Great Gidding

• Newspaper cuttings from Great Gidding’s past - Great Fire of Gidding NEW
• Newspaper cuttings from Great Gidding’s past - Ecclesiastical Matters NEW
• Newspaper cuttings from Great Gidding’s past - Miscellaneous Cuttings NEW
• A Wartime Childhood – Recollections of John Payne'
• A few corrections and additions to 'A MILLENNIUM HISTORY OF GREAT GIDDING'
• A MILLENNIUM HISTORY OF GREAT GIDDING BOOK AND DATA CD
• WHO LIVED WHERE IN GREAT GIDDING ? Updated

The Shape of the Village
The History of a few properties
FAULKNER'S COTTAGE (55/57 Main Street)
50 MAIN STREET
CROWN COTTAGE

• EXTRACTS FROM 'A MILLENNIUM HISTORY OF GREAT GIDDING'

The name
Great Gidding and its parish boundaries
Documents
Village history
Church history
Population

• A RECENT HISTORICAL EVENT! - Transco gas Pipeline 1997 NEW

UPDATED

• NEW The Giddings family name more

• NEW and UPDATED WHO LIVED WHERE IN GREAT GIDDING ? by author Patrick Ellis

• UPDATED Great Gidding family histories by author Patrick Ellis

Newspaper cuttings from Great Gidding’s past - Great Fire of Gidding

One of the wonders of the internet for historians is the making accessible of newspapers from previous centuries. This has made it possible to retrieve a few reports and comments from Great Gidding’s past and in particular mention of the ‘Great Fire of Gidding’ in October 1861.

The sale of an ancient fire engine in the village in 1933 resulted in an article in the Peterborough Advertiser, which was included in The Millennium History of Great Gidding and is repeated here.

Two apparently independent contemporary reports of the fire have been found in two London Newspapers, (Daily News and the Morning Chronicle) published on October 21st, a week after the fire and these are both transcribed below. Excerpts from these reports gradually reached other parts of the country such as Liverpool Mercury (22 October); Derby Mercury (23 October); Hull Packet and East Riding Times (25 October); Jackson’s Oxford Journal (26 October) and Aberdeen Journal (30 October).

Other mentions of the village included several ecclesiastical appointments marriages and deaths; several bankruptcies and other (slightly) more interesting events. Some of these are transcribed at the end – listed in date order.

The Great Fire of Gidding

From the Daily News of 21st October 1861

Six Farmsteads burnt
Great Gidding is an extensive parish in Huntingdonshire and lies five miles to the south of Stilton, on the Great North Road. Its village – which must be well known to all who hunt with the Fitzwilliam hounds – consists of the most part of a long straggling street, running from north to south, and made up of farmsteads, cottages and public-houses. It was towards the northern end of this street that a fire broke out at the rear of some farm buildings about 1 o’clock in the afternoon of Wednesday the 16th [October] and, assisted by a strong north wind, raged with a fury that threatened the destruction of the entire village. As it is six farmsteads and three cottages have been totally destroyed, and the flames were scarcely subdued on Thursday afternoon, although it was thought that further danger was averted by the precautions that had been adopted. As the fire broke out in the middle of the day plenty of help was easily obtained, and the live stock, with few exceptions, escaped injury; but the flames advanced with too great a rapidity to allow much grain to be saved. Only two fire-engines reached the spot, and as there were four or five fires simultaneously raging, in different directions, their aid was well nigh ineffectual in arresting the progress of the flames. Many houses have been injured, and as for the most part, they are reed-thatched, their escape from destruction was a very narrow one. It is more remarkable still that a farmstead in the very midst of the fire also escaped burning, owing to the very active exertions of its owner; but the flames caught the stacks and thatch many times. The season of the year and the plentiful harvest caused the stackyards to be unusually full, and during Wednesday night they blazed with a brightness that made itself apparent at a long distance, even in the light of a brilliant moon. During the night the people were busied in removing their furniture and goods to places of safety but the wind veering round to another quarter drove the flames away from the village street. Nevertheless, although the greater danger was averted, a line of blackened ruins, extending for several hundred yards on the west side of the street, marks out the devastating track of the fire. The property destroyed belonged to the Hon. G. Fitwilliam, Mr Mills and others. The greater part was insured, and, as is commonly the case, the loss of the uninsured portion falls on those who are quite unable to bear so heavy a calamity. The fire is supposed to have originated from some lucifer matches lighted in sport by children in the rear of the farm buildings.

A mile eastward of Great Gidding is Little Gidding. where Nicholas Ferrar lived, On Monday evening, the 14th inst, a fire broke out in four thatched cottages in that village, and speedily reduced them to a heap of ashes, the inmates saving themselves with difficulty. In this case the fire is supposed to have been caused by some hot embers being thrown away in a hovel.

From the Morning Chronicle 21st October 1861

On Saturday the insurance offices were apprised of two very calamitous fires involving an immense loss of farming property, and both resulting from carelessness by boys playing with Lucifer matches. One occurred at the village of Great Gidding, in the northern section of Huntingdon, and the other at Croxton in Bedfordshire. At the former the produce of 200 acres of this year’s crop was destroyed. The fire originated on the farm of Mr Garratt, and, in consequence of the recent dry weather, the flames rapidly extended to ten wheat and other stacks, and to various out-buildings and machinery, all of which are reported to have fallen a sacrifice. The adjacent farm of Mr Shendon was next attacked; eight or nine stacks are stated to have been consumed. Three other farms, belonging to Mr. J. Palmer, Mr. Yeoman, and Mr. Bier, were next fired and twelve or fourteen ricks, with sheds, were burnt. At one time it was apprehended that the whole village would be reduced to ashes. The local engines were soon on the spot, but the extent of the conflagration would seem to indicate that they had little effect in checking the flames.

