Looking Back Issue 3
Looking Back Issue 3
Looking Back Issue 3
ISSUE THREE
ISSUE 3! . . . AT LAST
Yes I know it has been a long time, but I learned something with the last issue, there is little interest during the summer for this sort of thing. Sales were sluggish at best and since I have to recoup the costs of printing one paper before embarking on the next, this one has been a little while coming. To help avoid this in future, I am having less printed than before which will help keep costs down but does mean youll need to be sure to get your copy before it runs out.
IN THIS ISSUE
The Story of the Queens Hall (Part 1) ...........................Page 2 Looking Back as Shools in Saham Toney ......................Page 4 The Great Fire(?) of Watton ..........................................Page 6 From the Waters Family Album ..................................Page 9 Another Dip Into Dads School Pictures ........................Page 10 Feedback Roundup ..........................................................Page 12
Edwards
High Street Watton
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Above: Work starts on clearing the site just off Norwich Road. From Bob Nunn Below middle: Members of the Committee outside the site; They are back row: Richard Durrant (Durrants now Spoilt for Choice in the High Street), Jeffrey Kittell (Motor Cycle shop where Lings now stands), Lewis Watling (Teacher), Les Saward (Art Teacher at the school). Front row: Wing Commander Heather RAF Watton, Mr J.B. Fairhead Headmaster Watton School, Mrs Fairhead, G Shepherd-Page Manager Barclays Bank (where Stephen Smiths Butchers now is). Picture from Susan Shepherd-Page. Bottom picture shows part way through the dismantling process of the old Hangar at Griston. From Bob Nunn
Bobs Story - 1
Mabel and I sat in front of a roaring coal fire, the wind howled around the bungalow and the rain rattled on the French doors. This was the evening chosen by the Council of Watton to decide what form the celebrations for the Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II was to take. We didn't attend, but those who did decided that included in the Coronation Celebrations should be the construction of a Public Hall. Not everyone was in favour - many wished to continue with the Memorial Playing Field which was being developed at this time. The first meeting took place on October 22nd l952. Jeffrey Kittell was Chairman, G. Shepherd-Page was co-opted as Treasurer and the Committee consisted of Messrs. V. Alderton, J. Fairhead, R. Durrant, F. Fitt, W. Horn, L. Saward, L. Watling, Mrs. Sarah Farrell, Mrs J. Fairhead and Mrs Alice Page. The Committee had a threefold task:1. To raise funds for the Coronation Celebration Week. 2. To generate public interest in the project 3. To find a site and buy it, and raise funds to buy the material to build the Hall. A Government Grant was available but only if the Hall was built by voluntary labour. The site in the Norwich Road was chosen, an option to purchase for 250 obtained, and then the committee concentrated on the forthcoming Coronation Celebrations and raising money for the purchase of the land. By the end of 1953 the land and a hangar at Griston RAF site had been purchased. During the first weeks of January 1954 it was dismantled and removed to Watton. The wife came home from shopping and informed me that "The grocer is building a hall. He needs some help and I told him you would give him a hand." Dick (Richard Durrant) introduced me to a large pile of rusty windows to clean, treat with 'Jenolite' and then paint with Red Oxide. While I was renovating these window frames which had been removed from the Hangar, a small group were dismantling it ready for transport. This was a specialist and dangerous job and only a few persons were involved. I went to see this jumble of rusty girders, suitably numbered, when they were transported to Watton. We hoped to reassemble them as the new Public Hall. After all, we told ourselves, It is just like Meccano. Large Meccano maybe but only Meccano! As Bob has mentioned, the committee were kept very busy during 1953 with both the organisation of Coronation Week celebrations, and with a series of Fund Raising events; the East Coast floods of February 1953 had, understandably,
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made an urgent call on peoples generosity, and the gradual increase of the Hall fund reflected an enormous amount of hard work by the Committee and their supporters. There will be more about these events in a future article.
