 d. 3L\eserbe jfunb £ 54 s. d EXPENDITURE £ s. 4 G Boulton & Paul Railin$s 15 8 o 10 0 0 5 33 10 £64 16 0 0 6 0 6 Labour0' ~1atErtals BalanceSchooi Builcl.iu¢s Balance Sundag School £64 4 6 0 4 ruLYl904 The School The Education Committee has decided to adopt HM. Inspector's opinion that Cotta..ee Gardenin$ should be tau$ht in school. The $round has been divided into ei$ht plots, 30 teet b1:1 10 feet each. for the ei$ht b01:1s over 11 1:1ears of a..ee. Each will be responsible for his own plot. The1:1 will be tau$ht all ordinal'l:J veBetable and flower Bl'O\.-ffi1$, and also such thin$s as buddin$ and $rafhn$_ 38 �~: is hoped that Cookery may be added for the elder eirls but this ::'=--=:E::'ds on other schools adoptil1$ it so as to make a sufficiently lar$e class at 1 n 1 £or a SpeCl'al t eacher 1 . 1 t . 1. =. =s:.:re. 1like l\.eepham, to be sen over on certain dates. -=='e p roposal with re$ard to cookery classes was considered, and it was -=-_d. that our $irls mi8ht attend classes in Reepham. - .-,: Garden &' Poultry Show ::xed for Bank Holiday at Brandiston Hall, will contain some specimens _ .3.xr:on skills and labour. The admission to the show will be 6d from 2 to ~ and 3d. from 5 - 9pm; children under 12 half price at the Bate. -==. ...c.. COllj uril1$ entertainment, a concert and a $ramophone performance ~ ;:::cceed each other at short intervals throu$h the afternoon and evenin$ will be a Band and refreshment stall of different kinds, thoU$h ~-~ ·:'se ::'==2 -.::!oTIdi nB alcoholic drinks . .~_ ? roposal from the Education Committee that we should en$aBe a . __ ~ :eacher, instead of a monitor, to fill Alice Smith's place, led to a lOnB - =0-.... ::..ssion and finalllJ it was decided to dispense with assistance in the infants :::0::::: altoeether for a time, in order to see if it could be done without. S3'TEMBER1904 .t is '.-ITith $reat satisfaction that we notice that a Bill was broueht out ::.e~ore Parliament, founded on the recommendation of a ROlJal Commission, ::: make smokin$ ille$al amone children and bOlJs. . ·OVEMBER1904 Orders were made for repairin$ the see-saws and swin$s in the plalJ$round and for whitewashin$ the office and lobbies. Some cases of children trespassine on their WdlJ home from school were considered, and thelJ were ordered to be warned. 39 �INTRODUCTION 1905 The notes for 1905 start on a rather low note with reports of dedining attendances at church.. School attendances and success with learning the Catecbism appears to be of far less concern than in previous years. The support from the Parish for the little bOl] in India continues with reports thai he has employment, of a kind, and apparentll] has his own wal] of doing things". JANUARY 1905 The year 1904 up to the time of writina has not been a particularll] eventful one in the Parish. There have been no deaths at all actually in Booton, though there have been two Burials, and one of these was a ven] lona-standina parishioner, :tvfrs. Gaff, who had but just moved away. There have been 13 Baptisms but this does not at all represent the number of births. It is interesting that six. of them were children of parents who had themselves been Booton children and who lL"k:ed to b rine, their infants to the old home to be baptised; and thirteen children were from eiBht families, so some should have belone,ed to previous lJears. rnere has been one Marriae,e. rue Confirmations were four, which is about an averae,e number for our population, thoue,h fewer than we have had for a lJear or two before, and owina to the hiah aBe set, one or two missed beine, confirmed, hy leavine, home just too soon. Some of our Church statistics have fallen rather low. Church attendances have dropped, as far as can be rouabllJ calculated by about 20 to 30 a week cJI throuah the year before. This is a aood deal in a small Parish. The Communions made will also.total up to somethlne,like 80 less than last lJear and over 100 less than the year before. In such a matter it is not eood to aim at mere numbers, but numbers are some indication of advilllC€ or e,oinB back 40 �~ ~~'s Chanty Account tor 1904 ':" ~ : eceipts ->: . : ~ends of 125. 2d. overdrawn ~diture :: .L. S. 2. 8. O. £2. O. d. 8. 2. 8. 10. £ O. = ~,.·.li December 1903 ~ -:..ECipient5 at 55. 2. £2. s. d. 3. 5. 10. 8. 10. O. ~. ~ ~ollel:) si8nalised Christmas as usual bl,) a plentiful distribution of ~-='- --e elders came in for coal, the juniors for 8a.rments and other presents, ; - ~ -.... ~ school children for a Treat on December 29th. There was not anl,) set -=e::_' ; nce bl,) the children as in other l:)ears but thel,) sa.n8 some of the ~=C~ nBs, and the Rev. Geor8e liollel:) kindl1,) amused them with a ~=-::..::::'-_, • one and some son8s. The rest of the time was spent in 8arnes and tea. ~=:J:} School: The Managers' Quarterly Meeting _-\ drain in the school 8arden was approved, and a proposed one in the -===- -.:around rejected. An application was ordered to be made b1,) the = ~an o£ the Education Committee for an increase in Miss GOuBh'S ~c.r'::l' to the amount paid to others of like standin8. The application has at =-:csent been unsuccessful but the matter is still in hand. _~..RCH1905 ~e Day School The Cookery class at Reepham came on us rather as a surprise, for the Slucation Committee officials somehow omitted to send us anl,) notice of its commencement and only wrote when it was found that our children were not attendance. The elder Birls are aHendinB the course which will include all ~ds of plain cottaBe cookery and should be found very useful. =T; 41 �APRIL 1905 Baptism Mary Ann Olley Lovick (faster 1904 to (faster 1903 RECEIPTS £ s. d EXPENTIITIJ"RI £ s. d. Balance, Easter 1904 Gov't Grants (Arrears) 0 6 1 O~ Paintin8 &' Repai.T$ Garden Fel:!:::in8 2 Labour Medal &-' Ce....-nfica:e (1903-4) Insurance, Rem (:;Rates Diocesan Associa:e's 6 3 3 5 9 0 7 10% 2 7 11 0 10 0 36 7 3 Needlework Sales (Arrears) Rent of School House 0 6 7 10 0 0 7 Fee In Iiand 6 2~ - £45 - -- - 7 34 5 2~f? £47 6 - -- - - - - - 3a.eser\Je jfnnb RECEIPTS Balance, Dal.J School Balance School Sundal.J £ 33 0 d 6 10 0 0 s. EXPENDITURE Plal.J8round RaJrne Drain Truck of Gravel Sunday School Deficit Balance Dal.J Schod BalanceSundalj School £43 0 &' £ 6 s. d. 14 3 2 8 9 0 23 9 18 5 17 1 0 6 £43 6 7 6 MAY 1905 The Catechism Quarterly Cerltlicates: IVlJ Pi88, rierbert Ewin8 (Assistants), Arthur Ewin8, Geor8e Bateman, Arthur Gaskins, Daisy riall, Ethel Ratman and Arthur Ratman. Children should not be sent to church on SundalJ afternoons unless they are to be in the Catechism. The others hinder the w-ork, without learnill$ anythin8 themselves. 42 �Exhibition _. ~ Jane Cae's knittinB was 'hi8h1y commended'. Our bent-iron =-;--- -"-::rs could not Bet prizes for they had to compete aaainst forBe work, but ~_ -';ere well placed in the Exhibition and attracted a B0ad deal of remark. _.! -: \4a rn . -':comende has aBain chanBed his work. lie has been promoted to the House at Poona, and is beinB trained under the coachman with the - -::E :hat he ma1,) succeed to the office eventuall1,). Father Elwin writes that _._:::: =ende "thinks himself in clover sleepin8 at the bottom of the stairs at -'-: ~' ::::SSion Iiouse". : ~ :::r:l ~ - Clifford William, son of Iierbert &' Lucy Bishop Lewis Elwin, son of Richard Lewis &' Charlotte James, The County Council Prize Scheme allows an Illuminated Certificate and =- :>JOk to every child who attended school reBularly, without beinB absent :::!" ~ate throuBhout every week except one (or two in the Infant class), in each =-e.rter. In addition a medal is Biven to a child who has never been absent or ~=-:e at all throuBh the whole school year. Edith Lee and Frank EwinB both ~ ·-:.a.ined medals for never beina absent and they and William Gaskins, who .::£. missed once, were also presented with a Certificate and Book AUGUST 1905 _la-y Srhool Qua..-.1erlg Meeting A letter was read from Miss Goueh, resi8ninB her post as Teacher in the School on July 31st, Miss Goueh has taueht the Infant class for over seven years, obtaininB Boods results. 43 �An application for the vacant post was received from Miss Ethel Goush and was accepted bl] the Manasers. Baptisms June 29th July 2nd Katherine, daushter of Charles Edv,rard & Eliza. Elizabeth Stackwood Olive Mal], daushter of Sel]mour &" Kate Jewell. OCTOBER 1905 The Poona Collections for our Indian bOll Nicomende will be on Sundal,) October 29th. We are pled$ed to raise fl annualllj for his support. Nicomende was confirmed last Jull] and is now a Communicant and resular at his duties. Accordins to the latest account he was tempordYlj coachman and helper at Yerendawna durins the illness of the usual bOlj. We have not heard whether he has upset an1Jbodl] -yet, as he is said to have oriBinal wal,)s of doins thinos. lie will no doubt soon do so. The buildins of the villaBe Church at Yerendawna towards which we save a. collection 3l,)ears dSO, is now about to be besun. Baptism and Burial FrankRoberts, privatell] baptised on Ausust 19th, and buried September 6th, aBed 4 weeks. NOVEMBER 1905 The School Reference was made to a. correspondence with the Education Committee ",,,r1 ...................... ;;.., ~~u (,l'a.;rm"'~ ~ .. ~l.~;v ,~v"'~~;~~ ~£ rl~..:l"~.j.;,,.< u V.LA t..L.L-';::;.1.L jJ ... ....... '-= V.J.. \...l.";::UU\.....l..lJ...lb ",--".L.L.I. ....... ~\....t..1. £5 £"om .j..lu-r.l.L . .... v"ilila~"";e'" ........ u u-+ .... teachers who reside with their parents. Miss Ethel Goush's aBreement as teacher was siBned; and the tender for coal and passins of small accounts completed the business. 44 �- - =- Clotbins Club ~ ~earthere have been 43 members at 2d. a week and 55 at Id. The -='~-5 vaS 4s. to the first and 2s. 2d. to the second. -=EMB:ER1905 ?::: i:la WorkingParlies e Secretary writes, "ManlJ thanks for the numerous nice thines made = ?oona 1vtssion blJ the Mothers and Children of Booton". ThelJ are now on ."- ~~'( 'da~ to India, and should arrive in time for Christmas. :.c::tcert _ e Readine Room Committee oreanised a conceri in aid of the funds of e Room, on ThursdalJ November 23rd. It was held in the School room which ~e members of the Committee transformed into an excellent room at shori ::::J:-:'ce after school hours, and transformed it back readlJ for the next =crnin8's School before the~ left it at nieht. The room was quite filled with ::.::: audience ven] lareellJ drawn from Booton, and all seemed to appreciate . --9 sones, each of which was encored in the first part, and would have been in :'::'9 second, if time had allowed. As it was the concert lasted nearllJ three 0 2 " 0 urs. Sones The work with the children has throuehout beenve~ happlJ. The ==da~ Catechism and the choir have both been fruitful of results which :::'£l.';"e held eoed after children have erown up and eone awalJ. It has been a y-eat happiness to have been able to share with the DalJ and Sundal,l School :eachers in workine for our deliehtful children. 45 �46 �SOOn cdier the 19oj notes it seems that the Reverend Eiwin ~ to suDer. The Rev. W Elwin, author 01 tlze reports writes a .?'? - ., ~ z--= ;;o;e[lleiter as lze leaves the Parish in December 1907: -=-= K_"Tl} to leave Booton, and to leave you. But, if any doubts could = ~ ec1 as to its necessity, my recent illness has settled the matter. Por -= 3- =_:0 understand t.bat I am not likely tobestrons alJain at present,;r - - ==: :elcinS charse ofa Parish by myself .- ~--.-::' heen most sornJ to leave the Paris.b so neslected as it .bas been =- _ - ...:.:. no week-day services and no visitinS of t.be people. But it could ~ _ :E' - - --:Jed The task of findins a new Rector .bas proved most difficult. I -=- = -A:-~ ~,TifinIJ and enquirinS in every direction, day hy day. The church - - ~_:3E :nay he attractive, but t.be work is on too small ~ scale, and the '" s::; ~.:z£Iicient to meet t.be expenses, t.bat one after anot.ber to w.bom it ~ _--.:=~ offered .bas been ohlised to refuse it. Iiowelr er t.be matter is most -=-~_-:; seided at last. .-: ", ~nl1lJ .bas been accepted by t.he Rev. J liarry Buchanan, a - .: ;-=-...J2 - 'TV11Om you are fortunate in settinS as your Rector. I bow no-one ~.:= j could more .bappily .band over my work lie .bas sreat experience, -=-: =, ~n an excellent Paris.b Priest t.broush a lons course of years. been .boldinS back my resisnation, and devotins t.be income to __ =.::::.~ :Jrclericalhelp U1Itil a successorcouldbefolllld My resiSnation now _..-= ==al place on t.be ;}d of Dece111.ber. Mr Buchanan, however, callnot -=E::::e his work till January, for it talces a month to carrIJ t.brollsh t.be - ?7'2>-se.'7 formalities ofappoil1tillS a newRector. _- :'.=-;-e :·~eantime, t.bat t.beParis.b may .be put to l10expellseby my leavins, I am _ =£ Jl p rovidins for a clersymal1 for t.be SUl1days in December al1d lor C :tisTmas Day. 47 �In 100kil1(J back over the seven dJ:1d a half years that I have been with you, I have to thank you all for a (Jood deal ofkmdness. Tb.ere is no house in the Parish in which I have not always been made welcome. You have been a friendly people tome. I could wish that I had done more for your spirif--u ality. It is a matter of ven] serious concern to me that the number of communicants has dropped, and that the con(Jre(Jations have been smaller thdJ:1 they used to be, at dJ:1y rate in the second year of my ministry when c.b.urch maiters seemed to be Boin(J forward ven] encourd/Jin(Jly. I cannot help feelin(J that I must be chieUy responsible for this fallin(J off I trust it is only temporary. 'J.he work with the children has throu(Jhout been very happy. Tb.e SU11day Catechism CJ.J:1d the choir have both hc-elJ fruitful of results which have held(Jood alter the children have (JroW11 up alJd(Jone away. It has been a (Jreat happil1ess to have beel1 able to share ...,;ith the Day al1d SUl1day School Teachers in workil1(Jlor our deli(Jh tlul children. J1;ishilJ(J you every blessi11(J, in God ~ (Jood ha11ds. I am your s affectionately WElwin 48 � Text - printed Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Children of Booton 1900 to 1905 Description An account of the resource A booklet giving an insight into school and family life in Booton between 1900 - 1905. Extracts from St. Michael The Archangel Monthly Papers by Rev W. Elwin. Researched with drawings by Lorna Gray 2006. 16 illustrations including sketches, maps, photographs and text. The photographs of the interior of the school are generic photographs of rural schools of that period. They were not taken at Booton School. The children on the cover are from a wedding photograph of the Lee and Chapman families. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1900-1905 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1900-1905 Booton Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context GB/REE/1808131224 Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Lorna Gray Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource A5 booklet 48pp Card cover Local Villages/Booton [+ File + Archive Box] Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Scaned by Geoff Fisher Augsut 2026 1900s Booton Chapman Elwin Gray Holley Lee https://reephamarchive.co.uk/omeka/files/original/cd2c608ee0c842c8a1cda97ea9d71801.pdf 9815d4aaafc4ef3be8ffe7ff42eecf8e PDF Text Text Whitwell and The Muddle and Go Nowhere Whitwell Station was opened on the 1st of July 1882 when the section of line from Guestwick to Lenwade was opened up to passenger and goods traffic. This section was 6½ miles in length and initially there were four trains a day (with variations on Tuesday) which ran to and from Melton Constable. On the 12th of August 1880, the Lynn and Fakenham Railway was authorised to build from Fakenham to Norwich and the line was subsequently opened in stages as its builders progressed through the countryside of central north Norfolk; Fakenham to Melton Constable, then to Guestwick, to Lenwade and then to Norwich where the line terminated at the City Station. The whole length was officially opened on 1st January 1883. The Lynn and Fakenham was merged with a number of other local railways and they formed the Eastern and Midland Railway Company. For the next ten years the East Midland ran the system although by 1889 it had run into such financial difficulties that the Midland Railway and the Great Northern Railway made a joint offer to take over the Eastern and Midland system. This offer was accepted and after some four years of negotiation the new committee took control of the line from 1st July 1893 and the Midland and Great Northern Joint Railway was born (the M&GN). The forming of the M&GN was therefore a microcosm of the railway fever that had swept Great Britain in the 1840s; as the major cities were linked by the amalgamation of small railway companies so the towns and villages of much of Norfolk were linked by the amalgamations, forty-two Acts of Parliament and foresight that made the M&GN. The Muddle and Go Nowhere as it was affectionately known retained its independent existence but finally ceased to exist under its own title on the 1st of October 1936 when it came under the control of the London and North Eastern Railway (LNER). It then became part of British Railways with the nationalisation in 1948 but to the end of its days the route was always referred to locally as “the old M&GN”. The lines of the M&GN stretched from Little Bytham in Lincolnshire through the Fens and King’s Lynn with a spur to connect with the Great Northern at Peterborough; from King’s Lynn it ran across Norfolk to Melton Constable and on to Norwich with other lines running out from Melton to Sheringham and Cromer and another which went to Great Yarmouth via North Walsham. As Melton Constable was the crossroads of these lines it eventually became the headquarters of the M&GN. This was due to a number of reasons; the first was geographical as it was below the ridge of high land running from Fakenham to Cromer and secondly the availability of 25 acres of land owned by Lord Hastings (with part of the eventual contract being the construction of his own platform and private waiting room). As a result of one of the earlier amalgamations the locomotive �shops of the Yarmouth and Fakenham Railway were moved to Melton and this was the initial impetus that was to create the “Crewe of Norfolk” and turn Melton Constable into historical uniqueness as the only railway village in the world. In 1888 it had a population of only 118 and this had increased to nearly 1,000 by 1901, the works gave a great impetus to the local labour force as an alternative to the only other occupation – agriculture. With the influx of labour into Melton it was necessary for the company to provide accommodation. Houses were duly built which included gas, running water and main drainage – all for a rent of 4/- a week which was stopped from the wages. A general store was built to serve the growing community and a school soon followed; this provision set the foundation for what was to be one of the most successful and happy railway companies in the history of steam locomotion. It is little wonder that there was such affection for the M&GN during its working life and for many years after it demise. Obviously the 43 years of the M&GN saw its ups and downs; on one occasion the company ran into such financial difficulties that they were unable to pay the men on a Friday night but on the Monday morning they all turned up for work as usual and the engineer in charge was physically reduced to tears at the loyalty of his workforce. The engineer was William Marriott who was the chief engineer and manager of the M&GN system for 41 years. He was based and lived in Melton Constable and often worked from a railway carriage which had been turned into an office and in which he travelled round the railway system. His name became synonymous with the M&GN and he is remembered today in the new long-distance walk named “Marriott's Way”. Whitwell and Reepham was a typical M&GN small country station which was staffed by a station master, a clerk, two signalmen, one porter and a lad porter who cleaned the lamps and carried out other general duties. There was a daily passenger service of four or five trains each way and there were regular goods trains that would deliver coal, artificial fertiliser and animal feedstuffs and would pick up grain and livestock and sugar beet during the winter months. As with Reepham (North) the sugar beet was brought to the station by farmers’ wagons (drawn by horses initially and then in later years by tractors). This crop was grown under contract to the Cantley factory and to get there it had to be hauled from Melton Constable to Great Yarmouth and then onto the line to Cantley. Both stations at Reepham were in the Cantley contract area and as the area was purely agriculturally based, they were both competing for the same type of business; the Whitewell Station generally suffered from this competition. Although there were large facilities at Whitwell