From the Peterborough Advertiser 1933

The fire engine attended its first fire on April 1st 1859. The news came that a stack was on fire at Hemington. Ignoring the fact that it could have been an April Fool's hoax, the engine attended and quelled what could have become a serious fire. Amos Hewitt could only just remember this fire but the fire of 1861 was “as clear in his mind as yesterday”, even though he was only four years old at the time. All day and all night, he watched his father – James Hewitt, a shoemaker, who was hoseman at the time.

The 1933 article continues: The fire was discovered in a yard opposite the Fox and Hounds Inn. The engine was drawn to the spot and the fight began. Before a thousand gallons had been thrown, however, it was obvious that the flames were gaining ground and soon the farmhouse was involved.

Wind took the sparks and flames down the main street till half a dozen cottages adjoining the farm were roaring and cracking behind great, choking clouds of brown smoke. Another fire engine was requisitioned from Oundle way, and this was set up in the wheelwright's yard [Faulkners – although it does not appear to have been a Wheelwright’s yard in 1861] just below the present Post Office [now the Tulloch's home].

Only one cottage in a hundred yards was saved, and on that site Mr. Hewitt's present house was built [almost opposite the Fox and Hounds]. The distress was unimaginable even had it ended there. But two days later the Gidding fire engine was rescued, with scorched paint, from Mr. John Brawn's farmyard [where the Laurel Farm Stables now are], where another fire had broken out. Despite heroic exertion, another fifty yards of cottages opposite were laid to waste. Next morning the village woke to [a scene of] rural desolation.

Some Comments about the fire.

When I started to attempt to make sense of the three newspaper reports and what I already knew from the census returns and tithe maps for the period, I assumed that the word Farmstead meant ‘farm-house with the buildings belonging to it’, but having failed to make sense of all the apparent ’facts’. I will pick out what the reports actually say. This is always assuming that the reporters actually knew what they were writing !

‘Its village [is] made up of farmsteads, cottages and public-houses’. This appears to mean that farmsteads included the farm houses, and therefore that ‘six farmsteads and three cottages have been totally destroyed’ means just that and includes the farm-houses.

The report continues ‘Many houses have been injured, and as for the most part, they are reed-thatched, their escape from destruction was a very narrow one.’ and ‘Nevertheless, although the greater danger was averted, a line of blackened ruins, extending for several hundred yards on the west side of the street, marks out the devastating track of the fire.’

The second report fails to mention a single farm-house being destroyed :
‘The fire originated on the farm of Mr Garratt, and, …. the flames rapidly extended to ten wheat and other stacks, and to various out-buildings and machinery, all of which are reported to have fallen a sacrifice. The adjacent farm of Mr Shendon was next attacked; eight or nine stacks are stated to have been consumed. Three other farms, belonging to Mr. J. Palmer, Mr. Yeoman, and Mr. Bier, were next fired and twelve or fourteen ricks, with sheds, were burnt.’

Firstly some facts and questions.

There was a census taken in April of 1861, only a few months before the fire in October.
The second report mentions five farmers who lost their farmsteads. Messers Garratt, Shendon, Palmer, Yeomans and Bier. I cannot find any trace, either in the census or any other records, of either Mr Shendon or Mr Bier.

There are discrepancies between the reports. In particular the first report says that 6 farmsteads and 3 cottages were destroyed but that one farmstead in the midst of the fire escaped burning through the efforts of its owner. The second, which names the farmers, mentions five farms destroyed. The 1933 report mentions one farm and many adjacent cottages, but this can probably be discounted.

Amos Hewitt, who in 1933 was recalling the events when he was 4, says that the site of his eventual house was the only cottage saved in the midst of the fire. His eventual house was definitely what is now Somersby House.

Thomas Garratt was in the same position in 1851, April 1861 and also in 1871 and so was there for the fire. The next door cottage (never rebuilt after the fire and so definitely destroyed) was occupied in April 1861 by Mary Hughes who had lived there since before 1841 and was by then a widow of an agricultural labourer. By 1871 she had moved across the road to one of many small dwellings on the corner of Mill Road. It is very probable that she was still in her long held cottage at the time of the fire.

In Somersby House Francis Mason, wheelwright, was there in April 1861, but was replaced by John Palmer, farmer of 30 acres, before 1871. Palmer could have been there at the time of the fire, but so could the unknown Mr Shendon.

At Warren House in April 1861 we find James Yeomans who was still there in 1871

The next farm (not rebuilt) housed Nathaniel Dickens, farmer of 170 acres, in April 1861 but he could have moved out allowing Shendon or Bier to move in during the summer of 1861.

No 61 (which to me has always been identified as Les Harrison’s) housed Samuel Brawn, farmer of 40 acres, in April 1861 but the occupier had changed to John Bunning by 1871 and so this farm could have been occupied by the unknown Mr Bier at the time of the fire.

Lastly we come to No 59, the old post office. In April 1861 John Palmer, baker and pig dealer was there, but he moved to Somersby House by 1871 by which time he had become the farmer of 30 acres..

Problems.
Amos Hewitt says that his house, Somersby House was not destroyed. So Palmer could not have been there at the time of the fire, as his farm was destroyed. The same goes for Mr Shendon. This would mean that there is no significance in the order of the names in the second report. The report says that Shendon was the next door neighbour of Thomas Garratt, so could Mr Shendon’s farm have been immediately to the north of Garratts farm? In April 1861 the census shows that the farm was empty, so in that respect Shendon could have moved in during the summer. However, the building was thatched and standing until the 1970s (known as Veazie’s shop) and surely after the fire, would not have been rebuilt with a thatched roof.
From the above and if Somersby House was not destroyed, we know for sure that Thomas Garratt and James Yeomans lost their farms and that the farm that Palmer lost was the old post office.