Bobs Story - 2
At last I was on the building site and introduced to other workers. The names of Jeff Kittell, Fred Fitt, Bill Newby and Dick Durrant come immediately to mind as they were there most of the time. It must be emphasised that a large number of people worked to create the Coronation Hall and many of them never met or knew of their fellow helpers. Not all the work was done on site and there was much fund raising and what is now known as "Public Relations" to carry out as well. Although not so apparent now, the Norwich Road is some three feet below the level of the land on each side. The wall that we were to breach had an iron fence and a solid hedge on top and behind this a bank reaching back some thirty feet containing several full grown trees. This was all removed manually. Bardwells, the timber merchants, provided a lifting crane for the tree stumps Lorries were made available for free and the site was cleared. A bulldozer and driver arrived and the site was levelled. The pegs were put in to identify the position of the steel uprights of the main steel structure. For each of these a square hole, some three feet square, was dug down to solid ground and filled with concrete. In those days Dick, as a shopkeeper, had Thursday afternoons off .I took them as holidays. We had done the West side, but the pegs on the East side were missing. Eventually they were discovered replaced in a neat curve. Enquiries confirmed these were connected with the new road (Cadman Way planned before the war but not completed until 1990! and affected the siting of the Exit Doors. These had to open outwards by Iaw, but not to be outside the building. The Planning Authority revised the plans, adding two pairs of brick piers the width of the doors, the doors to be hung on the inner edges and so, when open, technically they would still be inside the building, as they are today. The holes were dug in their correct places, filled with concrete and the steel structure erected. It took several days to clean and treat the steel sections, and when a batch was ready the RA.F. at Watton provided a Coles Crane and driver, all free of charge, to lift them into position. The two roof trusses at the balcony end had to be rebuilt and here the expertise of Jeffrey Kittell and Dick Durrant came to the fore. They were able to calculate and make the alterations necessary to counteract the extra tension and compression in the reshaped trusses. It seems they must have got it right! With the main steel work erected, work started on the footings between the steel uprights and also the front of the building which was outside the main structure. This was more orthodox building. Ron Jackson looked after the amateurs, bricking up the corners while we ran the bricks in between, which he then quietly straightened up behind us. Bert Watts, Stan Cator and Ron Roberts are also names I remember. Above damp-course we changed to claypots which nobody knew much about. These hollow pots, double for the outer and single for the inner courses, were supposed to be extremely good insulators. They also had razor like edges and needed very careful handling. With lights hung in the roof trusses, we were able to work through the winter evenings. It was very difficult to pull a barrow of concrete through the mud, but with two pulling the rope and one on the shafts we concreted the two cross drains from one side to the other as required. The least said about the winter of 1954/1955 the better but when spring came we had a very pleasant surprise, which would greatly speed up the next stage. You will have to wait for a future episode of the story to hear more about Bobs pleasant surprise.
Above: Les Saward was the Art Teacher at the School, I remember him as a really quite gentle, softly spoken person who I dont think I ever saw ruffled (though as a teacher I am sure he was at times!). He was, as can be seen above, a talented cartoonist and documented the building process in this way for use in what the public relations side of the Queens Hall. Like many of the teachers at this time he lived on the New Council Estate of North, South, East and West Roads with George Trollope Road. The two pictures below show the construction of the framework of the old Hangar.
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1906 - Saham CofE Girls' School with their Headmistress Miss Agnes Briggs. They are posed in front of the building which now houses Parkers School.
1928. Saham Boys' School with the Headmaster Mr Arthur H Newton and Assistant Teacher Mr B R Sturman. As a 2nd Lieut. in the Machine Gun Corps, Arthur Newton is thought to be the only serviceman from Saham to be commissioned in the Great War.
1950 The building in Saham which originally housed the Saham Agricultural and Commercial School. Interestingly, the census returns show very few local boys attending
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weeks because of the severe outbreak of influenza at the end of WWI. References are made to a school nurse and dentist. On one occasion, the school appears to have been closed from 27th November to 6th January because of measles. Pupil teachers were a key teaching resource: they taught for 20 hours a week Monday to Thursday. They were given private study time while studying to become PTs. Heating was a regular headache, especially as a number of winters at the start of the 1900s were hard. One note for 5th November (how appropriate) refers to the stove smoking and this led to school closure for the day. Delivery of coal was also a regular and dusty? - occurrence. In 1908 the school premises were severely criticized by the Inspector. A medical officer also was in periodic attendance. In 1930 the premises were also damaged by a lightning strike. There are occasional references to girls winning scholarships to e.g. Thetford Grammar School.
1952 Saham Hills Infants School, typical of its time, immediately before its move to Saham to be amalgamated with Parkers School.