for storage, the entrenched business of Stimpsons at Reepham Station meant that they enjoyed most of the trade in fertilisers and feedstuffs that was available although Stimpsons stored grain, etc., at Whitwell. �With the volume of sugar beet being loaded throughout the season meant that the railway gangmen often had the onerous task of clearing up the soil that would drop through the wagon doors. They would have to clear up the yard nearly every day and so much soil would be collected that it would be put into wagons and sent to the coast to be dumped along the sea wall. The twelve-mile length of track which included the stations of Hindolveston, Guestwick, Whitwell and Lenwade was looked after by an eleven-man gang who were based at Guestwick and who used a motor trolley to travel up and down their length of track. For much of the year the work of the gangmen was routine but it was often aggravated and at times made hazardous by the vagaries of the weather. In the severe winter of 1947, many roads and rails were blocked by snow and two engines and a coach became stuck on Wednesday 5th March in high drifting snow in a cutting at Guestwick. Initially railway staff could not get to it by using snow ploughs so it had to be manually dug out. Troops based at the Weybourne army camp assisted by a number of German prisoners of war started digging from the Melton Constable side and a trainload of men (who were temporarily unemployed due to the weather) were brought from Norwich. The train also brought a refreshment van and a quantity of shovels supplied by R G Carters of Drayton. After much hard work, the train was finally freed on Sunday 9th March when a snow plough coupled with three engines from the LMS was used to clear the final drifts. Another great weather problem was the fog and in a poem about the job of a platelayer, Mr A L Jex, who worked on the length gang covering Whitwell, wrote that: When that black beast called fog descends, A signal post he must attend; Put detonators on the line, So drivers may be warned in time. He recalls that he was on fogging duty at Whitwell one day and he cracked a fog signal to stop a goods train. After a while he heard what he thought was wagons on the rails and then through the fog came a brake van and eight wagons. The track was downhill from there to Lenwade so he jumped on the brake van and pulled up the wagons in the Black Water Cutting. He then went back to Whitwell Station and told the staff and they arranged for an engine to go down and pick up the wagons. His only reward for this was a few lumps of coal that he had off the tender; it was an offence to take these but the driver and guard were not in a position to say anything as the loss of their goods train was far worse than the loss of some coal. �In the days before large road transport the railway was one of two means of getting cattle to the main Norwich Market (the other was to walk the animals there). Every Saturday a special train would leave Melton Constable at 4 am and would convey the animals to Norwich, they would be unloaded at the City Station (near Heigham Street) and would then be driven to the market then situated in front of the Castle. A large number of passengers (particularly on Saturdays) would be conveyed to and from Norwich, many farmers and businesspeople would go and make purchases and these would be delivered by the shopkeepers and merchants to the City Station ready for the “passengers” to pick them up when they came back for the return journey. The agricultural goods traffic declined rapidly at Whitwell after 1945. There was the competition from the GER at Reepham and from the increasing number of road hauliers; full wagon loads from Whitwell became non-existent from the late 1940s onwards. By the 1950s the passenger traffic had declined and this sleepy country station displayed a general absence of business. A member of staff from the Norwich office of the railway remembers a day in the mid 1950s when he went to Whitwell to catch the train back to Norwich. It was a cold day and the waiting room fire made a welcome place to sit by until the train came. There was no one about except a lady station attendant; when the Norwich train came in – she called “Whitwell and Reepham Station” three times – no one got off and just the one passenger got on; as the train slowly pulled out of the station, he remembers thinking “change and decay”. It was therefore inevitable that closure would come and in February 1959 the last passenger train steamed its way through Whitwell, the lamps were put out, the doors were closed and the cold winter’s day was warmed only by the nostalgia which so many felt for this much loved railway. Michael Black From an article published in the Reepham Society Magazine, 1991. �Above: D 16/3 No. 62597: Leaving Whitwell in the evening in June 1957. Below: The same view in June 1991. �D 15 No. 62538: Taken in August 1950 this shows the best kept “Claud Hamilton” on the Norwich District at that time leaving Whitwell for Melton Constable. D 16/3 No. 62533: Hackford Bridge was removed a few years ago; this shows a full head of steam as the train heads from the bridge towards Themelthorpe in May 1957. �D 16/3 No. 62562: Before the passenger traffic declined in the 1950s the 10.41 am from Melton to Norwich leaves Whitwell in February 1949. D 2s Nos. 2157 and 2195: Just before the train was released from snowdrifts at Guestwick, 9th March 1947. �J 17 No. 65588: The “afternoon freight” from Norwich to Melton Constable in May 1957. 4 MT No. 43111 (Goods) and D 16/3 No. 62515 (Passenger). A busy scene at Whitwell in September 1957. The goods train has shunted its ballast trucks into the yard to let the 9.37 am Melton Constable to Norwich City pass by. �Above: The main station building at Whitwell in August 1965. Below: … and sadly its state in June 1991. �Whitwell Station – date unknown but believed to be circa 1920. � Text-digital Any text item for which there is no previously existing hard copy in the Archive. The text can be stored on CD, DVD, memory card, USB stick, on hard drive or 'cloud'. It may have been sent electronically to the Archive or it may be a text owned by someone else which we have scanned or photographed. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Whitwell and the Muddle and Go Nowhere Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context GB/REE/23110115 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource A4 PDF, 10 pages Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1991 Description An account of the resource A history of Whitwell & Reepham Station and the Midland and Great Northern Joint Railway (M&GN) from the station opening in 1882 to 1959 when passenger services ceased. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived From an article published in the Reepham Society Magazine, 1991 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Reepham Society Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Scanned and edited by Geoff Fisher M&GN Railway railway Whitwell Station https://reephamarchive.co.uk/omeka/files/original/bfb990c76c68b53d95e3104418e2d014.pdf fe7fe97434e078de1efaea7a43feb3ab PDF Text Text The Reepham Line The East Norfolk Western Extension Railway Before the railways, communications in North East Norfolk were served by the turnpike system which in this area was sparse and followed the main coach routes and by a dense network of country roads, which until the 1870s was extensively served by carriers carts. Essentially all roads in this area seem to lead to and from Norwich. Passenger services on these roads were very poor, the smaller market towns such as Aylsham were well served with passenger coaches twice a day, but Reepham had to make do with a passenger service twice a week. Apart from these services the only alternative was to hire a horse and carriage or to pay for a seat on a carrier’s cart. In the 1860s and 70s the people of Reepham were able to journey to Norwich or have their goods picked up from or delivered to there by the two local carriers. William Leeds, the proprietor of the Sun Inn, ran an omnibus and carrier service from that establishment every Wednesday and Saturday, leaving at 8 am and concluding the journey at the Moon and Stars Public House in Norwich, returning the same day at 4.30 pm in winter and 5 pm in summer, the journey passing through Booton, Alderford, Attlebridge, Taverham and Drayton. William Stimpson-Lewis offered a similar service from Reepham on Monday, Wednesday and Saturday, and the Post Office operated a mail cart which left Reepham at 4.30 pm and returned from Norwich at 6 am the following morning. Carriers’ carts rarely took more than a ton of goods and were primarily to transport consumer goods to and from market centres and to supply local shops and businesses. Heavy, low-value goods were less often carried in this way. Farm waggons, droves of animals and walkers formed the rest of road traffic at this time. Footpaths were also intensively used by both locals and foot postmen. Carts were expensive, 8d to 1/- a mile, and more in bad weather and hence were a strong factor in the isolation of the communities in this area. During the mid-nineteenth century in the whole of North East Norfolk less than fifty passengers a day could be carried by public transport and yet there was little call for a more intensive coach service. This dearth of traffic was noted as a fact by the Board of Trade when the rest of the country was gripped by railway mania. North East Norfolk therefore lacked any manufacturing industry and lacked a transport infrastructure capable of supplying any new large industry or resort, the area was totally agriculture based and it was undeniably prosperous for the farmer if not for his labourers. This area was, in the eyes of many an entrepreneur, ripe for the consideration of a profit-making line of communication – the railway! The first railway in Norfolk to be �built was the Yarmouth and Norwich railway conceived in 1841 by the Stephensons as the first link in an east-west trunk railway from Yarmouth to Peterborough; the line was completed in 1844. The second stage of the Stephenson project was the railway from Norwich to Brandon which was duly built and when the line was extended from Brandon it finally allowed Norwich to be linked to London, although it was one of the last major urban centres in England to be so joined. Norfolk was linked to other main centres of trade but the route was often tortuous and the lines badly run but there was no reasonable alternative. In 1850 goods sent from North East Norfolk to Ipswich had to be carried by horse to Norwich and then consigned on the railway via Cambridge and London, a journey of some 200 miles as against 40 by road. This long journey was still quicker and more reliable as the turnpike in winter was invariably half a yard deep in mud. There was then a flood of proposals for railways to fill the gaps in the railway map of the 1840s and 50s in North East Norfolk but for various reasons none were built. In the early 1870s construction began on the line from Whitlingham Junction to North Walsham and after the appropriate Board of Trade inspection it was permitted open to traffic as from the 20th of October 1874. The line ran through Wroxham and it was from here that the east-west extension was planned. The East Norfolk Railway Act of 1864 had originally planned an extension to Aylsham but delays in building other extensions (notably to Cromer) and other financial problems slowed down expansion plans so that the Act to extend the line to Aylsham was not granted until the 16th of April 1876. Tenders for the work were submitted during 1878 and that of the lowest, William Waddell, was accepted and in August 1878 the work commenced. There were a number of initial problems particularly with the weather; bricklaying was stopped in December due to the severe frosts. However in the spring of 1879, with a large increase in the number of men employed and with the assistance of two stationary steam engines and a traction engine, he was able to keep to his contract of “Coltishall by the middle of June” and estimated that he would be at Buxton by the end of June. The Board of Trade inspector declared the line adequate and the first section from Wroxham to Buxton was opened on the 8th of July 1879. The company however was running into financial problems and when shares in the Western Extension (to County School) were offered in September 1879 there was a lack of response and this coupled with proposals for extensions submitted by other railway companies in Norfolk meant that there was little chance of the Wroxham to County School extension becoming a profitable possibility if it ran on its own. It was inevitable that it would only survive if it were �taken over by a larger company; this happened in June 1881 when the East Norfolk Railway was amalgamated with the Great Eastern Railway. During these troubled times, however, the building of the line continued with the extension from Buxton to Aylsham opening on the 1st of January 1880 and from Aylsham to Cawston opening on the 1st of September 1880. At the time of the Great Eastern Railway’s takeover in June 1881 land for the two miles beyond Reepham had already been purchased and work from Cawston was proceeding on schedule. After the amalgamation with the GER, the East Norfolk lines were developed as part of an integrated system but this development favoured the Norwich to the North East Norfolk coast area and this was further enhanced when a line from Mundesley to Cromer was opened in 1906. The western extension of the North East Railway became the poor relation of the system; it proved to be an unpopular and profitless extension which slumbered along into the twentieth century; it epitomised the sleepy rustic branch line that our memories are so fond of. The First World War brough a halt to the extensive holiday traffic to the Cromer/Mundesley area and there was compensation by an increase in military and general farm traffic as maximum production from the land was encouraged. The immediate post-war period continued this revival particularly as farm production stayed high but the first buses started to run scheduled services to Cromer and Aylsham. When the road surfaces improved during the 1920s and bus stops were introduced into the very centre of Norwich, the passengers started to turn away from trains onto the buses. They found they could catch a bus which passed through the village rather than walking up to two miles to a station to catch a train. The Wroxham to Reepham and County School line really suffered in this inter-war period, being an east-west line when most of the traffic was north-south (to the coast and the Broads). Reepham to Norwich was catered for also by the M&GN line from Whitwell (which was 35 minutes quicker) and by buses. Worst of all in the inter-war period was the depression in farming and allied industries. Arable North East Norfolk was depressed more than most areas and with little money available to finance development or initiatives the railways were losing a lot of a decreasing total of traffic. It was not until the approach of the Second World War that traffic began to increase markedly. RAF stations built at Coltishall and Foulsham brought extra traffic to the line, agriculture revived as in the First World War and bus schedules were slashed. A great many people now had to travel and the only services available were the trains. After the war there was a rapid decline in passenger traffic on the line from Aylsham to County School once the buses and private cars returned to the roads. The long �meandering line from County School to Norwich via Aylsham in a slow train pulling dowdy and worn carriages, which were at least 40 years old, were no match for the direct and competitive buses. The passenger services from Wroxham to County School ceased on the 15th of September 1952 and the line from Foulsham to Reepham was closed to goods as well. The line was linked to the M&GN line from Melton Constable to Norwich via Whitwell when the Themelthorpe curve was laid in September 1960 and this allowed concrete production from Lenwade to form much of the traffic for a few years until it finally closed to goods in 1982. The line was last used in the mid 1970s when a small number of passenger trains were organised by the Aylsham and District Rail Action Committee. The journeys from Thorpe Station to Lenwade (and back) via Wroxham, Aylsham, Reepham and Whitwell were packed with passengers but they provided little more than evocative reminders of the slow pace of life of a bygone age, a service which could not be profitably sustained today. Michael Black From an article published in the Reepham Society Magazine, 1991. �A timetable from the early part of this century; note there is no Sunday service. When land was purchased for the line, many farmers only sold on the condition that the “Lord’s Day” was observed. The station staff take time between trains to pose for the camera – date unknown, but probably the early 1900s. �A busy moment at the station during the inter-war period. The use of the railway declined during these years but was revived for a few years during the Second World War. The last passenger train to stop at Reepham Station – organised by Aylsham and District Rail Action Committee in 1978. � Text-digital Any text item for which there is no previously existing hard copy in the Archive. The text can be stored on CD, DVD, memory card, USB stick, on hard drive or 'cloud'. It may have been sent electronically to the Archive or it may be a text owned by someone else which we have scanned or photographed. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource The Reepham Line Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context GB/REE/2311010925 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource A4 PDF, 6 pages Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1991 Description An account of the resource A history of Reepham Station and the East Norfolk Western Extension Railway, including road travel before the 1870s. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived From an article published in the Reepham Society Magazine, 1991 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Reepham Society Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Scanned and edited by Geoff Fisher railway Reepham Station Roads transportation https://reephamarchive.co.uk/omeka/files/original/7f0b3f7614f7f4cb0d565c26a2a24900.pdf b44f141b635e722a814f6f9ce7e81fdd PDF Text Text Memories of the railway The days of man are three score years and ten – but that was certainly not the vision that inspired the building of the “Western Extension of the Great Eastern Railway”, as it was termed, when it was opened in 1882, but 70 years was how long the passenger service lasted until its closure in September 1952. Launched amidst much anticipation (with perhaps not a little trepidation) during the period 1876–79, grandly the project gathered sway from Aylsham to County School, as Cawston, Reepham and finally Foulsham stations arose and the railway tracks completed their easy communication in 1882. All the actors on that stage have now taken their last call and it is no longer possible to converse with anyone who was involved with the building of the line. There are many and varied episodes connected to the building, some are complimentary and many are contradictory. The search for detail can be long, exciting – sometimes exasperating – but always interesting and at last a more or less coherent story can emerge. When the line closed it was still possible to contact people in the Reepham area who could remember the 1880s. While most could remember the line being built, very few worthwhile details could be gathered. The patriotic urge to provide waste paper and reduce the danger of fire from aerial attack early in 1939 doubtless resulted in many old papers being given over for salvage. One lost paper held an account of the dinner given at the King’s Arms, Reepham, to celebrate the opening of the line when the superintendent (Mr R W Kendall), under whom it was built, was chief guest. The high fields bounding Stony Lane and the eastern boundary of the yard to the railway bridge are often a puzzle to people. The navvies who built the railway excavated the site of the Reepham Station yard, leaving the fields high up on either side. The soil that was removed went to build the embankments which lead to the bridges on the Cawston and Kerdiston roads. One old inhabitant, Mr Matt Timbers, recalled the making of the yard, entailing the work of a pick and shovel brigade (“There were no excavators or bulldozers in those day, you know”), and the earth was run down the slope on a specially constructed light track to build the embankments approaching the bridge over the Kerdiston road. Horse-drawn trucks were the motive power, and Mr Walter Wilkin drove the tip horse. Originally the road from Cabbage Court to Cawston New Road (now known as New Road) ran through Crown Meadow, but with the construction of the railway �bridge to the east of the station, it assumed its present curve over the bridge. Incidentally, this bridge is the highest spot in Reepham and served admirably as a lookout post for air raid wardens in the last war. The blaze at Lowestoft in its worst night could be discerned at this vantage point. Victorian ideas as to the Sabbath – and they were not bad ones either – insisted that the sale of many properties through which the line ran was conditional upon there being no Sunday traffic over them and this reservation has been scrupulously observed. The Midland and Great Northern Railway Company had for some time been considering a line which would give a more direct route to the Midlands, which covered much of the area taken in hand so energetically by the Great Eastern. Once the necessary sanction had been given the latter really got on with the task and the speed with which the work was done came as a great shock to those who favoured the nearer route to Norwich from Whitwell Station. Because of the close proximity of the two stations of rival companies the fare to Norwich was the same, notwithstanding that the mileage from Reepham was about double that from Whitwell. The Whitwell line had no Sunday service either. The story of the sheds at Reepham used as blacksmiths’ and iron-workers’ shops, of the turntable in use because the government of those days forbade a train to run with the tender before the engine; the work of Mr H E Hawes, a survivor of those days when he was a carpenter employed in the interior construction of the station’s dwellings at Cawston, Reepham and Foulsham and on the woodwork of the line – are not all these with many another written in the Book of Memory. In the early 1880s a favourite Sunday walk of those days was to the station to see the weekly progress of the line – how many more sleepers had been laid; this walk was alternated with a visit to Booton Church to see how many more bricks had been laid by the Rev. Whitwell Elwin and his team. The line from Reepham to County School was opened on the 1st of May 1882 and two months later the July issue of the Foulsham Parish Magazine proudly printed the first timetable of the East Norfolk Railway with its conglomeration of “Mixed”, “Parliamentary” and “Market” trains. By this it took 43 minutes to travel from Aylsham to Foulsham, the editor for brevity omitting reference to Cawston and Reepham. The journey from London to Foulsham by the “Mixed” train occupied 5 hours 14 minutes while the “Parliamentary” one took 6 hours 29 minutes. Norwich to Foulsham by the same trains were a matter of 1 hour 24 minutes and 1 hour eleven minutes, respectively. There were, however, 11 trains daily from Norwich to Foulsham and 10 from Foulsham to Norwich. All these, of course, passed through Reepham, too. �In 1882 the fastest train of the day did the 17 mile journey from Foulsham to Norwich in 63 minutes. This seems to be the fastest time recorded for this trip in the 70-year history of the line. The building of the line seemed to have been relatively accident free, or else no accidents were ever recorded, but two incidents were recorded. Firstly, the one outstanding incident before the line opened when a steam traction engine used by the contractors blew up near Foulsham while the users were desperately trying to replenish the boiler with water from a nearby stream. Shortly after the line opened the only bad accident occurred when a man named Flatman left Cawston where he had been waiting longer than he thought reasonable so he started walking a short cut home along the railway line. It was late and dark and a train overtook him, cutting him to pieces. The gory evidence of the accident was only revealed when the train stopped at Reepham Station and search parties went out and soon found further evidence to substantiate the tragedy. No story of the Reepham railway would be complete without some reference to its stationmasters, the first of whom was Mr Richard Sayer, a genial and much-beloved gentleman. It seems he was succeeded for a short while by Mr Frank Rice, who subsequently became stationmaster of Sheringham, to help in its development from a lobster fishing village to a popular North Norfolk watering-place. Probably his successor was Mr Youngman, whose son Harry contributed much to the cultural life of Reepham through the Orchestral Society and Nigger Minstrel Troupe before the 1914–18 war, in which he was killed. Later holders of the office were Mr Wilson, Mr Moore and finally Mr S B Bass whose maternal grandfather was a Mr Hoggar who was the first stationmaster at Foulsham. Mr Bass came from a real railway family who accumulated 390 years of railway service between them. Eleven members of his family were stationmasters. Was the coming of the railway to Reepham a blessing or not? Till the 1880s it certainly was a prosperous, self-contained unit, numbering many influential people among its inhabitants. Whitwell Hall, Hackford Hall, the Brewery House, The Ollands and the Moor House were all the homes of gentry and Reepham was then where magisterial business was transacted and where a well-attended busy market was held each week. The railway gave Reepham a direct communication with neighbouring villages and with towns like Dereham and Norwich, while London was now only five hours travelling time away. To the farm labourer of the time for whom a journey to Norwich was likely to be an annual event the prospect of leaving Reepham at breakfast and to be in the centre of London for lunch must have been difficult to comprehend, although it is unlikely that he would have been able to afford it let alone have the free time to go. �The novelty of a railway journey, though, undoubtedly brought a shrinkage of trade and it is more than possible that the railway started the dispersal from the countryside. The railway came as an engineering marvel which provided unlimited travel to the people of this Victorian era. The service, however, did not change much during the next 70 years and in its latter days it had many faults of infrequent and slow service but the passenger train during its 70 years at Reepham did meet a very real need. Even with its faults there was considerable sadness expressed when its farewell finally became necessary. Reepham is one of those few places that had the benefit of two railway lines, which ran independently for many years and which were unexpectedly linked in 1960: the line through Reepham Station, which closed to passengers in 1952, and the line through Whitwell, which saw its last passengers in February 1959. The railway lines were eventually taken up in the mid 1980s but in the intervening years the lines continued in use until the mid 1970s with regular trains hauling freight, the final goods train from Lenwade made its journey on 4th January 1982. The reason for this continued use was the building of the Themelthorpe curve in 1960. This line starting from Whitwell Station and turning back almost on itself at Themelthorpe returning to Reepham Station makes a pleasant walk which traces the transport line which for 70 years was the backbone of most of the life and goods that came in and out of Reepham. Prior to British Railways amalgamating the lines in 1948 the area was served by the Midland and Great Northern Joint Railway which journeyed into Norwich City Station (the area east of Heigham Street now developed as an industrial estate) and the Great Eastern Railway which journeyed into Norwich Thorpe Station. The two Norwich stations were only a mile apart yet there was no direct link and any freight that had to be moved from one station had to be sent northwards via North Walsham, Cromer and Melton Constable and thence back to Norwich. For a distance of one mile direct the actual rail journey was immense, the route was affectionately known as “going-round-the-world”. When the Themelthorpe curve was laid it halved the journey at a stroke From an article published in the Reepham Society Magazine, 1991 �E 4 No. 2793. The 2.10 pm from Dereham to Wroxham leaves Reepham Station in May 1950 – our local railway memories are encapsulated in pictures like this. K 2 No. 61748 A Gresley K2 passes Themelthorpe, later the site of the British Railways curve, on 10th May 1949. �No. D 5537. Concrete beams on low loader wagons leaving Lenwade in August 1965 and about to make their journey around the Themelthorpe curve. � Text-digital Any text item for which there is no previously existing hard copy in the Archive. The text can be stored on CD, DVD, memory card, USB stick, on hard drive or 'cloud'. It may have been sent electronically to the Archive or it may be a text owned by someone else which we have scanned or photographed. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Memories of the railway Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context GB/REE/2311081100 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource A4 PDF, 6 pages Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1991 Description An account of the resource An account of the Western Extension of the Great Eastern Railway and the construction and history of Reepham Station. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived From an article published in the Reepham Society Magazine, 1991 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Reepham Society Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Scanned and edited by Geoff Fisher GER Railway railway Reepham Station https://reephamarchive.co.uk/omeka/files/original/cf0e5c5183d484a193c24e00fa318a5d.pdf 44c6a50b6caa7336b25f9f9f431a18ac PDF Text Text Reepham Station – The Stimpson Connection As the railway builders moved on their relentless course from Cawston to Reepham and on to Foulsham during 1880 and 1881 the site of Reepham Station became an important point for the company building the line. The site occupied a large area which today is bounded by Stony Lane and Wood DaIling Road and it was developed not only to house the station, associated buildings and various areas of lines to be used for marshalling goods traffic but also included areas and facilities that at the time were vital to the railway building. There was a carpenters’ shop, where level crossing gates were built and materials prepared to build the signal boxes. There was a blacksmiths’ shop where the metal work for gates and buildings was forged and there were areas used for storing the sleepers, rails and the mass of other items that were brought in by rail to assist in the building of the line onto Foulsham and beyond. The site even included a bakery which was built to produce bread for the gangs who worked on the railway, many of whom came back at night and slept in and around the station area. To encourage its usage the owners of the railway had to introduce and sustain goods traffic; they couldn’t rely entirely on passengers to produce their profit and so the area round the station became a site of Victorian business development. Businesses were to be encouraged into the station area and hopefully would profit and expand from the regular delivery to the station by the daily goods trains. The obvious business role was one that would satisfy the supply and demand of the agricultural needs of the areas and also to provide bulk goods for the business and domestic needs of the residents in and around Reepham. The area to the south of the station buildings and the main up and down lines was developed as the business area; the railway built a large granary (approximately 200 feet x 50 feet), there was an area known as the coal grounds and a group of cattle pens all served by a series of sidings. In the first year or so after the opening of the line Garrett Taylor, Sharpins and Collers all set up business in the station area, although Taylors was taken over in 1886 by the SaIl Coal Company. Coal, animal feedstuffs and grain were the main business of Sharpins and Sall Coal whilst Collers mainly concentrated on the supply of coal. The three companies continued in competition until 1927 when Sharpins closed down and their business area in the station yard and granary was taken over by the other two, although by this time the Sall Coal Company had changed its name to Stimpson and Hurn. Collers moved their Reepham area base to Aylsham in the early 1960s and the whole station site was then taken over by Stimpsons. �Mr Benjamin Stimpson was a farmer at Morton and Great Witchingham who purchased farm land at Sall in the early 1880s when Garrett Taylor had to sell up; Mr Stimpson also took over their Reepham Station business setting up the SaIl Coal Company in 1886; the business continued during the next 100 years and the site is still used today by Pertwees for the distribution of seed corn, agricultural chemicals and fertilisers. During the past 100 years the following name changes have occurred. From 1886 to approximately 1914 there was the Sall Coal Company, Ben Stimpson and E Stimpson; from 1914 to 1932 it was Stimpson and Hurn; from 1933 to 1965, E Stimpson and Son and then E Stimpson and Son Limited; from 1965 to 1980, Stimpson and Partners and Stimpson and Pertwee Limited, and from 1980 (and probably not finally) Pertwees. Benjamin Stimpson (who was the grandfather of the present Mr Ben Stimpson) set up the Sall Coal Company, an agricultural merchants’ business which dealt in animal feedstuffs, grain and artificial fertilisers; these were bought and sold throughout the local farming community and they also bought in coal which was then sold to business premises and householders in Reepham and the neighbouring villages. The station coal grounds were served by two lines along which the trucks were brought to be unloaded; the coal was often stored in piles at the station and unless the coal could be directly shovelled out from the trucks then men were employed who would shovel the coal into skeps which were then carried away from the tracks and hand tipped into prepared wooden bays. The coal would be distributed in various sized lots mainly to the more affluent households of the district who could purchase and store the coal in such bulk. The big houses in the area would order coal by the truck load and many a long working day had to be endured by the employees who were responsible for delivering the regular truckload ordered by the owners of such places as Haveringland Hall and Great Witchingham Hall. When steam engines were used to thresh the corn, the farmer would arrange for a suitable amount of steam coal to be delivered to the farms and this would be supplied in bulk by Stimpsons and Collers, the deliveries being made to arrive in advance at the respective farms as the threshing contractor with his machinery made his way from one site to another. Some farmers would buy a truckload of steam coal for use in the house as well as for threshing. The coal was also bagged and weighed up in small lots which was then sold by a delivery roundsman who toured the local area. Stimpsons had their main rounds in Wood Dalling, Kerdiston, Whitwell and Sparham with most of the Reepham area being covered by Collers. The coal (as with �all other deliveries) was made by horse and cart from the 1880s until after the 1940s although the first motor truck entered service with Stimpsons in 1925. The coal was usually bought through a factor such as Mellonie and Golder of Ipswich, Bessey and Palmers of Great Yarmouth or Vintners of Cambridge and was mostly obtained from the Nottinghamshire pits. A Stimpson inventory of 1887 shows that they were stocking best coals, kitchen coals, brick burning coals, smithy nuts, cobbles, screenings, coke, natural seconds, steam coal and household nuts. In the early 1960s Collers moved to Aylsham and continued with their coal rounds but by this time there was a general decline in the demand for coal; the requests for bulk deliveries had all but gone and the introduction of oil-fired central heating had reduced the household demand. The closure of the goods traffic in the 1960s and the subsequent difficulties that would ensue in the delivery by road signalled the end, in 1965, of Stimpsons as coal merchants. Most of the work at the station concerned with coal was carried on outside in the yard area, the granary was rented and used for the other sides of the business: the feedstuffs and grain and the artificial fertilisers. The company bought in general feedstuffs which were sold to the local farming community and it bought from the farmers their cereal crops which were then sold or stored depending upon the market demands at the time. The grain was sold at the Norwich Corn Hall in Exchange Street (now the home of Jarrolds department store). A balance sheet from the end of the last century shows that the following feedstuffs were being sold to local farmers: bran, barley meal, cotton cake (square and long), decorticated cake, supers, linseed cake, maize (flat and round), malt culms, lamb food, black oats, rice meal, tares, porridge meal, fowls wheat, bullock food, beans and white peas. They also sold bar, land and rock salt. At that time there was a small demand for artificial fertilisers and Stimpsons were buying in and selling on nitrate soda, phosphates, superphosphate, lime, bone manure and sulphate of ammonia. Much of it seemed to be recorded as manure: this would appear to have been a generic term to describe the product irrespective of whether it came from animals, chemical firms or as a by-product from the mining areas (basic slag was high phosphate). Stimpsons were responsible locally for their pioneering approach to the manufacture of feedstuffs: whilst there may not have been a specific demand from farmers for animal farm compounds, Stimpsons recognised that balanced feedstuffs were much more beneficial (and cost effective) than single feeds and they developed products which were then sold direct to local farmers. In the early 1930s they started preparing mixed pig and poultry feeds and this soon developed into a wide range of similar products. In those early days all the feeds were mixed by hand shovel but as �the demand increased a mechanical mixer, hammer mill and oat crusher were all purchased and installed in the granary. The early development with artificial fertilisers led to the setting up of an agency with ICI in 1930; sales increased during the 1930s and during the Second World War the business was almost wholly concentrated on it. There was a great need for the country to become as near to self-sufficient as was possible and at the same time Stimpsons had to sustain a decrease in their workforce as more and more staff left to take their place in the Forces. With less staff available and with a growing demand for crop production Stimpsons concentrated on artificial fertilisers and decreased their activities with feedstuffs and grains. Coal was freely available during the early years of the war but a decline in the number of men in the pits coupled with a particularly long and bitter spell in January 1942 caused the rationing of coal to be brought in later that year. Stimpsons had continued with their coal rounds, although the supply to them had been erratic, particularly during the winter months when the transport of coal by rail would sometimes break down completely. When rationing was introduced, the deliveries continued during the rest of the war but it was of specific amounts and to regular customers. After the war some areas of business slowly declined and in 1965 (the year the coal sales finished) they merged with Pertwees: eventually the feedstuffs demised and today the whole business concentrates on artificial fertilisers, agrochemicals and seed corn. For many years, the business relied heavily on horses for their delivery work and also for use in the yard to shunt the trucks into the granary ready for unloading. The station yard diagram shows two lines of track, one which goes behind the granary, this was known as the “back road”, and another which goes in one end of the granary and out the other end, this was known as the “shed road”. Two horses would be used and they moved the trucks around in the sidings until the ones to be unloaded were in position, they would then be pulled by the horse to the south door of the granary. There were two mixed goods trains a day which passed through the station and every afternoon if trucks arrived for unloading then the trains would leave them in the area to the west of the station site. There was a gradient up through the coal grounds, until it reached the granary door; there it levelled out. If the trucks required unloading in the coal area or other outside sidings or in the granary then they were pulled into position by two horses. One was fitted with a special harness and pulled nearest the truck and