The scenario which best fits my understanding of the situation (but that could well not be completely correct) is as follows : It is certain that Thomas Garratt’s farm, owned by the Fitzwilliams, was the origin of the fire. This was immediately across the road from Mill Road. To the south of this was a cottage (described thus on the 1851 Tithe map). After the fire it was never rebuilt. Next was today’s Somersby House which, in 1861 was a Wheelwright’s and that may have been where the fire engine took up its position and may explain why, as Amos Hewitt claims, this was saved from the fire.

In that case the next four farmsteads must have been burned, which includes all those down to and including No 59.

There is also no doubt that the farm which is now Warren House was burned and so was a farm next to it, which, also owned by the Fitzwilliams, was never rebuilt.

I also suggest that there is no doubt that No57 was saved.

But this leaves Numbers 59 and 61. Although they may have been partly burned (for example the roofs may have suffered), the brickwork is much more like that of No 57 than the many houses built in the building boom of 1862, which included Warren House, the Baptist Manse, Church Farm, No 25 Gains Lane and Laurel Farm.

So like history in general, there is no absolute truth. Just many memories which often conflict.

Kindly supplied by Patrick Ellis – June 09 Top

Newspaper cuttings from Great Gidding’s past - Ecclesiastical matters

James Saunders, Vicar of Great Gidding, MA. Fellow of Queens College, Camgridge and chaplain to Lord Sondes, is appointed to a minor Cannonry of the Collegiate Church in Ely with the perpetual curacy of St Mary’s, together worth more than £200. (British and Evening Post or St James’s Chronicle. 23 December 1790)

Died at Sawtry, aged 61, Rev. James Saunders, Rector of Sawtry and Vicar of Great Gidding. The Rectory is in the gift of Earl Fitzwilliam; the Vicarage in Lord Sondes. (Jackson’s Oxford Journal. 15 April 1822)

Died, on March 21 at the Rectory, Folksworth, Catherine, wife of Rev. B Johnson, Vicar of Great Gidding, aged 69. (Plymouth and Cornish Advertiser. 9 April 1835)

Deceased. 13 January at the advanced age of 83, the Rev. Benjamin Johnson, Vicar of Great Gidding. 21 years Vicar of that Parish. (Jackson’s Oxford Journal. 21 January 1843)

Vacancies : Great Gidding; Vicarage in Hunts, Diocese of Ely; Value £101; Patron Earl Fitzwilliam; Current incumbent F Johnson; reason for vacancy, Promotion. (Daily News. 21 March 1850)

Lay impropriations from the Tithes – wholly diverted from their original purpose. A few instances were culled from the Tithe Returns one of which was Great Gidding :
Payable to Parochial Incumbents : £140; Payable to Lay Impropriator : £400
(North Wales Chronicle, Bangor. 8 November 1856)

Marriage of Rev. Chales Birch, Rector of Brancaster, Norfolk and son of Rev. Charles Birch, Rector of Sawtry, All Saints, to Martha Jane, daughter of Rev. Frederick Johnson, Rector of Luddington with Hemington. Officiating was Rev. William Hopkinson, Vicar of Great Gidding, at Hemington on 28 October 1868. (Ipswich Journal. 31 October 1868)

Methodist alteration and enlargement schemes. Included in a list was Great Gidding. (October 1899)

Comments James Saunders was Vicar of Gt Gidding from 1788 to 1822; Benjamin Johnson (of whom we have a photo of a painting) from 1822 to 1843; Frederick Johnson from 1843 to 1850 when he must have been promoted to Rector of Luddington with Hemington. One can see why these gentlemen needed several salaries, when so much of the tithes was being siphoned off to the laity.

Kindly supplied by Patrick Ellis – June 09 Top

Newspaper cuttings from Great Gidding’s past - Miscellaneous Cuttings

Miscellaneous Cuttings about this ‘cold and desolate Parish.’

Stolen or strayed from a close in Great Gidding, a dapple grey horse. Whoever gives notice to Mr John Mallabar, Clerk (ie Vicar) of Great Gidding, shall have a guinea reward. (Postman & Historical Advertiser, London. 28 August 1708)

Stole out of the stables of Lewis Smith, shopkeeper, of Great Gidding, a black mare. Also stole the saddle and bridle. 1 Guinea reward. (Stanford Mercury. 7 November 1728)

Bankrupt. Edward Brampton, Farmer, of Great Gidding (Newcastle Courant. 8 November 1828)

Earl Fitzwilliam, this benevolent Nobleman, on account of the distressed state of Agriculture, has declined taking the rents, now due from his tenants at Great Gidding, Hunts, a cold and desolate Parish. (Morning Chronicle. 11 April 1835. Also appeared in Leamington Chronicle, Preston Chronicle, Leeds Mercury, Belfast News, Examiner (London), Caledonian Mercury, Hampshire Telegraph and Sussex Chronicle, Brighton Patriot)

The following paragraph is being paraded through the newspapers: (See previous entry). This is making a virtue out of necessity – his Lordship, seeing that no rent was to be had. Is it true that, as a further proof of his Lordship’s kind feelings towards his tenants in that neighbourhood, he has presented several of them with a half-crown ticket each for the Stilton political dinner today ? (Cambridge Chronicle, repeated in the Hull Packet. 1 May 1835)

Bankrupt : Francis Mason, Wheelwright of Great Gidding (Liverpool Mercury. 12 May 1862)

Bankrupt : William Turner, Baker, of Great Gidding (Daily News. 17 Septemebr 1864)

Bankrupt : J Hill, Baker, of Great Gidding (Reynold’s Newspaper. 26 December 1869)

Mr William Lowfield, master builder, of Great Gidding, was charged with killing and slaying Charles Runn, gamekeeper to Mr W Wells, MP, of Holme, by running the wheel of a cart over him under circumstances of a very extraordinary character. The prisoner was committed for trial. (Liverpool Mercury. 28 February 1870)

The Will of the Right Honorable George John, Baron Sondes, who died 17 December 1874, was proved on 18 February 1875. Among many bequests he left ‘To his son, Hon Lewis Watson Milles, the land tax of the Parish of Great Gidding. (Manchester Times. 6 March 1875)

Comment I include this last item because it is very strange that the Land Tax was still paid to the Watson’s of Rockingham as late as 1874/5 as the Lordship of the Manor of Great Gidding passed to the Fitzwilliams in 1827. I cannot explain this.