Ed: This picture is from Freddie Brock and shows an idyllic view of Saham around 1910 - 1915. It is an enlargement taken from a postcard and Fred has made notes which read Note the pub sign on the corner The Bull Inn Bertie Amus of Saham was the last person to live there prior to it being renamed Oak House
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remembering their deficiencies. Wattons burial and baptismal registers from 1539 to 1597 are all in the same hand and so are obviously transcripts (this is the case for many parishes). There are minor mistakes in the copying ~ some dates are out of order for instance, but on the whole, the feeling one gets from them is that they have been done with care. In contrast, the registers of marriage seem to be littered with mistakes and omissions and corrections and they must be treated with scepticism. Beyond 1630 and into the Commonwealth period one becomes increasingly concerned about all three registers accuracy since at times no two entries are in the same hand! (I used the microfiche at the Norfolk Records Office to extract the data used below but it is now much easier to make reference to the excellent transcripts made by Jean Loizou and published by the Mid Norfolk Family History Society). I have attempted to extract from the baptismal and burial registers a guide to the population size over the 16th and 17th centuries. The technique I used is similar to those described by Tate in The Parish Chest(3), that is to say to derive a 10 year rolling average and multiply burials by 31 and baptisms by 30. Because of my mistrust of the marriage registers accuracy I have not attempted to carry out Tates favoured method of multiplying the mean annual number of marriages by 125. The variance in the chart does illustrate the need to be wary of attaching too high a precision to population figures derived by this method, but never the less, they are in broad agreement as to the growth pattern of the towns population. It is interesting to speculate about the large deviation between the baptismal registers and the burial registers around the mid 1660s. In this period burials increased considerably and baptisms decreased markedly. This was of course the period of the plague just before the Great Fire of London (1666). Almost certainly the effects of the plague being felt in Watton as badly as they were in London.
1550
1560
1570
1580
1590
1600 Baptisms
1610
1620 Burials
1630
1640
1650
1660
1670
So, the picture we get of the town from the registers is as follows: Up to 1580 the size of the town was reasonably constant at around 300. There was then a period of expansion, particularly rapid over the first 25 years, continuing thereafter at a slower rate, with a population of about 500 to 600 by 1670. If we extrapolate the growth at the same rate towards 1800, the figures suggest a population of 850 - 900, perhaps up to 200 over the recorded population of 693, the chart therefore looks to be reasonable, though perhaps overestimating the population size by 10 - 20%. If this level of population is accurate, that gives us an occupancy rate of between 6 -10 people per household. I dont think this is an unreasonable occupancy rate at this time. One final observation here is that the registers show no deviation from the norm during the fire year, i.e. the fire, however big it was, does not seem to have caused any immediate loss of life in the town, or in the months after. And more interestingly, there is no marked deviation in the baptismal record either, which suggests that the people of the town were not too put out by it! Is there any evidence of the fire today? This is where, I think, the story gets most interesting. Rather than evidence of a fire, there is evidence of lack of a fire. If we accept that a fair proportion of the town burned down, then one would not expect to see any evidence of buildings predating the fire still standing today. But there is still plenty visible today, enough to make me think that if the fire was in and amongst the shops and market place we think of today as Watton, it did not do so much damage as Blomefield suggests. Yet as we saw last issue, there is incontrovertible evidence that the townspeople went begging to Norwich. In my early researches on this subject I could find no contemporary evidence of the fire and I had begun to wonder whether in fact, it wasnt some kind of insurance scam. Especially as there was the odd snippet of court evidence suggesting that Watton could be at times quite a bawdy place! At the time I was given this information by the County Archivist, the items had not been indexed, but they do show that the town was, at times, a lively place as the records from the Quarter Sessions at Kings Lynn on the 9th October 1655 show; James Francis of Watton for keeping a licensed Alehouse for suffering misdemeanour Batteries and Bloodcraft in the said house and he doth not endeavour to prevent it, Richard Browne of Watton for a quareller and Breaker of ye peace and for bloodcraft then evidence the market was not entirely honest Ye inhabitants of Watton for keeping an unlawfull Bushell. But now I am sure there was a fire but not where you might expect, but first lets look at the evidence of lack of fire. If you stand at the small gap between what was Harveys shop - now Watton Furniture - and Johns look up at the end wall of Johns in the gap and you will see parts of a massive timber frame in view and clear evidence of a brick frontage placed up against it. It indicates that Johns shop is a much modified timber framed building whose timbers are of a substantial size. One contribution to the process of dating a building is by the size of its timbers and when I showed this to an architectural officer some years ago, he had no hesitation in placing the frame at pre 15th century placing it some time well before the fire date. They appear to be in situ rather than recycled and thus almost certainly mean that the fire was not burning there. Studying old pictures of that area show how it was joined to the George Commercial Hotel that stood where Lloyds Bank now is, and lend weight to the argument that the fire did not do much damage in this part of town. Next take a visit to the Chinese restaurant above Trading Places, the Royal Garden Chinese Restaurant, thanks to the tremendous effort (often unrecognised) that Dennis Brooks, puts into all his building works, you can see an almost complete upstairs remains of a timber frame, complete with clearly visible carpenters marks showing how they cut and joined the fames on the floor and then dismantled it to be reassembled again in position. The marks were used as a key to identify which piece joined to which. Again the size of the timbers indicates a building that certainly predates the fire. In Dens Caf closer to the town, timbers are preserved and clearly visible, again thanks to Dennis, that once more indicate a much older building still standing. The last piece of evidence I shall present, which is by far the most interesting and telling, is the building that is now Corals but was Adcocks original High Street shop. I had the great good fortune to be around on a daily basis while the recent extensive rebuilding and alterations were