the other outer horse was fitted with an ordinary trace. �Both horses would walk on the right-hand side (not between the rails) and they would pull the trucks on the long haul up from the dip to the granary doors. Once they reached the doors the gradient levelled off and by now there was sufficient motion for the trucks to run on inside the granary (the horses having by now been released) or if the trucks had stopped, they would be pushed or “pinched” along by hand by means of a long pinch bar. There was a gradient up to the granary; once unloaded (and with the downward gradient out) the trucks could be pushed manually down into the sidings. Stimpsons had horses available for the coal delivery and each day, for six days a week, one of these would be out on a round in the morning and then back to shunt the trucks in the afternoon. As the shunting was really a task for the GER, they paid Stimpsons for the facility of the horses doing the work of a train. In 1890 there was an income of nearly £90 a year from the GER for this work. (The GER also gave a first class return ticket to London which was invariably made use of by Mr Stimpson.) The amount of work must have been extensive when you consider that the average wage of a labourer of the time would be little more than £25 per year. The daily shunting was physically hard even for the horses and they did not last too long on this work; it was a necessary task which had to be carried out. If the trucks were not unloaded within three days, then the buyer would be charged “demurrage” by the GER. Another problem, particularly during the colder months, was that the grease on the truck wheels would begin to harden and this made their movement a lot harder, particularly for the poor horses pulling them uphill. In the late 1920s a horse named “Smut” was regularly used on this work and it cost Stimpsons £1 2s 0d a week to supply this service; it cost 10/- a week for oats, bran and cut hay to feed Smut and a labourer cost 1/- an hour for two hours a day, six days a week. If none of the horses were available to shunt the wagons, then a horse from one of Stimpsons’ nearby farms would be brought in. The shunting with horses started in the early 1880s and carried on until the mid 1930s when the operation was then taken over by trains. Throughout the country the railway companies used many horses as an alternative to trains to shunt goods trucks and in the larger stations they were also used for the delivery of goods. Grass alongside the rural lines was cut and dried and sent as fodder to the horses based in the urban areas, notably London. The companies employed inspectors who would travel around their areas and inspect the horses on a six-monthly basis. If horses had not been available at Reepham from Stimpsons then it is reasonable to assume that the GER would have had to supply and look after them. �When the line was being laid a carpenters’ shop was built at Reepham which carried out most of the specialised woodwork requirements of the line as it progressed towards Foulsham. After its short but vital working period the building was left vacant and was eventually hired by Stimpsons for them to stable their horses in; it held up to six. Collers also had horses and they were stabled in the area now occupied by the new industrial units in Collers Way. The stables used by Stimpsons horses are still there today; it is the dilapidated wooden building on the north side of Stony Lane. Any visit to it should be taken with care as the building is leaning badly and will probably collapse in the not too distant future. However, a visual inspection shows its history: the floor is laid in a number of places with small square stable bricks, part of the floor has been laid with old redundant sleepers, possibly the only ones that can now be found in the station area, and under the present roof you can still find remains of the felt covering that was put on by the railways builders in the early 1880s A great deal of other work was carried out at Reepham; there was the seasonal need for the loading and movement of sugar beet to Cantley and large consignments of grain, fruit and vegetables were sent out from the station, all of these were manually loaded and unloaded for many years by the local farm labourers. The station had the use of a group of cattle pens and these were used for cattle going to and from the local Reepham Wednesday Market. Cattle sent from the Reepham area to the main livestock market in Norwich were invariably sent from Whitwell, the journey from Whitwell to Norwich was much quicker than the journey from Reepham Station which would deliver the cattle to Trowse Station whereas the Whitwell line ended at the City Station which was then a much shorter drive (up Westwick Street and St Andrews) to the market held each Saturday morning in the area around Norwich Castle. The imbalance in the business for transporting cattle was partly offset in the warmer months of the year when large numbers of local cattle were sent to Reepham Station for the journey to Acle marshes where they were grazed during the summer. On the edge of the main platform there was a loading dock with a small manually operated crane which was used to lift farm machinery on and off trucks, machinery that was bought and sold by Eglingtons and Randells, the main agricultural machinery merchants in the area. The loading dock was also used by the loading and unloading of horses; these animals whether for hunting or for working on the farms or to work with local business people were highly valued and could not be driven and packed into trucks like cattle. The M&GN supplied special covered wagons (which contained seats for grooms and other workers who rode with the horses) and these had large sides �which would drop down onto the loading dock and down which the horses could be led. It was common practice for horses travelling to and from local hunts and race meetings to be loaded and unloaded in this manner, although such events never happened in Reepham. The GER had a parcels office (the small building next to the station) which was used for small parcels and they also had an area in the granary which was used for storing or holding the larger items. Reepham was the epitome of a country station which served a small but busy market town, acting as a centre to the surrounding rural area. The area was wholly agriculturally based and the station and its five-acre site adequately served Reepham’s needs during the seventy years life of the railways. The GER Reepham station was always in competition with the M&GN at Whitwell but there was little doubt as to which one was the more successful. Reepham was always full of people, horses, traffic and generally displayed an air of business; Whitwell was the one which won prizes for its flower beds and settled into a rural quietness between trains and which dealt with goods on an intermittent rather than a regular basis, with the exception of the animal trade on Saturdays. We miss them both and although Whitwell has deteriorated to a state of dereliction, the buildings at Reepham in their soft cream brown brick remain and as a permanent reminder of their former glory. The station master’s house with the attached booking office and waiting rooms, the small parcels office and the large granary are all in current use. No doubt whilst they remain as working buildings they will be preserved in good order and will act as a living reminder of their contribution to the history of Reepham and its area. From an article published in the Reepham Society Magazine, 1991. �Reepham Station as it was built and laid out in the 1880s. The only items that remain today are the granary, the station buildings and the old carpenters’ shop (later used by Stimpsons for stabling horses); this is the shaded building in the upper centre of this layout. Taken about 1930 it shows Stimpson and Hurn staff with some of their delivery wagons. Mr Thomas Hurn is second right from the centre horse and Mr Ben Stimpson stands to its left. �Mr Ben Stimpson supervising another delivery of artificial fertiliser from ICI in the 1950s. Towards the end – Stimpsons unload another delivery in the 1960s, also artificial fertiliser. �The granary today, little changed in its structure since the 1880s. The goods trucks were pulled into the building through the large doorway on the right-hand side. The original carpenters’ shop, still standing but only just! �On each weekday the 6 pm from Wroxham and the 6.05 pm from Dereham met briefly at Reepham at 6.38 pm. J 17 No. 65534. A train of cattle trucks wait to pull away in April 1950. �Harvest machinery waiting to be unloaded, probably destined for sale by Randells to farmers in the district. Reepham Station, mid 1930s. �The loading gauge, unused now for 30 years and nearly smothered by nature’s unchecked growth. �A present-day view of the station buildings. The parcel building is the small separate unit to the right. The two-storey part of the building was the station master’s house. �� Text-digital Any text item for which there is no previously existing hard copy in the Archive. The text can be stored on CD, DVD, memory card, USB stick, on hard drive or 'cloud'. It may have been sent electronically to the Archive or it may be a text owned by someone else which we have scanned or photographed. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Reepham Station – The Stimpson Connection Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context GB/REE/2311290935 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource A4 PDF, 15 pages Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1991 Description An account of the resource A history of businesses and their operations and activity at Reepham Station, focusing on the Stimpsons. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived From an article published in the Reepham Society Magazine, 1991 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Reepham Society Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Scanned and edited by Geoff Fisher Coller Garrett Taylor Pertwee Reepham Station Sall Coal Company Sharpin Stimpson Stimpson & Hurn Stimpson Pertwee https://reephamarchive.co.uk/omeka/files/original/9403e0f910d417c62f0ac05861a07ff6.pdf 9fec1558c0ddc43148b976b0b8540478 PDF Text Text The Last Passenger Train The branch railway line between Wroxham and County School (North Elmham) was open to passenger traffic for the last time on Saturday 13th September 1952, after that date the line remained open for freight trains until it finally closed on the 31st October 1967. The closure of the line to passenger traffic was an economy measure by British Railways. On the night of 13th September the last passenger train steamed westwards from Wroxham to County School and various ceremonies had been arranged at intermediate stations along the route to mark the ending of a service which had been in existence for over 70 years and which had served so well the rural communities of this area of Norfolk. The following detail is taken from the newspaper report of the time and it portrays the affection and regret expressed by the local people at the closure of this much loved railway line. “Among the many hundreds of people who gathered at the stations to watch the train arrive and then depart into the night, there were several who regarded the occasion with lightness of heart. But there were many more who looked upon the passing of the service – which had been a great boon not only to them, but also their parents, their grandparents and, in some cases, their great-grandparents – with real and sincere regret. “In big and little groups all along the platforms people could be heard recalling that the line had been kept open in far more difficult times than the present and pointing out that for many residents in the area the action of British Railways would cause real hardship and inconvenience. “One man, for instance, declared that if he decides to use the bus service that will operate in place of the railway service, he will be forced to hang about for 80 minutes after leaving off work before he can begin his homeward journey every night. Further along people were speaking of mothers with young children living in the villages who used the train to visit the shopping centres along the line. With the train, they said, these women could take their toddlers and their prams or pushchairs in comfort; now that they would have to travel by bus, they would be obliged to carry their children in their arms all the way and all the time. “At Aylsham (North) Station, the black and white crepe paper round and between the pillars supporting the roof of the main platform probably reflected the views of most of the 300 or so citizens who gathered there, and Chopin’s Funeral March, played over public address equipment as the train steamed in from Buxton, seemed �to harmonise with the general feelings. The ‘bang-bang-bang’ of exploding detonators as the train drew to a standstill appeared to strike an incongruous note. “It must be assumed that when Mr J B Postle, president of the Chamber of Commerce, handed the driver and firemen cigars and bottles of beer, complete with clean tumblers, he was not trying to be light-hearted, but anxious to offer the men tokens of appreciation of their services on the branch line, for, with the help of an assistant, Mr C Skoyles, who, like Mr Postle, wore a top hat and a dark overcoat, he also clambered up a ladder to the top of the engine and hung a large wreath of dahlias, held by a wire round the funnel, over the front of it. “Attached to the wreath was a card bearing the words ‘To the memory of another limb of private enterprise which was amputated during the scourge of nationalisation – 1881–1952’. “Then Mr Postle and others having jumped on board to take part in the ceremony at Reepham Station, the train moved slowly off, exploding more detonators as it did so. As the red lamp at the rear of the last carriage faded into darkness, the big crowd slowly melted away. The public address equipment came to life again with a modern dance tune in a brave attempt to cheer the gloom, but the emptiness of the waiting rooms had a more telling effect. Then the doors were closed and locked and the porter wondered – would he never see the platform filled with people again? “Four of Cawston’s oldest inhabitants, whose total ages were 344 years, had been taken by cars to Wroxham so they might travel back to Cawston on the last up train. “On arrival at Cawston they were presented with their rail tickets as souvenirs of the ride by the station master, Mr J Burgess. They were taken by car to the King’s Head Inn where light refreshments were served. “At 9 pm, when the last down train reached Cawston, about 100 villagers and friends were collected on the platform to say, ‘hail and farewell’. “Detonators normally used as fog signals were placed on the track and as the train drew into the station, their flashes and explosions added to the tenseness of the scene. “A wreath was hung on the engine and ‘Auld Lang Syne’ was sung by those present, then for the last time the train left the station and a large Union Jack at half-mast waved it on its way. “The train steamed on its way covering the short journey to Reepham. “As soon as the ‘Pink Uns’ had been collected the trek of pedestrians to Reepham Station started and the platform was thronging with spectators a good 20 minutes before the scheduled time of arrival of the last train into the station, whilst the �station yard assumed the activity and proportions of a car park. Never before have there been so many motor cars assembled there. An event, which during the previous week had been dubbed ‘a lot of squit’, gradually gathered interest and in its final denouement was clearly proved to have captured the public imagination. “Yet there was never evidence of any sense of ‘rag’ although the modest ceremony devised by Reepham Chamber of Trade and Commerce quickly bore the stamp of an ‘occasion’ of some importance with the general public not lacking in initiative. “Quite 300 people were gathered on the platform, as above their hum of animated conversation the strains of the Reepham Band were heard. With unexpected nearpunctuality the long train from Cawston signed its approach at the railway bridge and slid with the noiseless efficiency and grace of an express of a more aristocratic line into the station where the Chamber’s guests, Mr Edward Gibbs and Mr H E Hawes, were engulfed with the spectators, and the other 35 or so passengers from Cawston disembarked. “The former should have been welcomed by the Chamber, but in view of the length of the train, which almost measured that of the platform, and the surge of the crowd, it is not possible accurately to state what happened to this part of the programme. It is understood that a few of the Cawston passengers made the return journey home on foot. “Then public initiative took command, as Mrs Matthews offered bouquets as a spontaneous gesture of appreciation to the engine driver and fireman. To make the occasion the more impressive, press photographers hoisted her on to the footplate and in the flash of their camera bulbs the public had a better view of what was happening. “In the meantime, the District Passenger Superintendent, Mr D S Lewis, his Chief Staff Clerk, Mr Birkett, and the Reepham Stationmaster, Mr S B Bass, were being welcomed and entertained in the station waiting room by Mr Ben Stimpson, chairman, and members of the Management Committee of the Reepham Chamber of Commerce. “So amidst the strains of Auld Lang Syne from the band, in which the crowd joined, the waving of handkerchiefs in sad farewell, the train mounted steam to roll outward into the darkness for the last time. As it gathered speed, rockets (another unofficial addition to the programme) mingled with the scurrying smoke in tribute. “The final scenes took place in the waiting room, where Mr Stimpson thanked the general public for their grand support, the band for their great help and Mr Postle and the Aylsham Chamber of Trade and Commerce for their friendly co-operation and association. Mr Postle thanked the Reepham Chamber for their hospitality and �Mr R C Seals replied for the band in which he thanked Mr Skoyles of the Aylsham Band for taking the trouble to come over and conduct the Reepham Band on that occasion. They were proud of the honour he had accorded them.” So a service that had existed for 70 years came to an end; it was poignant that a number of the older spectators at Reepham included some who had been marched by Mr W Pitcher from the school to the station bridge to watch the first train into Reepham Station. From an article published in the Reepham Society Magazine, 1991. With a “funeral oration” from the footplate and wreaths to bedeck the engine, there was a suitable farewell at Reepham Station on Saturday night for the last passenger train on the Wroxham – County School line. �Mr J B Postle, president of Aylsham Chamber of Commerce, placing a wreath on the train when it arrived at Aylsham on its return journey. � Text - printed Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource The Last Passenger Train Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context GB/REE/2311291025 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource A4 PDF, 5 pages Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1991 Description An account of the resource An account of the last passenger train on the railway line between Wroxham and County School on 13 September 1952, based on a newspaper report in the Norfolk News, 19 September 1952. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived From an article published in the Reepham Society Magazine, 1991 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Reepham Society Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Scanned and edited by Geoff Fisher Cawston Station railway Reepham Chamber of Trade and Commerce Reepham Station https://reephamarchive.co.uk/omeka/files/original/190bf600cd7def502205ef22dd8aa096.pdf 0c631e5123d691d908d2f08e07a14a92 PDF Text Text If there are ghosts, they should be here on the old M&GN The railway lines around Reepham were built well after the railway mania which swept through early mid Victorian England. Their working life was from the late 1880s until the passenger closures in the 1950s although goods traffic carried on for a few more years. Today the line remains and has found a new life in offering a route to walkers and horse riders, its past use remains in the empty cuttings and archless bridges all built by hand more than 100 years ago. The line was built by navvies who used tipping trolleys and hand tools as they dug, blasted and drank their way through the Norfolk countryside, many of them lived too far away to return home at night, so they slept in barns or among stacked up sleepers covered with tarpaulins. Many of the workmen employed on the line were ex-farm labourers from the surrounding areas who were attracted by the 50% increase over the normal wage which navvying offered and during the summer months particularly, the possibility of overtime gave them the chance to earn even more. The gangs were made up of colourful characters such as Sam Shirt who apparently was not impeded in the quality of his work by having only one arm; Lumpy Ling, Spitting Joe the Diddekoi and Loo Dye, the latter of whom was famous or notorious, for his breakneck style of engine driving. The men often had to get or make their own meals. They cut wood for fires and would cook their food in communal coppers, which often included anything they could get by poaching. But mostly they would exist on the staple diet of bread and cheese and vegetables often taken from the local farmers’ fields. These vegetables were cooked in the coppers along with the famous Norfolk dumplings made from bread dough. Water for the coppers often had to be carried long distances and to ensure that none of it was wasted any left over after the vegetables and dumplings had been cooked in it was used for making tea. The gangs dug cuttings and used the soil to construct the embankments and they built culverts, bridges, level crossings and stations with most of the materials being sent by rail from Melton Constable as the line moved relentlessly on towards Norwich. On some occasions it was necessary to use locally made bricks from sand and clay dug from nearby pits and then fired in local brick kilns. After the line was built, life for those in the permanent employment of the company was geared to the arrival and departure of the trains. For a short while this part of the working day was one of hurried business and in between it could be confined boredom, particularly during the wet and colder weather, but languid enjoyment during the spring and summer months. This intermittent workstyle affected all the station staff but particularly the signalmen and the crossing keepers. Many a �signalman has wandered off to fish in nearby pits or streams whilst waiting for the next train. At the turn of the century railway regulations stated that gate-houses, such as the one at Themelthorpe, could only be occupied by married couples, and the husband had to be a railway employee. This meant that during the day (when most of the trains passed through) the operation of the gates was left to the wife. With the house so close to the line when the trains went past, they would shake the doors and window panes and rattle the pictures on the walls and move the ornaments on the mantelshelf. Level crossings were a prominent feature of the M&GN. They usually had a small crossing-keeper’s cottage, perhaps built of concrete blocks made at the Melton works, alongside. Originally it was intended to build a cottage at all but the smallest crossings, provide it with a plot of land, and then offer it rent free with a modest wage to anyone who would undertake to handle the gates as required. The wages offered varied according to the traffic and in a very minor lane just after the last war it would be a couple of pounds a week and this sort of sinecure job was much sought after. When Reepham Station was built the navvies were fortunate in that the site was used as a main base by the contractors and a bakery was completed and available to make bread and dough for the workers who made their way back to Reepham each night. The line is now overgrown and has become a wilderness for wildlife such as seen in very few other places today. It offers a rural enchantment in its slumbering beauty and you can feel a wistfulness and nostalgia for a railway that has now gone forever. Under the bridges you can still see the blackened remains of old train smoke high above on the brickwork. The cuttings are steeply pitched and up to 18ft high. In the summer, many areas are ablaze with hawthorn and particularly the dog rose. Later in the year they are heavy with hips and haws – a berry-red harvest of crimson and scarlet. When the railway was in use the sides of the line were kept free of undergrowth and were used for hay. This was scythed and the tonnage was sent to London where it was used by the horses of the Great Eastern Railway. This scything of the high grass was a practice which also helped to prevent fire along the banks from the sparks of passing engines. The policy of keeping the undergrowth down meant that windborne sparks sometimes did not stop until they had landed in and subsequently set alight to nearby cornfields. �Along the walk if you look carefully you can find the few remaining examples of the railway and its staff; the odd sleeper covered in undergrowth which will in time rot away; the few rails which were never taken away when the line was ripped up and which will no doubt permanently remain, offering a metal gravestone honouring the life of the railway; whilst their surface bears no inscription they will remain for many years, their very presence speaking volumes of the seventy years that the line formed the backbone of the industrial and social life of this area. The line will now become a reserve for nature and a place of peace and solitude for the walker but it will also become a time capsule of ghosts and memories: before the last war there were a number of passenger trains every day travelling along the two lines either side of Reepham. They were slow but punctual and many a farm worker would stop and check their pocket watches or would time the routine of their day with the sound of the whistles or the sight of the trains. In this hurried age we can now only look back and consider these thoughts with nostalgia but wouldn’t we like to travel back in time and ride on these trains again… if only we could! From an article published in the Reepham Society Magazine, 1991. D 15 No. 62528. The winter sun in February 1949 brightens the 10.31 am to Norwich City as it approaches Whitwell Station. �The M&GN crossing keeper’s cottage at Themelthorpe. “The Last Sleepers” on the old track bed at Reepham Station. � Text-digital Any text item for which there is no previously existing hard copy in the Archive. The text can be stored on CD, DVD, memory card, USB stick, on hard drive or 'cloud'. It may have been sent electronically to the Archive or it may be a text owned by someone else which we have scanned or photographed. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource If there are ghosts, they should be here on the old M&GN Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context GB/REE/2312081040 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource A4 PDF, 4 pages Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1991 Description An account of the resource An account of the history of the railway line around Reepham. It refers to the Midland & Great Northern railway line although this was the Wroxham to County School branch of the Great Eastern Railway line. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived From an article published in the Reepham Society Magazine, 1991. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Reepham Society Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Scanned and edited by Geoff Fisher https://reephamarchive.co.uk/omeka/files/original/a31387b8b8f9b4757fad427b886bedc6.pdf db726b77f03f405e815b7bf28235b077 PDF Text Text Marriott’s Way In 1979 the route of the former M&GN Railway from Norwich to Lenwade (a length of seven miles) was opened to walkers, cyclists and horse riders for them to use as a footpath and bridleway. The route was named after William Marriott who was the chief engineer and manager of the M&GN system for 41 years. A further 14 miles has now been purchased and the route has been extended from Lenwade to Aylsham via Whitwell, Themelthorpe, Reepham and Cawston. The walk finishes in Aylsham opposite the station of the Bure Valley Light Railway. The walk was officially opened on 1st May 1991 by the chairman of the county council’s Countryside Committee, Ingrid Floering Blackman. The route is not a public �right of way, but members of the public are invited to use it as a footpath and bridleway at their own risk. The purchase and development has been carried out by Norfolk County Council, Broadland District Council and Norwich City Council with further assistance from South Norfolk District Council, Costessey Parish Council and the Countryside Commission. Discussions were started with British Rail in 1987 to purchase the 14mile section and these were concluded in December 1990 when contracts were exchanged and the implementation work commenced. Part of the agreement was for the county council to also take over the bridges and put them (and keep them) in good order – all 35 of them! Urgent work costing £44,000 has had to be carried out on the bridges at Lenwade and Whitwell. Although a lot of money has had to be spent it is intended that no further structural repair will be required for a least another 20 years; it is ironic that the sleepers used to repair the bridges were imported from Holland as good sleepers at a reasonable price are no longer available in this area. While walkers and cyclists are to be encouraged there have been efforts made to discourage the motorcyclists who use and churn up the track. A large number of gates, stiles and fences have been erected and these should make it difficult for the motorcyclist; the large gates will be padlocked but are there to allow maintenance vehicles to get in and out. Horse riders have been presented with gates that can be opened without dismounting and three horse ramps have been built to allow horses and riders to get down easily from embankments, the best local example is alongside the bridge over Orchard Lane. The route is well signed with small unobtrusive signs on all he gates and larger sign boards, which offer route detail and some of the basic rules to be followed. When the railway was in operation the wildlife was very restricted. The track vegetation was frequently cut, sprayed or burned off so that the trains were not obstructed by scrub and the sparks from the passing steam engines did not set fire to the track. It was only a very limited range of wild animals and plants that survived under such conditions. In the years since the closure limited work has been carried out and the vegetation has been allowed to encroach back in some places nearly across the track. A priority was to create a strip four metres wide along the whole length and this has meant that a great deal of vegetation has had to be cleared or cut back; this seems visually drastic but a season’s growth will heal the wounds. �With exceptions of where the track starts and finishes in Norwich and Aylsham the only other place in its 21-mile length where houses come up to the track is in Reepham where the Richmond Rise estate and the houses along Cawston Road come up to the track; it is intended to plant trees to soften this view. Generally there are some excellent views from Marriott’s Way compared to other similar walks, particularly the local views from the embankments beyond Whitwell Station looking towards Reepham, at Kerdiston looking towards Pettywell and on the line beyond Orchard Lane looking towards Cawston. Since the closure, a range of wildlife has colonised the line. Trees and shrubs are the main colonists, including oak, field maple, thorns, apple and the rarer spindle with its distinctive coral-pink berries. The track bed and some sections of the banks have remained open, developing an interesting dry chalk grassland flora of a type that has become increasingly rare. Sections can include attractive flowering species such as wild strawberry, hare’s-foot clover, great mullein and primrose. Nature conservation work will be encouraged in a number of areas, particularly the cuttings which are good habitat for all manner of wildlife; a good example is Blackwater just southeast of Whitwell Station. Cuttings often support both a wide variety of plants and good ranges of insects, particularly nectar-feeding butterflies and moths. In some places the track verges are wetter and species such as marsh marigold, meadowsweet, common or Norfolk reed and horsetail. Horsetails are non-flowering fern relatives, which are of particular interest as they come from a very ancient family that has survived almost unchanged for over 40 million years. The most frequent animals that will be encountered are insects and birds; bird species include jay, magpie, goldfinch, wren and green woodpecker (which is noticeable when flying because of its loud, laughing song). One aspect relating to wildlife that will not meet with everyone’s approval is the control of rabbits; this work is not only essential but is also a statutory obligation under the 1953 Rabbit Act. While many walkers will have enjoyed watching the rabbits that live in the embankments near the meadows off Back Lane beyond �Broomhill, they will, I’m sure, appreciate that the large numbers that can be seen must be controlled. With the purchase of the line the necessity of this control has now passed to the county council. The walk is now officially open; it passes through some lovely Norfolk countryside and is there not just to be used by mainly to be enjoyed. The closure of the railways may have been regretted but now the old routes have been opened up they can be appreciated at a pace that is probably comparable with the speed of the steam engines that for 70 years plied their way backwards and forwards through this countryside. One point will, however, never be fully accepted; the name Marriott’s Way. The Themelthorpe–Norwich length is the route of the M&GN railway while the Themelthorpe–Aylsham length was originally run by the GER. The two companies ran in competition for many years, competition which was at times fierce and which fuelled solid loyalties among its employees. While the two companies were amalgamated with the nationalisation in 1948 and the two lines were physically joined in 1960, many people will never agree that an area of GER line should be known as Marriott’s Way. From an article published in the Reepham Society Magazine, 1991 �J17 No. 5567. “Trains you could set your watch by” – changed into LNER livery the 3.52 pm to Norwich approaches Whitwell in May 1949. E4 No. 2780. The 2.33 pm from Wroxham to Dereham, about to enter Reepham Station in April 1949. �J15 No. 5478. The 12 noon from Dereham at Reepham in August 1948. � Text-digital Any text item for which there is no previously existing hard copy in the Archive. The text can be stored on CD, DVD, memory card, USB stick, on hard drive or 'cloud'. It may have been sent electronically to the Archive or it may be a text owned by someone else which we have scanned or photographed. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Marriott's Way Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context GB/REE/2401101045 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource A4 PDF, 6 pages Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1991 Description An account of the resource History of the Marriott's Way, a 26-mile footpath, bridleway and cycle route that follows the routes of two disused railway lines, running between Aylsham and Norwich, which officially opened on 1 May 1991. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived From an article published in the Reepham Society Magazine, 1991 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Reepham Society Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Scanned and edited by Geoff Fisher GER Railway M&GN Railway Marriots Way Railways https://reephamarchive.co.uk/omeka/files/original/4af4419ecf88252707f72230f095dfe8.pdf 71900a679b421c9aa1f1c50ee75508da PDF Text Text Marjorie Gibbs 1899−1992 Marjorie Gibbs was a founder and life member of the Reepham Society and in my early days as magazine secretary she contacted me and offered me assistance with whatever detail she could supply in connection with prospective articles about Reepham. In recent years I had made a number of visits to Marjorie and had spent many interested hours in her sitting room, listening, discussing and learning of the minutiae of Reepham detail that her memory so prodigiously recalled. One afternoon in the early summer of 1992 I went to see Marjorie at The Laurels, her home in Dereham Road, Reepham, as I wanted some additional information about the Black Diamonds, a local minstrel troupe which performed in Reepham in the years just before and after the First World War − a troupe which included her father, who was a founder and subsequently a leading member. As usual we sat and talked in her sitting room, a room that could recall a family’s history and events that reflected the past century, a room that breathed memories and nostalgia. Here was the bureau that Marjorie so often went to, to find some item that contributed to her particular topic of conversation. Photographs of her father and his business, old account books that clarified a point, somewhere one of the drawers held “the bones” that her father fashioned and then used when he was one of the four cornermen in the Black Diamonds. Her father was Edward Gibbs, who figured greatly for many years in the business, parochial and religious life in Reepham and many words must have passed between the members of his family as to how the town would organise, cope with and enjoy coronations, jubilees and other celebrations and how the families in this close rural area would cope with the tragic unfurling of events of both World Wars, particularly the first which was to take the lives of so many young men of the area, many of whom Marjorie knew and whose names she could so easily recall. Disasters, happiness, grief and joy − this room could recall them all; the pictures, the carpets, the furniture, some of it decades old, was seeping with this memory. Its very presence recalled clearly to Marjorie her life; a life synonymous with Reepham. Her childhood spent in Reepham when this area of North Norfolk was still decidedly rural − a ruralness of silence, of dusty roads rutted by horses and cartwheels, a countryside innocent of oil and petrol. A youth spent in the slow and timeless years leading up to the First World War and in a small market town which was the central point of business for the surrounding a rea. A time when work was hard and long and when many weeks of endless work were intermittently broken only by the high days and holidays that the town organised and enjoyed. �At this visit, which so unfortunately turned out to be my last, she recalled the Black Diamonds and particularly the fete in the summer of 1912 at which the troupe gave their first and possibly their best-loved performance. Her memory brought back details of that day nearly 80 years ago as though she remembered it from yesterday. How at 12 years of age she had helped with the refreshments and how her father had allowed her to stay up late and go back for the evening entertainment. Marjorie spoke of the friends she met and with whom she enjoyed herself, and her recollections of that day vividly described an era of Reepham’s history that is long past and sadly no longer in the recall of most local people. Many times Marjorie put her memories into the written word with articles in local publications, earnestly reflecting the oral history that on many occasions I was privileged to enjoy. It is ironic that this latest Reepham Society publication contains three articles which reflect the ability and detail that Marjorie could offer; their inclusion was planned long before her death and I have no hesitation in dedicating them to her memory. She had a great love for Reepham, its history and its inhabitants and the town has lost a dear friend with her passing. May Marjorie Gibbs long and fondly remain in its memory. Michael Black From an article published in the Reepham Society Magazine, 1993 � Text-digital Any text item for which there is no previously existing hard copy in the Archive. The text can be stored on CD, DVD, memory card, USB stick, on hard drive or 'cloud'. It may have been sent electronically to the Archive or it may be a text owned by someone else which we have scanned or photographed. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Marjorie Gibbs 1899−1992 Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context GB/REE/2401241040 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource A4 PDF 2 pages Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1993 Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived From an article published in the Reepham Society Magazine 1993 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Reepham Society Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Scanned and edited by Geoff Fisher Gibbs https://reephamarchive.co.uk/omeka/files/original/7e21793b76e4ca63f43e1bbd56db51a4.pdf a79d1be1ad703e93c733d9b878d768f0 PDF Text Text George William Reeve George Reeve died in May 1984, aged 94, after a very active and eventful life; his return to this area in the late 1940s quickly earned him the apt description of “village lad made good”. He was born in Bawdeswell, where his parents kept a public house, in December 1890 but after about three years the family moved to a house in Booton Street. He started his education at Booton School, but for some reason he couldn’t settle down and it seems that the remainder of his schooling took place at Lyng where he went to live with his grandmother. An early job, possibly during the school holidays or shortly after he left school, was as “odd job boy” at the Moor House. One task was attending to the pumping of water to a tank situated at the top of the house by a mule driving a pump in the garden. The clearance of undergrowth at the Moor House in the last year or so has uncovered this old pump situated in the corner near The Moor turning, off the Norwich Road; the remains of the machinery are clearly visible to passers by. Little is known about the next few years but in his later teens he worked in London for a corn merchant and even managed to purchase a car, quite an achievement around 1908, although on his own admission he “had to run it mainly on paraffin to keep expenses down!”. While in London he became friendly with some American students who apparently spoke highly of prospects in the United States so George decided to go with them when they returned to their homeland, selling his car to pay for his passage, but being completely broke on arrival. Throughout his life George would always find a use for his undoubted talents and making use of his motoring experience he obtained employment as a chauffeur with a well-to-do American family. Around 1914 he obtained a job with a government construction firm in Washington (New Jersey) which with the outbreak of war in Europe became engaged almost totally in producing war supplies. He was there for just a few years and during this relatively short period he enjoyed remarkable employment success, rising to the position of chief inspector by 1918. One of his most treasured possessions was a silver cup presented to him in 1918 at a dinner given in his honour by his own staff; it was inscribed “as a token of esteem by his inspectors and checkers”. This dinner and presentation was recorded in the local paper at the time: Washington Park (NJ) Government Man Honoured 18 May 1918 A party of 35 men inspectors and checkers from Woodbury and vicinity gave a theatre party Thursday night in Philadelphia to their chief George W. Reeve. �After the theatre, the gentlemen were escorted to Krugler’s magnificent banquet hall where a well-loaded table provided for all the wants of the inner man. Many pleasant after-dinner speeches were made, Mr W J Charlton acting as toastmaster. Bobbie Nash of Billy Watson Co., now playing at the Casino Theatre, was an honoured guest and pleased the boys with many anecdotes and stories. Mr Charles Hill presided at the piano and with his delicate touch brought forth melodies that inspired the boys to do the two-step. During the evening Capt. C P Budd on behalf of his fellow employees presented an inscribed cup to Mr Reeve who responded with a few well-chosen words, heartily thanking everyone for their loyalty and support. After the war there was a decline in the type of work that he had been involved with during the past few years and he decided he wanted to make his way so he traded on his own in the business of removals; he built this up and for a number of years was successful and employed several drivers to carry out the work. The large influx of immigrants to the USA in the early post-war years meant there was a considerable transient population at this time and George’s decision to be his own boss was more then justified. Information about the next few years is hazy. These were the years of the Wall Street Crash and the Depression which hit America so hard and then spread over most of the major manufacturing countries of the world. During the mid/late 1920s George had some connection with the manufacture and selling of oil burner stoves with the trade name of “Islander”. �It is not known whether George dealt with the “Islander” as a sideline to his removal business, whether the manufacture and selling was carried out under licence or whether George actually invented the stove. After a gap of nearly 30 years George returned to England in July 1936 but, as he had acquired American citizenship in the previous years, he was only allowed an Alien Permit to land for six months and with no authority to find or enter into any employment. After a few months he returned to America but came back in 1939 with permission to stay for 12 months. For a time he stayed with his sister, Mrs Muddle, at Lyng and for some time at his parents’ house at Booton. In 1940 he stayed at a hotel in Thetford which seems to have had something to do with the restrictions on his activities as he was still classified as an alien. He had by then managed to acquire another car and, according to an entry in his passport, was officially “allowed to use his car in connection with his business”, whatever that was at the time. In February 1941 he was exempted from the “Alien Restriction Order” on such occasions as when called upon for ambulance duties, and unconditionally exempted in October 1941. Soon after the end of the war he started building a house on the Norwich Road/Moor Corner in Reepham. This was a house with a character entirely of its own and built in the American style with a big basement and an off-the-ground veranda which went all round the building. George made the hollow concrete blocks for the walls and he also made individually the concrete and sand-red tiles. The house was centrally heated with an automatic burner using diesel oil which was thermostatically controlled with the main unit situated in the basement. In 1946 such a unit in a house in this country was indeed unusual, but his years’ manufacturing the “Islander” obviously played a great part in the innovation. The unit provided heating for the whole house as well as producing the domestic hot water. George moved into this house, always known as “New House”, Norwich Road, thereafter, in 1946 and within a few years had developed the garden; pedestrians along the Booton end of the Norwich Road were well rewarded as they glanced through the open gateway with a vista of well laid-out flower beds and quasi-natural shrubberies. He established a tyre business in a separate building which was situated just inside the gateway and he carried on with this until the mid-1960s although one of the large metal signs remained visible to passers-by until the house was sold. On the domestic side of his life it appears that George at some time married a British girl who joined him in America but could not settle to the life there. She returned to this country and they were subsequently divorced; there was one son from the marriage. George later married an American girl and his son from that marriage is �still in America. It seems that this marriage was over before he came back to this country in 1936. During the last 10 years of his life George’s health declined and he received devoted care from his housekeeper, Mrs Betts, who gave much assistance in the original compiling of the notes that led to this article. For many years there was an ironwork seat which stood on the Moor Corner looking up the Norwich Road towards Booton Street. George placed it there and cemented it in when he heard that the authorities were planning to widen the road by taking in the wide green verge, which he claimed belonged to him. At that time, the road was not widened and the seat remained. A number of years later (and after George had died) it was widened and the seat was moved to the opposite side of the road. Sadly little remains today of the items that George so profoundly stamped on this corner of Reepham. The house has been replaced and his garden and shrubberies were swiftly and sadly removed by mechanical digger. The outbuildings, the metal advertising signs and the ironwork seat are now gone. It is ironic that the only thing that George would recognise today is the remains of the mule-driven pump in the corner of the Moor House grounds – the one item that was there before all the others! From an article published in the Reepham Society Magazine, 1993 �The Reeve family circa 1900 at Booton. George is next to his mother, and the other boy is Walter who lived at Hackford Vale and for many years ran a carrier business’ he was also a JP and served on the local bench. In the centre is Violet (now Mrs Muddle); in 1984 at the age of 96 she drove up from her home in Kent to visit George. The “New House” shortly before it was sold in the late 1980s. � Text-digital Any text item for which there is no previously existing hard copy in the Archive. The text can be stored on CD, DVD, memory card, USB stick, on hard drive or 'cloud'. It may have been sent electronically to the Archive or it may be a text owned by someone else which we have scanned or photographed. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource George William Reeve Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context GB/REE/2402071030 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource A4 PDF, 5 pages Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1993 Description An account of the resource An account of the life and businesses of George William Reeve, 1890-1984 Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived From an article published in the Reepham Society Magazine, 1993 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Reepham Society Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Scanned and edited by Geoff Fisher Reeve https://reephamarchive.co.uk/omeka/files/original/d0c0c9df8e6cbd33318362b77919457a.pdf 97b16e7881fff3579db1e8ada03b5f36 PDF Text Text Edward Gibbs and Son Edward Gibbs and Son, lronmongers and Seed Merchants, became an institution in Reepham and their shop and general agricultural services to the farming fraternity in and around Reepham is still remembered with fondness today by many people even though their shop closed many years ago. It was said that the Gibbs’ business was famous for two things: firstly, its picturesque premises and the excellent service it gave, and secondly, the late Mr Edward Gibbs, who attended the business daily until he was 98. The premises were large, with many warehouses, each one assigned to one section of the various goods stocked. Two years after Edward Gibbs took over the original business, the grocers’ shop adjoining became vacant and this was added to the existing shop. There was a dwelling house attached which was enlarged in 1904 to assist with the expansion of the business. Behind the front buildings there was a courtyard surrounded by the warehouses and other buildings that made up the complex which for the next 60 years was to become such a vital and well-respected part of business life in Reepham. It is said that there were ironmongers on this site long before the business was bought by Gibbs. The exact date of the foundation of this business is not known but in the churchyard is a tombstone inscribed “William Samuel George, ironmonger of this parish who died at the age of 69 years in 1802”. The George family ran the business until it was purchased by a firm called S & S W Leeds in the early 1870s who ran it until 1888 when Mr Edward Gibbs took it over. Edward Gibbs was born in 1860 the son of a farmer; he always wanted to be a farmer but during the 1870s farming was in a bad way so he applied for an apprenticeship with James Cooper and Son, ironmongers of East Dereham. He was accepted at a premium of £30 and served his five years starting at 2s 6d a week. He stayed with them until 1887 and when he left his weekly wages had been raised to 30s. On 11 October 1888 he took over the business of S & S W Leeds and a week after he was married at St Mary’s Church, Hickling. His two children subsequently became partners: his son Edward in 1920 and in about 1957 his daughter Marjorie took an active partnership. Edward Gibbs Senior took an active part in the business until he was 94, and he then maintained a daily interest almost until his death in December 1959 at the age of 99. Edward Gibbs Junior started to work for his father immediately after leaving school, and only service in the First World War intervened. A motorcycle accident in 1915 robbed him of his sight but he still carried on working in the shop. At the age of 74 (in 1966) Edward Gibbs Junior decided to retire together with his sister, Marjorie, although both regarded the closing of the business as a “matter of real regret”. Mr �Gibbs, after 60 years in the business, decided to retire for two reasons: firstly, because he wanted to, and secondly, because of a declining trade. The days of horses in farm work had long since departed; he stocked the equipment they needed for which there was no longer a demand. It was decided in 1966 to try and sell the business as a going concern but unfortunately the firm was unable to find a buyer. Early in 1967 the stock was discounted by 5% and this discounting continued for the next three months reaching 20% before an auction was held in April 1967 in Ireland’s saleroom in Reepham (now the site of the car park in Station Road) when the remaining items were sold off. The old-fashioned ironmonger’s shop is now a thing of the past. Those that have survived have adapted their methods and their stock to meet today’s requirements. With no horses on farms there are no blacksmiths requiring iron for horseshoes and wagon tyres. Nobody has oil lamps any more and there is little demand for paraffin. It is a similar story for the seed merchants. There are no horses needing hay and so there is no call for hay seed. Bullocks are no longer fattened in yards and so farmers do not grow swedes and mangolds. Much as the passing of these traditional trades may be regretted, change is inevitable. lronmongery is just one of the many trades that once flourished in Reepham and is now gone. In 50 years time will the computers that now fill the shop premises of Edward Gibbs evoke as much nostalgia as does the smell of linseed oil and the sight of hazy sunshine pouring through the mixing of clover, rape and trefoil seeds? The closure prompted the following article by Cyril Jolly which appeared in the Eastern Daily Press in April 1969: The Shop That Mirrored 200 Years of Change The Norfolk Ironmonger’s Shop now closed after 200 years of trading revealed on its shelves two centuries of social history and change. There are more interesting ways of studying social history than in books. The closing of an ironmonger’s shop, after 200 years of trading, has shown me in a fascinating way how the tides of change have ebbed and flowed over rural life. Changes in lighting, cooking, travel, farming, sport and craftsmanship – revealed by goods on the shelves of a picturesque 18th century premises making a corner of Reepham’s Market Square. The square has its own charm, with thatched and Georgian houses, Flemish and crow-step gables, and two parish churches enclosed by the winding wall of one churchyard. The ironmongery is itself a little kingdom, with two double-fronted shops, attics, cellars and a neighbourly medley of store-rooms and granary. Beneath �four panes of “bulls-eye” glass I entered the main shop, which resembled Hampton Court Maze with its passages and stairs. One stairway beneath the main counter led to a cellar. I bent double under the counter to enter this Ali Baba’s cavern. Instead of oil jars I found two large tanks, one for linseed oil and the other for lard oil. The spillings of generations mixed with sawdust caked the floor, and wall racks held paint, turpentine, black harness oil and preparations only old tradesmen would recognise. A dozen smells also competed for recognition; linseed oil won easily. In an attic, beneath adze-trimmed beams, were scores of parcels that had slept snug on their dusty shelves for a century. They contained nails (mostly handmade); nails for carpenters, builders, wagon wheel tyres and strakes; nails for shoeing horses and the bullocks that once worked ploughs; frost nails and caulking nails. Here I tried out a machine that might have eased the drudgery of knife cleaning fifty years ago. “Tortoise” stoves elbowed door furniture into a corner, some would have graced a mansion and some a coal shed. A tub of gum arabic (used for starching shirt fronts in Edwardian times), scythe blades and plough blades, put back the clock half a century. Climbing up cobwebby stairs to the seed warehouse, I skirted bins labelled clover, rape, trefoil and saw a set of seed riddles and a set of measures made in Dereham by Bradley and Utting and a flailing stool. The operator sat on one end, laid the corn on the other and beat it with a swipe of a hand flail. In the yard was a gunpowder magazine for cartridges that were made here. A hundred cases were set up in a frame, filled with powder, shot and wadding and the ends rolled in with a treadle machine – now only fit for the scrap heap. The proprietors, Mr E Gibbs and his sister, showed me the main shed with its countless drawers, each bearing a sample of the contents nailed to the front. What a cavalcade of village life they represented. There were brass plug-taps for wine barrels of halls or public houses (some had a locking device – and probably needed it). Cattle clippers, pig and bull rings, “humbugs” for putting in the nostrils of cows when giving a medicinal drink, cheese wire; a key for fitting skates and ancient brass gear for shutters and blinds. Some peculiar needles puzzled me – they were larding needles used to pierce meat on a spit and draw off the grease into a larding tray; I handled lamp glasses of all shapes and curious tools for many crafts made in an age when wearing value mattered more than a glossy finish. In the office was a “wheelers’ round”, used by wheelwrights to measure iron for re-tyring cart wheels, and well-thumbed price books going back to Victoria’s �golden reign, listing nails at 10s 6d a cwt., a bass broom at two pence, and copper sheet at fifteen pence a pound. My brow furrowed as I picked up a swan-necked object – a stand for goffering irons! There was an ancient machine with a turntable for sharpening horseclipper blades; unopened boxes of candle snuffers; a whip socket and undressed leather for pump clacks. Miss Gibbs recalled, as a girl, selling “penn’orths” of red ochre for smartening doorsteps and “penn’orths” of black gunpowder for cleaning out oven and copper flues. Had I known, in my boyhood, what fun I would have had with mother’s wall oven! As a lad, Mr Gibbs first had to collect a frisky pony from the meadow and then had to take down 16 shutters for the shop to open at 7 am. It closed at 7 pm and 9 pm on Saturdays; Thursday was half-day – it closed at 4 pm! He also remembered a tub containing macassar oil which his father boiled with beeswax and oil of lavender to make a hair pomade. We looked in vain for some needles used to make up straw and oat flight mattresses. Turning out more drawers we conjectured on the use of “Rotten Stone” powder and green copperas (was it used to prevent lime rubbing off walls?). There were dozens of other objects, once in common use, now museum pieces. They were facets of bygone rural life; peepholes on to a half-forgotten yesterday. In fact, beneath the many-angled roofs was 200 years of social history, told in oil lamps, flat irons, tarred twine – and, I suppose, “Rotten Stone”. After Cyril Jolly’s article appeared in the Eastern Daily Press, Mr Gibbs received a letter from a reader in Gislingham, Suffolk, who had read about the closure but he wondered if it was possible for him to obtain “a pound or so of the Rotten Stone powder” which so intrigued Mr Jolly. It seems that this powder mixed with certain acids and oils offered the best means of restoring the lustre to ancient copper. The reader had tried with a number of ironmongers and chemists to find some, but to no avail. Miss Gibbs was able to supply the reader with some of the Rotten Stone and he was able to clean some pieces of antique copper which until then had resisted all the orthodox methods of cleaning. Thomas Piercy worked for Edward Gibbs and Son for more than 50 years and any article which refers to the history of this firm would not be complete without a mention of his time with them. Thomas Piercy was born in 1861 and lived with his parents at Thorney Farm, Kerdiston, where his father was steward. After leaving school at fourteen he worked �on the farm with his father but in 1879 he decided that he did not much care for farm work and went to work for S & S W Leeds the ironmongers and seed merchants. He was employed as a carter at 15 shillings per week (75p). The