Kindly supplied by Patrick Ellis – June 09 Top

A Wartime Childhood – Recollections of John Payne

During August 1939 I and my brother Richard were on holiday with our aunt and uncle, Mr & Mrs Dell of Chapel End Farm. Because of the likelihood of war, we stayed on for a while and did not return to our parents in North London.

I have submitted my childhood memories of the war to the BBC, the early part of which has my recollections of Great Gidding, its school and the Baptist Chapel which may be of interest to people in Great Gidding now. The recollections can be accessed at:
www.bbc.co.uk/ww2peopleswar/stories/67/a8963067.shtml

Its Part 1 that covers my time in Great Gidding.

People in story: Mr. John Payne, Mr. Dick Payne, Mrs. Gladys and Mr. Bert Dell
Location of story: Finchley, North London, Great Gidding, Cambridgeshire
Background to story: Civilian

Whilst I and my young brother Richard (always known as Dick in the family) were born in Wiltshire we moved with our parents to Finchley in North Londonin 1937.

Great Gidding
For our summer holidays in 1939, Dick and I went to Auntie Gladys and Uncle Bert at Chapel End Farm, Great Gidding in Huntingdonshire, about 70 miles north of Finchley. Although both were Wiltshire people, they had moved to the farm in 1936 and Auntie Amy, Gladys’ sister also lived with them.

About the time we were due to return to Finchley in late August 1939 it became apparent to Mum and Dad that the situation in Europe was becoming very serious and war seemed likely. Accordingly they asked whether we might stay at the farm as it would be safer from aerial attack. Auntie Gladys and Uncle Bert readily agreed and so Dick and I stayed on.

On 1st September 1939 Germany invaded Poland and both Britain and France demanded a complete withdrawal by Germany or war would be declared. The Prime Minister broadcast to the nation on 3rd September to tell us that Germany had given no undertakings to withdraw its troops from Poland and that therefore Britain was at war with Germany.

Dick and I loved staying on the farm, there was so much to do, helping to round up the cows and bring them down the road for milking and afterwards they had to be returned to the field. There were a dozen or so cows of quite a mixed pedigree and colour, some had horns, some didn’t. There was always the same leader and a couple or so who always brought up the rear. It was also harvest time and we would spend hours in the fields of wheat, barley or oats, quenching our thirst with lemonade. This was not the fizzy stuff now on sale but was made by dissolving yellow crystals in cold water – it was very refreshing.

On Sunday morning and evening we always attended the Baptist Chapel where Uncle Bert played the organ, this was our first taste of regular churchgoing. In the afternoon we went to Sunday School. The Chapel was run by two lady Ministers, Miss Goodwin and Miss Davidson. We found Miss Goodwin rather stern but Miss Davidson was a lovely gentle lady with a delightful North-eastern accent. Although I did not appreciate it at the time, the Chapel at Great Gidding was one of the older non-conformist places of worship, it had lovely box pews, sadly removed in the 1980s.

I started school at Great Gidding, I have since seen the School Log Book and discovered that I was admitted as a pupil on 25th September 1939. The school was, and still is, a Church of England school and the Vicar attended occasionally to put the children through the catechism, even at that young age I did not see the relevance for those children who did not attend Church. My teacher was Miss Colbert, who lived in Sawtry and travelled to school on a motor-bike! The Head Teacher, Mrs. Beardmore lived next to the school and her husband was, I believe, verger or sexton or some sort of gardener/handyman to the Vicar. The School Log Book also shows that on 23rd January 1940, special arrangements were to be made for Dick and I to be inoculated as we were both absent with colds. It was about this time that my anathema of music at school began, something which would haunt me throughout my school years. We were sitting in class singing, the teacher was walking amongst us and when she got to me said, ‘Oh, it’s you it is! Shut up!’ or words to that effect. From that day forward I had a dread of being asked to sing solo. I remember too the Vicar coming into school and that we were supposed to have learnt the catechism, but I never did, perhaps my young mind reasoning that we went to the Baptist chapel and not the Vicar’s Church.

The war had little effect on us children save that our games often had a wartime ring about them. There was great excitement one day when we found a Tiger Moth training aircraft had made a forced landing in the field opposite Chapel End Farm, the aircraft was nose down in the soft soil but there was no fire and we believed the pilot was relatively unscathed.

Although toys were in short supply, we amused ourselves in a variety of ways, there were trees to climb, of the two favourites, one was in the hedge boundary of the field opposite the farm, the same one in which the Tiger Moth force landed, whilst the other was at the bottom of Uncle Bert’s paddock at the rear of the farm, the tree overlooked a lane. We also used the cow pond in the field opposite for our naval battles, each of us would construct our harbour in one of the muddy areas the cows used to access the water. Small pieces of wood became our warships and then we bombarded each others harbours with mud, we must have been quite filthy when we went home. One of our occupations was to collect birds eggs, mostly they were found and not taken from nests. Although I could never manage it very successfully, some of the lads were quite adept at blowing birds eggs. My collection was quite small with nothing other than the then common birds of the countryside.