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taking place at Adcocks and some fascinating evidence was uncovered. It was already known that the beams in the ceiling of the office above the old shop were dated to around the mid 16th century - say 1550. During the process of renovation and alteration it became clear that within the building large sections of the building were intact and in place. The frontage has been removed and replaced by brick at some time and the roof replaced, by the looks of it in the last 150 years, but the back wall and end wall to the east are still in place. So it seems that the fire did not burn fiercely here either. Adcocks was joined to what was Butchers, where Rudlings now stands. Butchers was a very old building and though I can not show now that it predated the fire, the evidence of the gable at Adcocks suggest the fire was not in any building next door either. The relative positioning of these three buildings within the town leads me to think that a large area to the south and west of the Market Place was not damaged by fire at all, which does not fit the picture of devastation we derived earlier. To add a bit more circumstantial evidence, walk around Watton looking at the roof lines. It is fairly easy to see which roofs hide the older buildings. Of course I cant say they predate the fire, but to my eye there are plenty of buildings around that appear to be as old as those which we do now know to predate it. So where was the fire? I dont know. But I do have a theory! The positioning of St Marys Church on its own almost so far to the east of the town has been the subject of debate among the towns historians for many years. I have heard a number of theories expounded as to why it is there but I think I can present a good case for my contribution to the debate. You of course may have your own ideas and if you have I shall be delighted to hear them. Ancient villages mostly seem to follow the same basic rules. You have the church with a nearby green and all the homes clustered around it - a nearby example might be Caston. There are many other examples in Norfolk and it is interesting to visit a place and try and work out where the core of the old town or village was. I dont think Watton would have been any different and if we look at the landscape, we have the church, near to Watton Green almost a sub village today but what is missing are the homes clustered around it. I would like to suggest that perhaps the story of Watton goes along the lines of something like this . . . In the 12th century Watton was just another typical hamlet like a thousand others in Norfolk. But around 1200 or so one enterprising gentleman by the name of John de Vaux, the Lord of Watton Hall, spotted an opportunity. A little to the west of the village was a crossroads where two roads met. One travelled from the south towards Dereham and the North Norfolk coast. And the other ran East West from Norwich to Downham. This was probably a major route. Even in 1738 Blomefield wrote; This is a small market town situate just into the wood land, but near the edge of the filand or open part of the country; it is a good thoroughfare, and its market is no despicable one, a great quantity of butter being sent through this place to Downham-Bridge, from whence the factors return it to London by water. There was another Market in place already at this time at Saham Toney, which was a Royal Town and a very prosperous one at that, if its St Georges is anything to go by. De Vaux obtained from the King, a charter for a market to be held on a Friday. This market he set up at the crossroads. Very quickly, in 1204, the people of nearby Saham Toney complained to the King that the market was harming their own held on the same day. No doubt this was because of Wattons advantageous position after all who would trudge all the way to Saham if you didnt have to ? (No offence intended there Saham!). Their complaints were upheld and the charter was withdrawn. John de Vaux then conveyed the manor to his brother, Oliver, who was evidently on better terms with the King since he immediately obtained a new charter for a Wednesday market and so it has remained ever since. Sahams market in due course withered and died, whereas Wattons prospered and, in turn, so did the respective village communities. I do wonder if this is the root of the acrimony that has traditionally existed between Saham Toney and Watton during the intervening centuries. At some point, probably very early on, the road layout was altered from the straight-for war d intersection to the layout shown on the enlargement from the enclosure map, and from this can be clearly seen how the road (that now goes) from Thetford to Dereham was diverted forcing travellers from all directions to pass alongside the market place encouraging its use as both a place to rest and to trade. The construction of Memorial Way in recent years has probably restored the original road layout though not perhaps on the same lines. A map of the area in say, 1670, might have shown two distinct areas of occupation and activity. The first is the village of Watton, a sizeable settlement based around the church of St Marys with some very prosperous properties featuring in the layout, eleven of which had more than 5 hearths. Then a little way away, a short walk to the west was the commercial centre. A