two Leeds, uncle and nephew, were both named Stephen (not to be confused with the Whitwell tanner who was another Stephen Leeds). The elder Leeds lived at the shop and the younger at Church Hill in the house now occupied by Mr and Mrs Betts. After working for the Leeds for some years Thomas decided to join the Metropolitan Police but when the Leeds heard of this, they promptly revised his wages to one pound per week, quite a good wage a century ago and enough to make him change his mind about the police force. The business was sold to Mr E Gibbs in 1888. The elder Mrs Leeds (now a widow) moved from the shop and went to live with the other (and younger) Mrs Leeds at Church Hill. When Mr Gibbs purchased and took over the ironmongers’ business, he lacked experience in the seed trade. Thomas Piercy knew both sides pretty well and initially Mr Gibbs depended on his knowledge of the seed side of the business. His eldest son, Fred, was taken on to learn the trade of ironmongery from Mr Gibbs, but tragically he was killed in an accident in the shop in 1904 aged fourteen. His place was taken by another son, Wilfrid, who served for a time and then went to work for a Norwich ironmonger. He was killed in action in France in 1916. Thomas Piercy became a pensioner in 1920 but still went to the shop on a part-time basis. When he died in 1930, he had worked for more than fifty years in employment with Edward Gibbs and Son. His grandson, Wesley Piercy, who lives in Reepham, recalls his childhood when as a small boy he would frequently visit the premises with his grandfather. While an ironmongers and seed merchants shop may not have been deemed the most interesting of places Wesley always found it fascinating. “The shop itself had stairs under the counter leading down to a mysterious cellar and other stairs to rooms above. Throughout the entire premises there was an indescribable smell of turpentine, lard oil, linseed oil and the smell of a dozen other substances. “Across the yard was the seed room. This was reached by ascending a winding staircase to the top floor, at the far end there was a low door with a sign stating, ‘Mind Your Head’. Here the various grass and clover seeds were mixed; these would be sown with barley and when grown would be cut for hay. “Occasionally, I was allowed to accompany my grandfather with the horse and cart delivering bars of iron to blacksmiths in the surrounding district. One of these was Hardiments of Kerdiston which was where the horse went to be shod. Another was �Millets whose smithy was on the main road to Sparham; in those days, the road was often referred to as the turnpike. The most exciting trip was to Barrets at Lyng. In those days this involved going through the river. This was in the early 1920s when the present bridge had not been built. “l also remember going to Weston House, Weston Longville, and Heydon Hall to deliver paraffin. I believe these trips for me came to an end when Mr Gibbs replaced the horse and cart with a Ford lorry. This was driven by a man named Henry Rose; my grandfather never learned to drive.” From an article published in the Reepham Society Magazine 1993 �S & S W Leeds ran the business until it was purchased by Edward Gibbs in 1888. This is a card presented to local farmers by this firm. Such representations today would be hard to find. Thomas Piercy (on the left) and Edward Gibbs Senior mixing seed in the seed room. �This picture was taken in the 1890s a few years after the business was purchased by Edward Gibbs. Edward Gibbs Senior with “Monarch” – the horse was stabled at the rear of the premises, the area now known as Merchants Yard. �“Monarch” ready for the day’s deliveries. During the First World War the Honourable Artillery Company was Reepham based and “Monarch” had to share his stable with two of their horses. The late 1950s... and horses. �The business premises had been enlarged in 1904 and now occupied the whole of the frontage which is contained today between Towns End Corner and the former Barclays Bank. Apparently, the array of hardwood and ironmongery was brought out every morning and taken in again at the end of each day. �The premises in the 1950s: wares are no longer displayed in such volume outside the shop. The Virginia creeper has by this time nearly covered the whole frontage . � Text-digital Any text item for which there is no previously existing hard copy in the Archive. The text can be stored on CD, DVD, memory card, USB stick, on hard drive or 'cloud'. It may have been sent electronically to the Archive or it may be a text owned by someone else which we have scanned or photographed. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Edward Gibbs and Son Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context GB/REE/2402141115 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource A4 11 pages Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1993 Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived From an article published in the Reepham Society Magazine 1993 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Reepham Society Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Scanned and edited by Geoff Fisher Gibbs Gibbs Shop ironmonger Piercy https://reephamarchive.co.uk/omeka/files/original/388cdb4a6e25959a735b703cde980a69.pdf 9e4685e64ff3a991295c7d8995bae663 PDF Text Text Reepham Market Place 1902–1920 The story of Reepham Market Place in the early years of the century as seen by the eyes of a child Reepham, having a cattle market, liked to term itself a town. The centre of that town was indeed the Market Place and so it was the vital centre and always referred to as “The Town”. Even today the older generation will remark that they are going in to “the town” to shop, or across “the town” if proceeding further or even meeting someone in “the town”. It has many nostalgic memories for me – indeed I have a very affectionate regard for it. It was the centre of most activities since the parish council (of Hackford only in those days) consisted mostly of residents of the Market Place. It had street lamps of a kind, about four lanterns attached by iron brackets to the walls in various dark corners. These contained oil lamps complete with chimneys and a lamp lighter was employed by the council. He was responsible for keeping the lamps filled, trimmed and he lighted and extinguished them at the appropriate times. They were not used at all during the summer months. The only lamp lighter I can remember is Mr James Wasey. During the First World War the lamps were not lit at all and in the dark winter evenings I used to walk to Guides with a cycle oil lamp. The social life of the Market Place was almost a community in itself. Messrs Austin (butcher), Fisher (grocer and draper), Hall (saddler and harness maker), Peck (general stores), Cocking (shoe sales and repairs), Riches (high class grocer) and Gibbs (ironmonger and seed merchant) all had premises in the Market Place. They were all members of the parish council and most of them served on various committees that were formed from time to time. One of the highlights of the year was the fair on June 29th and I can remember the excitement of us youngsters when the Market Place was invaded by vans, roundabouts, coconut shies, shooting galleries and stalls selling home-made rock of many flavours and much stickiness. They usually stayed for a week to the delight of the younger generation, although the adults were glad when they left owing to the noise and many other inconveniences. Stalls were gay and lighted by paraffin flares. The majestic engine with its shining brasswork was admired and wondered at by everybody as it provided the power to run the roundabout, the organ with its repertoire of tunes and current for the lighting system. The organ was also a strain on the pockets of the youngsters for pennies, which often had to be supplemented by a visit to their parents two or three times during the evening! The vans were drawn up side by side on the King’s Arms plain facing the road and the horses were put to grass on the meadow. We used to visit the “fair people” and take them fruit and vegetables, since my mother always remarked, “Poor things, they have no �gardens.” One family came year after year and we would be asked in to the van, so spotlessly clean – a wonderful house on wheels and I wished I lived in it! People would throng in from the surrounding villages and make it a real frolic. I was told to be home by 9 pm for bed, but I would lie awake listening to the organ playing its repertoire of the topical tunes of the day and waiting for God Save the King at 11 pm. Disturbing the quiet of the week, each Wednesday saw scenes of much activity when market day arrived. Farmers drove in with their horses and traps, the latter of various shapes and sizes. The horses were taken out of the shafts and stabled at the King’s Arms or The Sun, though some preferred the lesser hostelries such as the Lord Nelson, The Greyhound, Duke of York or George and Dragon. The carts were parked on the Market Place or in the yards of the selected stabling. Farmers used to congregate to talk to each other and exchange views and farm gossip, bargain with the merchants to sell their corn or go to the bank for wages and do most of their farm shopping at the local ironmongers and agricultural engineers. If the sale yard was too full, calves and sheep would be kept there until such time as there was room in the sale ground. The Market Place was the central meeting place of everyone. On Sundays, the Salvation Army band would hold services in the Market Place, afternoon and evening. The band was very good in those days. Two army officers were in charge and the army had a good cause here. I would always run to the window to see them march by as they paraded to the barracks in Norwich Road via Back Street – that is, if I were not in Sunday School in the afternoon. The Market Place set the scene for another “once a year” occasion. The Oddfellows held a district church parade, usually on Whit Sunday evening, when men, and in some cases their wives, came in from various lodges, arriving by wagonette, horse brake, horses and traps or bicycle. The men met at 6 pm in the Market Place, looking very impressive in their various coloured sashes, and following a very imposing banner bearing the symbols of the Oddfellows, they would march to church via Back Street. In those days, the churches were not amalgamated, and I think the Oddfellows’ service was held alternatively in St Mary’s and St Michael’s. After the service they would again parade with the band (usually the Dereham Volunteers’ Band), proceeding along Norwich Road, Reepham Moor and Cabbage Court (now New Road) to Station Plain and back to the Market Place via Station Road, collecting money en route. They would then disband and repair to either the King’s Arms or The Sun to “wet their whistles”. As a child this was a highlight and my mother would entertain one or two of the wives during the parade and we would keep open house �with coffee and cakes for anyone my father or my brother brought in afterwards. It was a “treat” for me to be allowed to stay up to watch the parade after church. I cannot recall the coronation of Edward VII but to celebrate this I believe marquees were erected on the Market Place and the whole village attended a feast of cold salt beef and pickles (I don’t think salads were so fashionable then), with plum pudding to follow. As a souvenir every child was given an enamel mug bearing the picture of King Edward and Queen Alexandra. Another feature of life in the Market Place during the winter months was the weekly dancing class held in the King’s Arms club room. I envied my sister and brother who were old enough to attend this very popular pastime. Most of the young ladies and young farmers from the district attended (even Mr Peck, though not so young!). The culmination of all this was the annual dance, held in the same place. Miss Boon supplied most of the music on the piano and the dance usually finished by midnight. The King’s Arms had a flourishing bowls club, well supported by the Market Place residents. Another daily event in the Market Place comes to my mind. At 6 am the people living there were often awakened by the arrival of the mail cart and its noisy driver. The cart was like an ordinary heavy trap, with a covered-in portion behind for the bags of mail, and was red. The horse was given a nose bag while the driver knocked up the postmaster. He came every day including Sunday. At the turn of the century the cottage which is now situated next to Ewings the estate agent, was the Parish Reading Room. This was run by a committee, most of whom were parish councillors, with Doctor E V Perry as chairman. Downstairs was a public room with daily newspapers and a number of periodicals such as Tit-Bits, Pearson’s Weekly and Exchange and Mart. A number of monthly magazines were available along with the Illustrated London News and Punch. Upstairs was a library that consisted mainly of second-hand books which had been collected from various sources over the years. There was another larger room upstairs which contained a full-sized billiard table; this was mainly patronised by the younger men and boys while their more sedate elders read the papers and smoked in comparative peace downstairs. In 1911 Mr Sam Bircham leased part of Hackford House to the reading room committee and all the papers, books, furniture and equipment including the billiard table were removed to these much more suitable premises. The old reading room remained empty until the war when it was used as a billet by soldiers based in Reepham. During the war, the Town Hall (known in those days as the Old School) was used as a Red Cross hospital run by Lady Grace Parry, who headed a team of nurses who lived at Hackford House; with so many young men away the facilities offered by the �billiards room were used by convalescing soldiers as part of their recreational facilities. In 1919 Mr Bircham gave Hackford House to the parish as a war memorial and it was renamed the Bircham Institute (now the Bircham Centre). Musically the residents of the Market Place could be an entertainment in themselves. Mr Fisher was organist at the chapel, choirmaster and also conducted glee parties. Mr Cocking played the bass fiddle and trombone, Mr Juby the violin, Mr Edward Gibbs junior the violin, piano or any other instrument he could find, and with residents from other parts of the town a string band was formed, not grand enough to be called an orchestra. Local concerts for various charities were given in the old school, Mr Peck singing in his light baritone voice, part-comic, part-sentimental songs that not always succeeded in being funny. Miss Boon was a willing accompanist and would also sing well-known ballads of the day such as Don’t Hurry and The Song That Reached My Heart, accompanied on the piano by Miss Austin who lived next door and who was also pianist with the string band. Mr Austin had a rich tenor voice and could always be relied on to sing Nirvana or Thora. Mrs Wilton and lastly the Gibbs family would sometimes help. My father was ever popular with repeated requests for one of his six or seven humorous patter songs, for some of which he had never seen the music and for which my brother would invent accompaniments. Since my father had a gift of wit and great humour, he could always be relied on to make a racy speech of introduction or pass a vote of thanks. The elder daughter would recite and the son, with that rare gift of improvisation, would play the piano or organ and any instrument that he could find for his collection. He even invented an attachment for the piano which was like organ pedals and produced music from bells, each pedal playing one bell. The younger daughter (myself) only came into the music picture about 1913 by playing accompaniments on the piano and piano solos, and even at an early age was in great demand to sing childish songs. Throughout the war she sang in concerts for the troops. Her voice was trained but she could never pursue a musical career as intended as with the shortage of manpower she had to leave Dereham High School and make a career in the family business instead. In 1910 with several “outsiders” from other parts of the town and surrounding district the musical gentlemen of the market place formed a highly successful minstrel troupe, calling themselves “The Black Diamonds”. Mr Le Neve, the relieving officer from Dereham Road, was interlocuter, the two cornermen were my father as Bones and Mr Sidney Eglington as Tambo. The assistant cornermen were Messrs Austin and Peck. They rehearsed in the club room and were in great demand as entertainers. The troupe had a strict code of dress, with coats of black sateen and �red buttons, dark trousers with white shirts with small red bow ties; the two cornermen had cutaway evening coats, red waistcoats, very large bow ties and red stripes down their trousers; the two assistants had similar outfits but with small bow ties. Mr Neve, the interlocuter, sat in a high chair in the middle of the back of the stage and his task was to control the overall performance; with his exaggerated bow tie, evening coat with contrasting cuffs, buttonhole and a large watch chain across his waistcoat his imposing presence left the audience in no doubt as to who was in charge! The first major performance of the Black Diamonds was given at the fete held on 20 June 1912 at the Dereham Road home of Doctor E V Perry (now Eynsford Lodge). They had been practising hard for the previous year and had met twice a week and rehearsed in a barn a little further along Dereham Road (now part of Tylers Mead). For their premiere a covered proscenium was erected, the string band accompanied and the performance, along with the rest of the fete, was a huge success. The stage was unique in those days in that it was lighted by electricity supplied through the gardens by land line from Mr John Dixon, who at the time had the cycle shop on the corner of Towns End. The arrangements for the fete were carried out by a committee consisting mainly of gentlemen from the Market Place, with their wives forming the tea committee. It commenced at 2 pm and with the exceptionally fine weather throughout the afternoon and evening a large number of local people were attracted and stayed and enjoyed themselves. The first part of the afternoon’s proceedings were taken up by the band (which had paraded from the Market Place) and a detachment from Watts Naval Home, North EImham, who performed various military, musical and life-saving drills. After the boys had finished their performance, they were provided with a substantial tea which was topped up with further light refreshments just before they left. By 7.15 pm a large crowd had assembled to enjoy the first part of the evening’s entertainment, The Black Diamonds under the musical directorship of Mr George Storey, who was also the bandmaster of Reepham String Band. The troupe performed for more than two hours and their programme of songs and choruses, some serious, others humorous, was well received and several well-deserved encores were given. As dusk descended the garden was illuminated with hundreds of fairy lamps festooned along the paths and amongst the trees and bushes. These lamps consisted of coloured glasses about the size of a large cup, each containing a nightlight, and were lit ready for the string band which played for dancing on the lawn until well after 11 pm. �The whole affair was a great success, not least financially, and the proceeds were devoted to the Reepham and Hackford Nursing Fund. The friendly Market Place took on a different aspect with the outbreak of war in 1914 and everything seemed changed. Market days still continued, but with less enthusiasm. Local men were either called up or volunteered for the forces, and with the arrival of troops the Market Place became a parade ground. We had army personnel here throughout the war, billeted in homes and various buildings. There was much excitement when the first troops arrived in late 1915. These were the “A” Company of the Honourable Artillery Corps. I well remember them arriving on horses with their equipment. We were awaked by the sound of Reveille from the Market Place at 6.30 am and it was also sounded from various other points in the town. During the day were heard Come to the Cook-House Door and later, at sunset, the Last Post. To the younger generation who did not realise the seriousness of war it was a thrilling sight to see the company on horseback lined up for inspection on the Market Place, probably before going around the countryside on manoeuvres, and many a child was late for school in consequence. This group of peacetime soldiers who were called up at the outbreak of war were drawn from all quarters of city life in London – stockbrokers, solicitors, actors, musicians and all grades of