Return to Finchley
On 15th March our names were removed from the register as Auntie Gladys was ill and Mum had taken us home to Finchley. ...

Great Gidding Again
As the ‘Blitz’ as the aerial attacks were called increased my parents became concerned for our safety, they accordingly wrote to Auntie Gladys and Uncle Bert to ask if they would take Dick and I again. Immediately they received the letter, Uncle Bert cancelled a dental appointment, rode his motor bike and sidecar to Finchley and took us to Great Gidding. That night our house was damaged by a shell exploding just outside and there was a piece of shrapnel about five inches long on my pillow, thanks to Uncle Bert I survived to tell the tale.

At that time Great Gidding had several shops, there was Fred Rowell the butcher half way up Main Street, Mrs. Brawn’s general store at the bottom of Main Street at the corner of the Luddington Road. There was another general shop at the top end of the village run by the Vesey’s who also ran a weekly bus service to Peterborough. There was a baker in Main Street who also went out on his delivery round with a pony and trap, the poor man stuttered and we kids used to mimic him, it was said the poor chap had suffered shell shock in the 1914-1918 War. The Peterborough Co-Op grocery van visited the village once a week and Auntie Gladys bought much of her groceries there. A fish delivery can also came weekly as did the ‘Oilman’ who delivered paraffin oil for the lamps. Also in Main Street was Johnnie Smith’s garage with a petrol pump which was hand operated, Johnnie also ran a private hire car. The public house was, and is still I believe called ‘The Fox and Hounds’ but I never knew of Uncle Bert setting foot inside, it was I believe a spit and sawdust sort of place. In addition to the Parish Church next to the school, there was a Wesleyan Chapel on the East side of Main Street a little further up from the Church and lower down on the East side and set back behind its Manse was the Baptist Chapel where Uncle Bert played the organ and Aunties Gladys and Amy attended regularly every Sunday morning and evening and Dick and I went to afternoon Sunday School. The Chapel had lovely to look at box pews, but with their plain wooden bench seats and vertical backs they weren’t at all pleasant for a small boy to sit still in for an hour or so.

On my birthday in 1940 Mum arrived at Chapel End to give us a nice surprise, she brought my present, a tinplate ‘O’ gauge train set comprising an 0-4-0 loco and tender and two four wheel coaches, I am not sure of the maker save that I know it wasn’t Hornby, by today’s models it was very basic but I thought it was super.

To defend Great Gidding from a possible German invasion, I constructed a field gun from an old farm mowing machine, I found a suitable pole to act as the barrel and, by means of the gearing to adjust the cut of the grass, I was able to adjust the angle of fire of the barrel. During the evenings a great crowd of children seemed to gather at Chapel End Farm, where we would play various games, invariably these had war background. Often Uncle Bert would join in and I remember one particular occasion, it was getting dusk, when Dick found Uncle Bert (playing the German spy) very close to the dairy and the back door of the house. At the time the rest of the gang were round the back behind the barn and out of earshot of Dick who was calling that he had captured Uncle Bert, so Uncle Bert said to Dick, ‘You just run off and find the others, I’ll stay here.’ Off ran Dick to find the rest of us. We came running back to find no one there. Uncle Bert had climbed up to the roof space of the oil house opposite the dairy and listened with great amusement to Dick explaining to the rest of us that he had captured Uncle Bert there. An interesting sequel to the story occurred - one evening just after Dick and I had left the farm to return to Mum and Dad, several of the children called at the farm to ask Auntie Gladys if Mr. Dell was coming out to play.

Christmas at the farm was very enjoyable although there was food rationing, Uncle Bert raised his own geese so there was a good bird for Christmas dinner with plenty of home grown vegetables and a Christmas pudding with both cream from the dairy and silver threepenny pieces to be found. I remember amongst our presents, Dick and I each received from Mum and Dad a Number 1 Meccano set, these were to provide hours of pleasure during the long winter evenings.

1940 was a very cold winter with lots of snow, the farmhouse was thatched so it kept warmer than a tiled or slate roofed house. The kitchen was particularly warm and we spent most of our time there, the two ‘front rooms’ being only used on Sundays and holidays. The kitchen was heated by a range which also heated the oven and boiled kettles, etc. on its top. In the evenings the oil lamp on the table provided a soft light and considerable warmth. There was no electricity or gas in the village. To go to bed, there was no form of heating at all upstairs, we took candles to light our way and Dick and I were provided with a small oil night light. We slept in a double bedstead with brass knobs at the top of the bed head frame, I would often fiddle with these, unscrewing them and screwing them up again. We had feather pillows and eiderdown, blankets and in the winter a sort of flannel sheet, all of this was warmed by a brick which had been in the oven for a couple of hours, wrapped in an offcut of flannel sheet. Although facing East, the window was small and did not let in too much cold air, we also had the benefit of the morning sun rising over the spinney at the rear of the opposite field.

One morning I saw a young colt in the field. I opened the window and imitated a horse’s whinny, the colt came running over to the gate opposite the window. On another occasion I saw a rabbit petrified with fear by a stoat, I was dressed so I ran downstairs and across the road to the field yelling, the stoat run off but the rabbit stayed quite still for some time. Eventually it ran off and got caught in some undergrowth in the hedge on the North side of the field. I pulled the rabbit out and took it back to the farm where I put it in an unused chicken run and proposed to keep it as a pet. When I looked the next morning the rabbit had gone. Uncle Bert said it must have escaped but, although I didn’t say anything, I think it had some help.

One day the Army pitched a large bell tent on the green at the corner of Main Street and Chapel End, opposite Mrs. Brawn’s shop. The following day a huge convoy of military vehicles passed through Great Gidding, there were lorries, armoured cars, scout cars, field guns and motorcycle escorts. The soldiers who occupied the tent gave directions to the convoy as it passed through.