bustling market place with stalls surrounded by shops selling a wide range of goods and provisions. (The evidence for this commercial activity in Watton will be the subject of another article at some point. In and around the early 1600s there was a staggering amount of commercial activity going on here.) Then on the morning of Saturday the 25th April 1674 fire broke out in the houses around the church. It probably took hold as many of the men may have been at town conducting their business. The fire devastated the village and destroyed most if not all of the houses leaving the inhabitants with a problem. What do they do for cover?, the weather was probably still quite cold it was, after all, only springtime with plenty of night time frosts. They were lucky that no one had been killed directly by the fire but unless a plan was hatched very quickly it is likely that hardship and illness would strike very quickly at those who were exposed to the elements. Perhaps the answer was obvious to them, move the whole population to the commercial centre and carry on there. After all, trade must continue in order to survive. Certainly they could, and did, appeal to the King for help but in reality, just as when a disaster strikes today, help and aid is a long time coming. The
simplest answer was to relocate and make the best of things. Is there any evidence to support this? Well yes, I think there might be. During the alterations at Adcocks some clues came to light. To help us understand, I will first explain who I think owned this property. As we saw in the last issue, Christopher Hey built the clock tower and sold it, and the land upon which it stood, to the town in 1679, I also showed why I think the likely date for building was 1674. A study of the construction of the clock tower shows clearly that it is built leaning against the western end wall of the building that was Adcocks. A map from the deeds to this shop (right) appears to show that the clock tower (or Clock House as it is referred to on the plan left) was, in effect, built in the corner of the garden attached to the building marked Dwelling House leaning against the house. The shop to the left of the clock tower is of course Adcocks new shop, or as we might know it from years gone by, Horsburghs Chemists. The point is that, IF the garden belonged to Adcocks old shop and if Christopher Hey sold that land to the town then it is reasonable to assume that Christopher Hey owned Adcocks original shop. I think that Heys shop (as I shall now refer to it) was, prior to the fire, a standard timber frame building of the middle 16th century, that is to say it was quite small, being only a little deeper than the clock house itself. What is certain is that it was not big enough to house the 8 hearths he had in 1664. It was a shop not a home - after all he wouldnt need one if he owned one near to the church. So what happened to it after the fire? I think there is evidence that suggests Christopher Hey moved into the upstairs of his shop - a shop that had not previously been designed to be used as a home and one of the first problems he ran into was one we all face from time to time - that of space. He needed to expand his shop and pretty quickly too. In order to do this he started building backwards from Watton Street towards Back Street but there was, as you would perhaps expect, an immediate shortage of timber. There had just been a major fire and everybody was trying to recover from the disaster so every available resource was pressed into use and it seems they started recycling some of the burned timbers from the wreckage of the previous houses. He also needed to keep warm so at some time in the year, perhaps later rather than earlier, a fireplace was inserted into the western end wall certainly upstairs. It may even be that at this time the end wall was changed from a timber framed one to a brick construction and the clock tower built leaning against it, though I think the wall was brick sometime before the fire. I can hear you asking how I have reached such detailed conclusions! During the modifications the offices that were the upstairs of the shop were turned into a part of the flat and these pictures show some of the clues uncovered. This picture shows the rear of the clock tower as it leans against what I believe to be Christopher Heys shop. We can see by the roof line of the gable how the angle changes towards the bottom indicating extension. This I think was quite some time ago because contained within the room to which the only access was via the window was the back wall of the 16th century building quite intact! The room is very small and difficult to photograph in but here we see the back wall of what I think is Heys shop.
Notice the plaster furthest away - that has been painted pink - and also the plaster closer to us that has been decorated with an angular pattern. Also clearly visible is the roof plate or top beam of the frame. This is charred but not badly and I think is evidence of a thatch fire at some point in the buildings history but as Andy suggests could be evidence of the fire itself. We may never know for sure. /Continued on next page
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Looking to further to the right we can see the upright at one corner of the frame. The bricks are to extend the width of the end to make the room we are in. There is quite heavy charring of the frame here but not below the plaster further down. This indicates to me that the fire was constrained to the roof area burning down and not from the ground upwards. I know of no way to date this burning but I think it can not be associated with the 1674 fire as described by Blomefield
Although not so easily seen, this is the junction of what I think to be the extension added in 1674 or perhaps 1675. These timbers are clearly recycled and do not fit well together. The join to the main building is very poorly made and looks as if it were done with a policy of that will do. Some of the timbers exhibit very deep charring in places with the patterns showing that they were not in the same orientation that they are now and would not normally be used for structural timbers unless there were none better available. Evidence of the extension being constructed with beams salvaged after the fire?