professional life. It was Reepham’s boast that it held a very special regiment. These men entered into the village life and were very welcome guests in many homes. The officers’ mess was at The Ollands and the NCOs and men were in billets. The horses were kept in various stables in the town and we had two, as well as our own horse, in ours. We had two sergeants billeted with us. One was a dentist from Hanover Square, London, who by way of contrast was the saddler sergeant. The other sergeant was a highly qualified engineer and he was the wheeler sergeant, so he was more or less dealing with machinery. Although the sergeants’ mess was at Brewmere, these two invariably had their evening meal with us and became part of our family. The very small artillery guns of the HAC were kept and guarded on the Market Place. One vivid memory of the HAC is still very much imprinted on my mind. It was New Year’s Eve. We had kept open house for most of the evening for coffee and drinks for several of the officers and men with whom we had become friendly. (There seemed to be a great camaraderie amongst these troops and the various ranks mingled with each other very freely.) Nearing midnight everyone came out of their houses and a huge ring was formed entirely round the Market Place. Soldiers and civilians linked up, in rather a merry mood, and we all sang Auld Lang Syne and Home Sweet Home. For a very young teenager, taken care of by one of the sergeants of the household, this was, as I have already said, an unforgettable experience. �If the Market Place could feel it would have thrilled as it listened to about 150 folk of all ages singing the Old Year out and the New Year in. It was with much sorrow that we saw the HAC depart for active service in the spring of 1916. The Middlesex Yeomanry, with horses, followed during the next winter and the year after that the Hampshire Yeomanry arrived on bicycles and then instead of the Market Place being a parade ground with horses, we saw bicycles lined up for inspection. By this time, a small YMCA was functioning in the King’s Arms club room. A succession of regiments followed and each one entered into the life of the village, although we did not have another New Year’s Eve on the Market Place. During the war several of the Market Place gentlemen were special constables and would be on duty in pairs, working on a rota system. The young generation became adept at avoiding their respective fathers, not wishing to be caught with a special army friend. When peace was declared and Reepham was again without its troops it never seemed the same. The tone of the town had altered, some men did not return, some were crippled, some had been prisoners of war and we all felt war weary and in a much more thoughtful mood. However, the old Market Place itself never changed and it returned to its peaceful splendour and serenity, as it is today. Marjorie Gibbs Editor’s note: Most of this essay was originally written by Marjorie Gibbs as a contribution to a study of Reepham and the surrounding villages. While the bulk of the original article has been used, I have included some additional material, particularly that relating to the Black Diamonds and the 1912 garden fete. The inclusion of this article and the proposed changes were agreed in principle by Marjorie a few weeks before her death. I feel sure that she would have approved of the final result and that she would want me to stress her original comment that any critical remarks were not meant to be unkind in any way, but were merely a child’s impressions and thoughts, seen mostly from a humorous angle. From an article published in the Reepham Society Magazine 1993 �Probably taken in the 1890s – showing the original roof line of Hall’s shop (the saddler and harness maker) ��Reepham Market Place north, south, east and west before the First World War – note some of the businesses remembered by Marjorie Gibbs: Austin, Fisher, Hall, Peck and of course E. Gibbs. �The Black Diamonds in their make-up and finery ready for a performance. 1916 – Marjorie Gibbs is taking the picture in the centre foreground. �Taken in the early 1900s it shows the ivy clad church of St Michael’s. � Text-digital Any text item for which there is no previously existing hard copy in the Archive. The text can be stored on CD, DVD, memory card, USB stick, on hard drive or 'cloud'. It may have been sent electronically to the Archive or it may be a text owned by someone else which we have scanned or photographed. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Reepham Market Place 1902–1920 Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context GB/REE/2402192055 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource A4 PDF, 12 pages Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1902-1920 Description An account of the resource The story of Reepham Market Place in the early years of the 20th century as seen by the eyes of a child (Marjorie Gibbs) Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived From an article published in the Reepham Society Magazine 1993 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Reepham Society Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Scanned and edited by Geoff Fisher Black Diamonds First World War Gibbs Market Place https://reephamarchive.co.uk/omeka/files/original/139c6467f753bc4fe0cb002a7b2c2100.pdf c46e035c743c7af3bbcd179f24a4f9fd PDF Text Text The Stately Homes of Reepham One of the saddest aspects of change, particularly since the Second World War, has been the passing of the big houses in and around the Reepham area. Up to the 1920s, Reepham could point to a number of these modest “Stately Homes of England” and all they meant to their local rural communities. Hackford House (now known as the Bircham Centre), situated in the Market Place is one such residence that is but a shell of its former opulence. The home of a branch of the Bircham family, it was given to the town as a thank-offering for the peace which followed the 1914–18 war, to serve as an indoor recreational centre known as the Bircham Institute. Its many rooms provided accommodation for meetings, particularly to many local voluntary groups and clubs; and this use continues today. It also offered facilities as consulting rooms for visiting veterinary surgeons, a dentist and on Market Days a room was regularly taken by a chartered accountant. Hackford Hall, the erstwhile seat of the Collyer family, exercised a considerable influence for many years and although it underwent many vicissitudes after Brigadier General J J Collyer left it in the 1930s it was restored to its proper use as a residence and has remained so since. Whitwell Hall is another residence that, although still accessible in some ways to the people of Reepham, is no longer used for the purpose for which it was built. The last person to use it specifically as a family home left in the mid-1930s and it stood empty until 1938 when it became a school. The outbreak of the Second World War saw the early closure of the school and it was used during the next few years by the military who exacted their usual toll on the building. Set in parkland of some 40 acres it was farmed after 1945 by Mr A H Ivins and there was the introduction of using the premises for summer camps. This use was most successful, as it still is today, and there are many children living near and afar who have fond memories of this building and its grounds. There are two other big houses which deserve mention and these are the subject of greater detail. One has been demolished; this was Reepham House formerly known as The Ollands, a charming residence that retained its character and use until the 1960s, and secondly, The Moor House, a residence remembered for its beautiful well laid out gardens and which, after many years of neglect, has now been restored to an element of its former glory. From an article published in the Reepham Society Magazine 1993 �The Norwich Road entrance to the Ollands Estate. � Text-digital Any text item for which there is no previously existing hard copy in the Archive. The text can be stored on CD, DVD, memory card, USB stick, on hard drive or 'cloud'. It may have been sent electronically to the Archive or it may be a text owned by someone else which we have scanned or photographed. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource The Stately Homes of Reepham Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context GB/REE/2402211240 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource A4 PDF, 2 pages Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1991 Description An account of the resource A brief outline of five "stately homes" in the Reepham district: Bircham Centre, Hackford Hall, Whitwell Hall, The Ollands, The Moor House Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived From an article published in the Reepham Society Magazine 1993 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Reepham Society Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Scanned and edited by Geoff Fisher Bircham Centre Bircham Institute Hackford Hall Hackford House Moor House The Ollands Whitwell Hall https://reephamarchive.co.uk/omeka/files/original/fedc53800d0c1743456a56aedfa08f57.pdf 3512761595ff12c0cd53d3418d1e903f PDF Text Text The Ollands Estate The area in Reepham that we know as Ollands Park and the adjoining area of Moor House Close (bounded by New Road) was formerly the Ollands Estate, this was an area of nearly 19 acres of parkland, gardens and lawns overlooked by a mansion originally called The Ollands. The mansion was built in the Elizabethan style by William Bircham Esquire in 1832 and at some substantial cost. The interior was adorned with superb oak carvings and was decorated and finished in an expensive manner which offered a high degree of refinement and taste for a moderately sized establishment. It was built with the main rooms facing to the southeast and during the early years the grounds were developed so that eventually the house stood surrounded by park-like lawns adorned with ornamental timber and enclosed by plantations of trees and shrubs. The house consisted of the following rooms: In the basement there were a number of arched ale and wine cellars. The ground floor had an entrance hall with inner glazed doors, a vestibule with doors leading into the garden, a drawing and dining rooms, study, back hall, housekeeper’s room, butler’s pantry, kitchen, cook’s pantry and scullery. The main rooms were fitted with carved oak mantelpieces and all floors were paved with stone. The first floor was approached by a broad oak staircase which was lighted by a large, fine stained glass window. There was a central boudoir, eight sleeping and dressing rooms and a bathroom (fitted with a bath and water closet). There was a second floor with four large bedrooms and a open landing. Outside there was a rear courtyard with a servants’ hall, knife and coal houses, larder, large bin and a force pump which filled the cistern at the top of the house. A house of this size had to have its own transport and this was accommodated with stabling situated around a paved courtyard; it comprised a double coach house, a stable with four stalls, another stable with three stalls and a box, all with lofts above, a harness room, a second smaller coach house and a range of outhouses. Nearby was a coachman’s house built in the same style as the house. In the years after the house was built the gardens were developed and after a few years it was surrounded by flower gardens, a rosary, walled fruit garden, outside vegetable and fruit gardens and an orchard, supported by tool and fruit houses. A large conservatory was built near the house, also there was a double vinery (70feet long) complete with hot pipes and a heating room, mushroom house, melon yard, various pits, potting houses and a large soft-water tank. �William Bircham lived in the property until the estate and various other areas of land that he owned in Reepham were sold at auction in July 1883. The house would have become available for possession by the new owner at Michaelmas that year but there is doubt that William Bircham moved out after the sale. Kelly’s Directory of 1885 lists the occupants of the house as William and Henry Bircham (his son). The next owners were Mr and Mrs Kendrew who lived there from about 1890 onwards. In 1914 Alexander Kendrew died and although the house was still owned by Mrs Kendrew until her death in 1920, she did not live here during the Great War. John Alexander and Mary Kendrew In 1916 the house is recorded as being unoccupied but records also show that it functioned as a officers’ mess for certain periods during these dark years. In the early 1920s, Mr Edward Phillip Oppenheim lived here and it was known as “Reepham House”. Although now generally forgotten, E P Oppenheim was during this period a famous novelist who wrote about 150 books, mainly travel, in addition to many newspaper and magazine articles in this country and the USA. To avoid paying certain taxes he moved to the French Riviera in 1925 and his daughter and her husband, Mr and Mrs Ryder Smith, continued to live here until 1928. Certain local opinions in Reepham have expressed, in recent years, that the house was lived in during the 1920s by the more famous novelist, Henry Rider Haggard. This is now clearly accepted as being untrue although there are a number of comparable points that led to the apparent acceptance of this error of memory. They were both writing novels at the same time and were famous during the 1920s; both lived in Norfolk (Rider Haggard at Ditchingham) and they both abbreviated their Christian name to the first letter. �Edward Oppenheim’s daughter and son-in-law, Mr and Mrs Ryder Smith, lived at The Ollands and the similarity of names (with Rider Haggard) probably, more than anything else, fostered this mistake. It is highly likely that the two authors were socially acquainted and more than likely that Rider Haggard visited Ollands House but he never actually lived there. A few years of Mr Oppenheim’s occupancy are still well remembered today by some of Reepham’s residents. When Mr Oppenheim moved in, he brought with him his own butler and a chauffeur, recalls Wesley Piercy. The butler was a Mr London and he lived in the house (now known as Echo Lodge) which was originally built as the coachman’s house. The chauffeur, Mr Mair, lived in one of the pair of cottages in Norwich Road, opposite St Mary’s School. The other cottage was occupied by a gardener, Jimmy Smith, and his wife Polly. Jimmy may have been a gardener but he also had a reputation as a Reepham character and one who was partial to more than the odd half a pint of beer, much to the chagrin of Polly who was always trying to alter his ways to those of a more temperate nature. The large field known as Mill Hill and now covered by the Moorhouse Close estate was part of The Ollands’ grounds. It had been let by the Kendrews to a local farmer for use as arable land but Mr Oppenheim stopped the letting and laid it down to grass. Two or three local boys living in the New Road area went as a deputation and called on Mr Oppenheim to ask his permission for them to be allowed to play on the field. This was kindly granted on condition that they stayed out of the plantation areas. A splendid field on which to play football or cricket after school was gained and at weekends; the Band of Hope football team played their home matches there. On the fifth of November each year, on this field Mr Oppenheim provided a great firework display which was supervised by the butler and other members of the staff. There were enormous rockets and other fireworks far bigger and better than those that could be bought locally that enthralled the watching crowds, particularly the youngsters who were given sparklers to hold in their hands. The fireworks stopped after Mr Oppenheim moved but use of the field continued until the property was sold, the kindness offered was greatly appreciated and no-one ever abused the condition concerning entry to the plantations. When the house was sold to Mr Harmer, he immediately banned everyone from the field and used it for exercising his two riding horses. Marjorie Gibbs recalled the occasions that she met Mr Oppenheim: “The first time, he came into the shop (the firm of Edward Gibbs and Son, Ironmonger and Seed Merchants of Reepham which closed in 1967), he was wearing flannel trousers, a �blazer and a straw boater and walked about smoking a cigar; quite a personality and looked most elegant. “He was a writer of mystery and detective novels and in those days, he was widely read, he was probably as popular then as Agatha Christie is today. “There was a flourishing choral society in Reepham in the early 1920s and the twenty or so members would go carol singing at Christmastime. The first night we visited the large houses in the district having first acquainted them that we would be calling. On the second night we concentrated on various houses in Reepham finishing up at The Ollands. I well remember one Christmas, I think it was 1923, we were ushered into the large entrance hall by the butler, Mr London. We were greeted by Mr and Mrs Ryder Smith who asked us to sing to them. We were then regaled with hot sausage rolls and mince pies together with liquid refreshments. I can well remember Mr Ryder Smith offering me a choice of whiskey, port, sherry or coffee, I very modestly chose the latter only to be admonished afterwards by my friends for not taking anything stronger whilst I had the chance. “At about 9.30 pm Mr and Mrs Openheim – the parents of Mrs Ryder Smith – came out from dinner (both in evening dress and he with the inevitable cigar) and they chatted with each of us; this was the second time I met Mr Oppenheim.” The ownership passed to Mr and Mrs T C Harmer (the Norwich clothing manufacturer) who lived there until 1950 when it was bought and lived in by Mr and Mrs F J Irwin until the late 1960s. After the Irwins left, the house remained empty. It became prone to vandals and its glory, particularly the gardens, began to fade. There was a demand at this time for residential building land and this large, accessible area in the middle of Reepham was easy prey to the planners and developers. In the early 1970s the house was demolished and grandiose plans for an estate of large, detached houses was commenced. A few houses were built before the developers fell into financial difficulties and for some time the area of half-constructed houses and piles of unused building materials gave the place a blighted air. The work was eventually resumed by other contractors, and happily by the early 1980s the work was completed and the grounds of this former splendid mansion were allowed to settle to their new use. Many people in Reepham remember The Ollands with fondness and there are still some who can remember the house in its heyday with its formal gardens, conservatory and paths wandering through the large number of mature trees. Very little remains today: Echo Lodge in Ollands Road, a few of the large trees are still there to remind us of the former grandeur and some of the road names will continue the memory of former residents of the house, notably Bircham Road and Irwin Close. �From an article published in the Reepham Society Magazine 1993 ��� Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Ollands Estate Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context GB/REE/Streets & Buildings/Ollands Description An account of the resource Items related to the general history of the Ollands Estate, built by William Bircham in the 1830s & the eventual demolition followed by the 'Ollands Park' development in the 1970s. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource [File 17, Archive Box 117] Text-digital Any text item for which there is no previously existing hard copy in the Archive. The text can be stored on CD, DVD, memory card, USB stick, on hard drive or 'cloud'. It may have been sent electronically to the Archive or it may be a text owned by someone else which we have scanned or photographed. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource The Ollands Estate Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context GB/REE/2403071225 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource A4, 7 pages Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1993 Description An account of the resource A history of the Ollands Estate, including the building of The Ollands in 1832 to its demolition in the early 1970s to create a residential housing estate. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Scanned and edited by Geoff Fisher Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived From an article published in the Reepham Society Magazine 1993 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Reepham Society Bircham Harmer Irwin Kendrew Ollands Estate Oppenheim Ryder Smith The Ollands