The owner of The Repetition Tyre Company for whom Dad worked, a Mr. Harvey was a member of the British Fascist Party. Some time after the start of the war, but I don’t know when, Dad told his boss what he thought of fascism and lost his job in so doing. After a while, probably in late 1940 Dad got a job with a rubber company in Huntingdon and Mum and Dad lived for a while with Uncle Fred and Auntie Nell, their daughter Brenda was away serving with the A.T.S.

Kindly supplied by Patrick Ellis – June 06 Top

A few Corrections and Additions to 'A Millennium History of Great Gidding'

In the three years since the publication of A Millennium History of Great Gidding some new facts have come to light and a few errors have been noticed.

These are listed in page order : -

Page 15. The name of the village in the Domesday book was not "Redinges". The transcriber misread the first letter - which should have been a "G" and so "Gedinges".

Page 16. There is a reference in a record of 1584 to a property being on "Church Lane" and I assumed that this was the lane - traces of which can be seen running past the west end of the Church. I have now found that Church Lane was the name given to "The Jitty" or Lover's Lane (running behind the Baptist Chapel, as it provided the residents of Chapel End with a lane to the Church.
On the subject of names of the roads, what is now Main Street was - at one time divided into Long End (or Top End) to the North, Middle Street and Bottom End. Mill Road was Mill Lane and a map of 1869 suggests before that at one time it was Stackhouse Lane. It has been suggested that Gain's Lane had no name until the Post Office demanded that it had one !

Page 21. Under picture 9 it says "Rose Yeomans had once eloped to marry Fred Rowell". This was an unfortunate mis-reading of Jean Wither's original manuscript, and should have read ".... once hoped to marry. Fred Rowell". In fact he married Rosemary Smith, the daughter of the village postmistress.

Page 25. A combination of rusty memory and the authors not checking the manuscript has resulted in some wrong assignment of cottages. We believe that the Redheads lived in one of the cottages set back behind that occupied by the Foster family, which used to be at No 62 where the Alexanders now live. In the next pair of cottages down the hill, Mrs Box was at No 54 and Mr Sanders (not Saunders) at No 52.

Page 29. We need to correct the inhabitants of the two pairs of cottages at the top of Gains Lane which now are included in No 25 - the Woodley's house. The cottages shown in Picture 32a housed Jane Glover and her daughter Emily Coles with Fred Coles. The other cottages (32b) were knocked into one and Page Brawn lived there - to be joined during the war by his daughter - Mrs Nash and her husband.

Page 30. In the farm on the corner of Gains Lane - Picture 33 - lived the Bosworths for a time.

Page 44. I have now tracked down that the castle where John Engaine was awarded the charter for a market in Great Gidding in 1303 - Gartenrode - was Castle Roy, near Nethy Bridge on Speyside. "Rode" and "Roy" both mean "Red" - the castle was built in a reddish stone - and at the time that whole area was known as Garten.

Page 47. Since writing about the Furlong names I have discovered a survey of the whole field system carried out in 1802, which lists the names of all the furlongs at that time. These are being published with many more pieces of new information on a new CD.

Page 50. I suggested that John Henson's house at the top of the street, where Manor Site Farm now stands - pictured - might be that with 7 hearths in the Hearth Tax records of 1674. I am now certain that this was not the case as it is clear that the occupiers are listed in the order of their houses down the street. In 1674 there were still Hensons living there and they had 4 hearths. This means the 7 hearth house was probably in Chapel End - and increases the likelihood that there could have been a Manor House in Gaines Close.

Page 71. We did not know where the village children were taught before the present school was built in 1846. I now know that Benjamin Horsford, schoolmaster, and his son Cornelius Horsford after him, at least from 1785 until 1841 lived just below the Crown Inn - see figures 22 and 24 on page 26 of the History. Is it possible that the thatched building between the cottage and the Almshouses was a school-room ?

Page 87. When the book was written the first mention I had found of the Bull and Boar Inn (now the Fox and Hounds) was in 1754. I have now found that one Robert Callis, Innkeeper and victualler, was living in precisely the right part of the street in the period from 1717 to 1725, and that he took over from one Nicholas Callis in 1707. Even back to the 1641 map it can be seen that one "Kellis" rented the property next to Mill Lane. So it seems that there may have been an Inn at its present location for the past 350 years.

Patrick Ellis February 2004

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The Shape of the Village

Maps of all or part of the village of Great Gidding exist for the years 1851, 1866, 1871, 1887, 1901 and 1924. Studying these, together with the Census returns made every 10 years from 1841 to 1901, and a few useful records of transfer of property, it has been possible to piece together where the houses and cottages were and for certain periods of time, who lived in them. For those that were privately owned or were copyhold properties, there are records of many of the changes of ownership and can go back into the 18th century and for a few properties it is possible to make reasonable guesses to tie up the ownership with the map of 1641. To trace the occupiers is harder, except that it is probable that before 1750 or so the owners lived there.

How accurately this has been possible, and with what confidence, depends on the property in question. The main problem arises from the variable number of families that seem to have been squeezed into some tenements. Cottages appear to have been subdivided and later recombined, and whole areas have, from time to time been redeveloped.

As discussed in "the history" ( A Millennium History of Great Gidding , published in March 2001) it is probable that the village was initially centred on Chapel End. The new village, probably built in the mid 1200s, was originally determined to support the Open Field system of farming, which remained in operation until the 1860s. Records show that from the time regular records are available in about 1770, there were about 9 farms of 100 acres or more in the parish — mostly owned by the Lord of the Manor and rented to the farmers.