During the conversion of the offices into flats this bricked up fireplace was discovered in the end wall of the house. The Chimney Breast that the fireplace uses is contained within the clock tower indicating it must be earlier or contemporary with the towers construction.
When finally opened up, you can see the size of the fireplace. I find it fascinating to visualise Christopher Hey sitting here in the winter of 1674 and 1675 reflecting upon the trial and tribulations of the past year, with no idea that further trouble lay just around the corner - but then I am perhaps romanticising too much!
Hiding behind the bucket is hole to the flue of what would have been a fireplace on the ground floor - is this evidence of a fireplace being inserted into an existing chimney breast - it can hardly have been very useful as a flue was this fireplace was in position. The beam across the top of the hearth acting as a lintel holds a further dating clue, in the middle were incised Witch Marks. Inverted Vs cut into the wood were intended to deter witches entering the house via the chimney. They are entirely consistent with a dating of the mid 17th century. This is the last bit dating evidence from the fireplace. It is difficult to see here but the chamfer cut across the front edge of the beam is stopped with a particular design of cut. These are diagnostic features which in this case show not the date of the fireplace but if you study the next picture . . .
This is a ceiling beam from the extension to Heys shop. This is the back wall of the extension nearest Harvey Street. There is no sign of these timbers being recycled - they are all towards the front of the extension i.e. the first bits to be done. But by comparing this chamfer stop with the one on the fireplace we can see they are of exactly the same design and size indicating that these beams and the fireplace lintel both date from the same time maybe even the same workmen. Well, there we are thats all I have to say for now on this subject. As I said at the outset; you may, or may not, agree with my interpretation of the evidence, you may think some things are obvious or that others are stretching belief! If you have any evidence or theories to add, please do get in touch. I am not certain about many things in this story and I am sure that time will change things as more and more information comes to light, but history is like that. That is partly what makes it so fascinating! Foot Notes: (1) Shambles does not mean tumbled down or rough as we might think today, The name
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"Shambles" comes from the Saxon "Fleshammels", which means, "the street of the butchers" and in many parts of the country, streets are called The Shambles and are associated with butchers shops or places of slaughter. (2) Taken from the Fadens Map of Norfolk, published by Larks Press, Guist Bottom, Dereham, Norfolk 1989 ISBN 0 948400 09 9 pp 20-21) (3) Whites Directory Of Norfolk 1845 (Trowbridge: Reprint by David & Charles Reprints, 1969) p.p. 369 (4) WE Tate The Parish Chest (Chichester: Philimore & Co. Ltd, 1983) p.p. 80 - 82 I sent this article to Andy Reid as an early form of Peer Review. Andy has conducted what is probably the most detailed research of the history of Watton when he taught at Wayland High School. Andys knowledge of the subject is far broader than mine though he has not been able to continue his researches first hand here since moving away some 20 years ago. He has also contributed some more information on Christopher Heys story which I have reproduced elsewhere in this issue. Andy wrote: This is fascinating stuff. The photographic evidence from inside Adcocks is invaluable, the analysis of Wattons population in the period 1550-1670 is excellent, and you make your case well. Thank you very much for sending this material. However, Im not sure that Im persuaded by your theory about the fire taking place in the vicinity of the parish church. An alternative view would be: The crucial event in shaping Watton was the establishment of the market around 1200, near the crossroads of the E-W Roman road and the Thetford-Dereham road. I agree with all you say about the diversion of Dereham Road etc, but would suggest that the market and the buildings and residences associated with it developed in this area from the early 13th century onwards. It is clear from the enclosure map and other sources that the market occupied the area between the north side of Middle Street and the south side of High Street, and between Rudlings and the east side of the old Dereham Road. Comparison with other settlements in Norfolk might suggest that settlement around the church was a scattered common edge settlement, although the site of the manor of Watton may have been in that area (Blomefield states that the church was placed by the old manor house which is now quite demolished; he was writing in 1738). There may be more archaeological evidence available now than there was 20 years ago when I was investigating the history of Watton more actively than has been possible since, but Im not aware of any that would suggest that there was a significant concentration of houses around the church. Moreover the pre-1674 manorial documentation suggests that the most significant residences were in the market/High Street area. The reference in Blomefield to the butchers shambles is to my mind particularly significant. As you rightly say, this would be the street or area where the butchers stalls and shops were, and it is hard to imagine that it was anywhere other than in or immediately adjacent to the market place in Watton. My theory (based on the known later location of some butchers premises) was that it was the passage between Wayland Hall and Rudlings. At least one of the stallholders referred to in the 1595 rental was a butcher (Robert Brett). There is also a 1669 reference to a shop or butchers stall...in Watton Markett. The reference to the butchers shambles would support the view that the fire affected the area around the market place. Thomas Baskerville, who visited Watton in 1681, described it as a small town, lately burnt, but now rebuilt. I would take this to imply that it was rebuilt on the same site. Indeed, that would make sense because the people whose properties were destroyed or damaged in the fire would still own the sites and, as today, this is where they would tend to rebuild. We dont know anything about the nature of the fire, but it may have largely affected the thatched roofs of the buildings, leaving major structural beams charred but intact, and available for re-use on the same sites. Thomas Barton, writing in 1852, stated that traces of the fire may now be seen when any of the old houses in the market place are undergoing repair. Of course, he may have been misinterpreting evidence of subsequent fires as evidence for the 1674 fire. On the other hand, it seems to me that he may have been right, and that the evidence that you have identified at Adcocks and elsewhere may actually be evidence of the 1674 fire. Could the evidence of building work on the Adcocks site be evidence, not of expansion to make more room, but of rebuilding of parts of the premises that were damaged particularly badly? So, overall, I would argue that the fire took place in the market and High Street area. Of course, the great thing about history is that, as in this case, it may never be possible to prove beyond doubt what actually happened. Some further evidence on the size of Wattons population in the 17th century: The Compton Census of 1676 (which excluded people under the age of 16, perhaps 40% of the population) recorded 275 people in Watton The Hearth Tax returns of 1667 (which I transcribed at the Public Record Office some years ago) give a total of 97 households: if you take average household size to be 4.5, that would give a population of 437, broadly consistent with the figure you have obtained from analysis of the parish registers. This figure would also suggest that the fire destroyed most but not all of Watton in 1674 (even allowing for the fact that some of the dwellings were outside the town itself). I hope the above is helpful, even if we are taking different views. Im really enjoying this correspondence and look forward to more! In the brief discussions between myself and Andy since the writing of all the above we have skirted around the idea that perhaps the fire was not quite so devastating in terms of buildings destroyed perhaps being contained to the roofs. This is, without a doubt, work in progress so please read it as such. Do not take it as the whole story just one possible theory.
Above: The allotments on Thetford Road - they were where the empty field is now to the right of Tesco, The Waters family lived opposite this field.
Above Two more elephants arriving in Watton! Coming up the Thetford Road Left the view from the family home looking up towards where Tesco now stands. Bottom is the family home, office and yard in Thetford Road. Waters were well known builders in Watton for several generations. The advert right is from 1927. The family is probably best remembered locally for the Barrel Organ which was always paraded around town whilst collecting money for the Hospital.
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Above are a selection of sporting pictures chosen at random from the box of school pictures that Dad (Wilf Horn) saved. If you know someone on them I should be very pleased to hear from you. Similarly below are some pictures of Christmas Cakes from 1953 and 1959 but do you know who they are?? Lastly on the facing page a series taken a Christmas Dinner but when was it, who are they and where are they all now.
What on earth had been said here to give Miss Offley and the girls a fit of the giggles?
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FEEDBACK ROUNDUP
DAVID THROOP VAUGHAN G.I.