In general the farms were placed along the west side of Main Street as there was direct access to the Open Fields from the back of their closes via Backside Lane. The support businesses were placed on the east side, with the single exception of Laurel Farm, which had direct access to the Mill and the fields to the East as there was no building along Mill Road until after Enclosure in 1869. Chapel End had two farms - one eventually known as Mill Farm and a smaller one based on what is now Thatch Cottage.

Many of the services for the farmers were situated on the east side of Main Street, including two blacksmiths, a carpenter, a harness-maker, a wheelwright, a grocer, a butcher, a baker, several shoemakers, and a tailor. There were a few more on the west side and in Chapel End.

To provide labour for these farms there were, in the mid 1800s, five concentrations of cottages up the east side of Main Street - in one case what amounted almost to a ghetto - and a scattering of cottages in Chapel End. There were two at the bottom of Main Street - on either side of the Manse. A small one where the village Hall now stands, about 8 cottages where the Alexanders now live (No 62) and "the ghetto" across Mill Road from the Fox and Hounds. From 1851 and 1871 between 80 and 85 people lived here, and it may have been this overcrowding that eventually caused the Mill Road development.

The History of a few properties

In addition to working backwards in time from the Census returns, I have always wanted to see if I could trace a house (or at least a plot) through from the 1641 map to more recent times, and learn who owned / occupied it. As most of the village was owned by the Lord of the Manor, this limited the choice, as I do not have rent books except for the more recent times.

There are a number of families who formed what I have called in the History the Principal Families of the village. These families often own or occupy more than one house, and they will often form cross-threads between the houses and farms. It should be remembered that Great Gidding was farmed under the open field system until 1858, when enclosure occurred. The result was that the owners of farms could, in principle, continue to live in one farm-house and rent a variety of combinations of strips in the many furlongs of the three open fields. In practise, people seem to have moved farm-houses when they changed to larger farms. When they rented more than one farm at the same time, they presumably sub-let the less desirable farm-house to members of their families or to outsiders.

A number of properties were owned freehold - there were six in 1641. For others the copyhold had been purchased (which controlled the level of rent which could be charged) and this could be sold or handed down to members of the family. There were about 12 of these copyhold properties shown on the 1641 map. For these two categories of ownership, records were kept of the transfer of title in the Manor Court records, and so with good fortune ownership can be traced through time. These tended to be just a cottage with a small croft of an acre or less, or a cottage plus a close of up to 7 acres. It was probably usually the case that farmers who owned cottages rented these out while they were renting larger farms, or put in their relations, either as young families or when they were past working age.

Most farms, and the associated farm-houses were owned by the Lord of the Manor, and so the only way to follow the tenancy is through the rent books. These exist back to 1827, when the Fitzwilliam estate bought the village and before that I have had to rely on Land Tax records and lists of levies to support the poor which were demanded of all rent payers and property owners, as a direct proportion of the rentable value. Other lists show how many sheep and cows could be kept on the common lands in the village - and again these were in direct proportion to the rentable value of the properties. The approximate sizes of the various farms can therefore be estimated and a reasonable deduction made of the transfer of farms. This is possible back to 1780 reliably and on occasion a few decades further back.

A terrier of 1724 lists 11 farms (to which must be added Gidding Grove Farm), 8 half farms, 33 cottages and 11 small cottages. Later land-tax records, rent lists and census returns mention houses and cottages. For convenience I am not going to try to identify the borderline between cottages and houses. If anyone feels aggrieved that their current residence has been wrongly identified, I apologise.

I started with Faulkners Cottage - No 55/57 Main Street - (see page 12 of the History and also shown in the top picture of page 14). In fact I started with the Manor Court records and the one that looked most promising has turned out to be this cottage. If I had chosen a cottage to research it would have been this one - not only because it is one of the prettiest in the village, but we now think it is about the oldest. It has been recently bought and is being renovated - and has to retain its external features. It is stripped out completely inside at present and one can clearly see the timbers of an earlier cottage with much steeper roof-line. I had intended to limit this to the one property, but one thing leads to another !

I have now added links back to the 1641 map for No 50, the plot, just above the village Hall and most recently Crown Cottage. More are possible, but will need further visits to the record offices, and may involve transcription from the Latin records. It will not happen quickly.

FAULKNER'S COTTAGE (55/57 Main Street)

OWNERSHIP

In about 1630 a family called Daniel arrived in Gt Gidding and Thomas Daniel bought or inherited the copyhold to the property (it was variously over the years described as 2 or 3 cottages/dwellings). I should explain that the copyhold was not outright ownership of the property, but provided security of tenure and the right to pass this on to one's heirs - provided that the terms of the agreement, such as payment of rent and maintaining certain features of the property, were fulfilled. In the case of Faulkner's cottage the Lords of the Manor held the freehold until after 1900, so when I talk about inheriting or selling it is the copyhold which is involved.

Thomas Daniel's name is on the 1641 map (page 43, find the site of Manor House in Parsonage close and the plot we are talking about is three to the left of this up the hill) I have seen the original map and I can assure you that it reads "Tho Danell". When Thomas died, it passed, directly or indirectly to James and his wife Sarah (Hodgskin). They had a daughter Ann, and she inherited it in 1680. She held it until she died in 1738 by which time she was married to Edward Crawley (1667-1748). On her death the property was passed to her son Edward, who himself died in 1743 leaving it to his infant son Edward (1738 - ?).

In 1768 Edward Crawley sold it to James Cheney (1746-1823) who had just arrived in the village from Woodford, near Raunds, and it stayed in the Cheney family for 90 years. On his death James passed it to his son, William (1772-1852) and he, in turn passed it to his Grandchildren, William and Thomas Cheney (sons of James Cheney who died in 1842 and appears to have left Gidding before then).