By Winifred (Offley) Rushton
In 1943 my sister Marnie was travelling back home by train from Cambridge where she was training to be a nurse at Addenbrookes Hospital. In those days a train ran from Thetford to Swaffham. Marnie was travelling to Watton and had to put her bicycle on the Watton train as, during World War II, you could not be met at the station by car as petrol was rationed. It happened that David Throop Vaughan, who was also travelling to Watton, was in the same carriage as my sister and they chatted. Marnie suggested he might like to visit our house at Low Farm, Carbrooke, pointing out that she would not be there. Several weeks later on a Sunday afternoon, Throop came to visit. We all got on so well and from then on, he became one of our family, visiting us whenever he was off duty. Since the War all his family have visited us, often staying at Low Farm. We met his mother, Betty his wife, his siblings, his three children and many grandchildren. Only a few weeks ago I spoke to Throop over the phone when he was at daughter Susans home. On the Glorious Twelfth (12th August), he will be 91 or 2 this year, 2007. This poem (below) he wrote in my autograph book before I left home to go to a London College to train to be a teacher of domestic science. The road he is describing is the Saturday night run from Griston to Norwich to go dancing at the Samson and Hercules! trying to find out what pills I ought to have. Now we have it pretty well settled. I have been moved from a four room apartment down to a one room apartment and I am presently trying to condense my many belongings down to a reasonable size. At the moment I have a lot of stuff in storage and when I have more time I will get rid of it all. I try to spend time reading but I seem to spend a lot of time sleeping. I just got some new teeth so I can eat better and look better. For my birthday, Susie is planning a party with over thirty people at her house and we will look over photos and stuff from my lifetime. She is making a big project of this and it will be a very busy time for all of us. I am impressed with the activity you engage in, travel, driving, house care, visiting Dorothy, and all the other stuff. Good for you! Again I thank you for the 3rd SAD book. It means a lot to me. I send you my love, Throop
valued at 44 a lot of money at that time. I dont know for sure where it was, but one possibility is that it was at the Angell which John Heys father Christopher Hey is mentioned as holding in the rental of 1595 (3). The Angel was where the Crown stands today, just opposite the clock tower. The young Christopher, of course, did not become a brewer: he became a mercer, and one of the most prosperous and influential inhabitants of Watton. In the hearth tax returns of 1664 and 1667 (4), he is listed as having eight taxable hearths in his house, so on this measure his house was one of the four biggest in Watton. It may have stood adjacent to where the clock tower was built, but we cant be sure. You have covered Christopher Heys contribution to the community as churchwarden and overseer in your article, and I agree that he was probably a puritan and supporter of parliament in the Civil War. I also agree with your analysis of the building and sale of the clock tower, after the fire of 1674. Following the death of his wife Mary in 1673, Christopher Hey did, in fact, remarry. His second wife, Alice, was a widow from the Ely area and quite wealthy, if the evidence of her will, made the year before she died in 1681 (5), is anything to go by. She owned land in Ely and the nearby village of Witchford, and stallsin the market place in Ely. Its interesting to speculate about how they might have met. A century later, merchants from Watton played an important part in the butter trade, taking quantities of it by land and water to Downham Market; if this was happening in Christopher Heys time, perhaps it was trading connections that brought his and Alices families into contact. It is surely Alices initial that appears in the panel, CHA (Christopher and Alice Hey) 1674 on the rear gable behind the clock tower, which suggests that the marriage had taken place within a year of Marys death. In her will, Alice described herself as the nowe wife of Christopher Hey of Wattonwoollendraper and referred to Christopher as her loving husband. The bequests she made to Christophers children give a clue to how many of them survived in 1680. She refers to Jane, married to Peter George (a member of another influential Watton family) and Lucy (unmarried) as the two daughters of my said husband. Jane had a daughter, Anne, while there were two other grandchildren whose mother had, perhaps, already died. Alice does not refer to Christophers son, Thomas, who may have been the only surviving son by the time of Christophers own death in 1682. Like his father before him, when Christopher knew that he did not have long to live, he wrote his will (6) on 28 June 1682 beinge infirme of bodyconsideringe the certainty of death and the uncertainty of the time thereof and was buried just a week later. What he had, he left to his son Thomas: there were no other bequests. It leaves me wondering just how much he lost during the fire, and whether his marriage to Alice was driven as much by economic necessity as by a desire for company. Having said that, he may not have profited much from it, as Alice bequeathed most of her property to her brothers, sisters, nephews and nieces when she died, noting carefully in her will that she did so by and with the consent of the said Christopher Hey. Certainly, Christopher probably did not benefit much from the collection resulting from the brief issued after the fire: the Norfolk quarter sessions order book records in July 1674 (7) that no parte of the mony wch shall be collected by virtue of any brief to be obteyned for the losses susteyned by ye great fire wch lately happened at Wattonbe not appyed to ye benefit of landlords or such other persons of abilitye who are able to live of themselves & mainteyne theire families without ye charitye of the Kings liege people It was a sad end for him, and for his family: Thomas vanished from the scene, and the Hey dynasty played no further part in the history of Watton. References 1) Will of John Hey, 1617: Norfolk Record Office (NRO) Norwich Archdeaconry wills 2) Inventory of William Heyhoo, NRO INV 38/102 3) NRO NRS 18144 33A3 4) 1664: Norfolk Genealogy, vol 15 (1983) 1667: Public Record Office E179/253/45 5) Will of Alice Hey, 1681: NRO PCC and Norwich Wills 6) Will of Christopher Hey, 1682: NRO Norwich Archdeaconry wills 7) Norfolk QS Order Book 1669-1681: NRO C/S2/3.
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