In 1858 it was sold to Thomas Brawn, the third son of John Brawn who arrived in the village in about 1810. Thomas rented, and was living in, the house next door (No 59 - see picture on page 12). In 1870 it went, via William Brawn (Thomas's brother or nephew), to Robert Austin (wheelwright) who passed the copyhold to his son Horace when he died in 1903. Horace Austin was listed as the owner at the time of the 1910 Land Tax survey, so at some time he bought the freehold from the Fitzwilliam Estate. In 1927 it was bought by James Faulkner (wheelwright) who had previously lived in one of the two Mill Cottages, and who in 1960 passed it to his son, Tom Faulkner (wheelwright) - who still owned the cottage when he died in 2000.

DATING THE PRESENT BUILDING

Now that the cottage is being renovated, the steeper roof-line of an older building can be seen in the roof space and so an early single storey cottage was raised and refaced with reddish brick. This was probably done some time around 1800.This would fit well with the fact that the population seems to have started going up from about 275 in 1750 reaching about 500 by 1820. We also know that the Fitzwilliam Estate bought the Lordship of village in 1827 and started a programme of renovation of cottages and other new building - as it did in other estates it owned. The school was built in 1846.

It is possible that this brick came from the Great Gidding brick-yard, but this is not easy to tell.

It has been said that the reddish brick came from the brickyard at the clay-pit at the bottom of the village and the more yellow clay from the pits just above the Chapel End pond. However, this is not certain. The map of 1802 does not show any buildings or pits in the field which became the brickyard; there is nothing clear on the 1832 ordnance survey map; there was a brick-maker renting the brickyard by 1839 and by 1851 there are clearly several buildings in the brickyard. If Faulkner's cottage is Great Gidding brick, then the re-facing might be later than we thought - or perhaps reddish clay came from Chapel End before the brickyard was started. It would be interesting to get a brick expert to do some work on this subject.

OCCUPIERS

The Daniels

This is a much harder job to unravel - and rather less continuous. Thomas Daniel appears, from the map, to have lived there in 1641 and presumably up to his death in 1661. His son James married Sarah Hodgkins in 1662 and must have lived in the cottage. In 1671 James died and there are records of widow Daniel receiving parish assistance from 1677 to '79 and then it stops. This fits well with the property passing to the 13 year old Ann in 1680 and perhaps she and her two sisters continued to live there, if indeed they were still alive.

The Crawleys

Edward Crawley arrived in Great Gidding from Wooley - a few miles to the south - in the early 1690s presumably looking for somewhere to live, and found Ann in her mid 20s with a desirable residence and he married her in about 1695. Edward and Ann must have lived there until 1738, when Ann died. It is then possible that their son, Edward junior moved in to look after Dad. Both Edward junior and his wife, Mary died in 1743 whereupon their 5 year old son inherited. Edward senior died in 1748 and so who looked after young Edward is not known, nor even if he stayed in GG. Perhaps another of Edward senior's children was living there. We know that the cottage(s) were rented to one Everett Penn in the period up to their sale in 1768 to the Cheneys.

The Cheneys

James Cheney arrived in the village newly married to Ann (maiden name unknown), and presumably moved into the cottage, but straight away, in 1769, Ann died producing a daughter (who survived). In 1770 or '71 James married again (another Ann - Richards) and their four sons were born by 1776. The records are quite good from 1780, and they show that by then, James Cheney owned the cottage but at the same time rented a second property from the Lord of the Manor, so it is not clear in which one he lived. For interest, this second cottage was rebuilt in 1839 and I have been able to trace that it was at 52/54 Main Street where Joseph Joyce lived in 1851 - see the map on page 59 and pictures on pages 12 and 25 (picture 19). My guess is that James moved into the larger, rented cottages before 1780 and rented out his own cottages. We know that Jeffery Heighton (blacksmith and leading light in the establishment of the Baptist Chapel in Gidding) lived there from 1783 to 1786. Samuel Cheney - (shoemaker and son of James) seems to have spent his whole working life outside the village (perhaps in Sawtry) but returned there by 1816 and lived in the cottage just before he died at age 40 and his widow, Jane, was still there in 1822. In 1831 a George Bird lived there.

I doubt if William Cheney (1772-1852), eldest son of James senior, ever lived in the cottage, as by 1806 he was established in a farm rented from the Lord of the Manor (with cottage and close attached) of about 100 acres, and he was there until about 1816, when it passed to Samuel Goodwin who married Sarah Cheney - William's Aunt. Samuel Goodwin died in 1826 and his son Josiah Goodwin took over until his death in 1841. This needs more work, but their house/cottage was probably on the site rented by Nathaniel Ditchins and shown on the 1851 map on page 59 of the History and was destroyed in the Great Fire of 1861. There is no dwelling house on the site now, which is next to Warren House.

James senior's second son, James Junior (1774-1845), rented another farm, of about 120 acres from the Lord of the Manor from 1803 to 1814. This farm was another victim of the 1861 fire and was rebuilt as Laurel Farm, and for convenience the site will be so called. James junior appears to have left the village by 1816 for Luddington. When he left Laurel farm it was taken over by his elder brother William (see previous paragraph) until about 1827 when William also left the village, this time for Lutton, where he took over Manor Farm until his death in 1852.

Returning to Faulkners cottages, from the 1820s to the 1850s the property is described as "3 dwelling houses". James Yardey, son in law to William (he married William's eldest daughter) lived there from 1813 to at least 1822, even though his first wife Ann Cheney died after only three years of marriage at the age of 21. A William Cheney was there in 1824 but I suspect this was the son of William senior, who then moved into the house at 52/54 Main Street, vacated after James, his grandfather, died. But he was only there for a short time as he himself died in 1828. When records become more frequent, it can be seen that there is a regular turnover of people. The only recorded business to be run from the property is that of a shoemaker - Thomas Dunkley living there for ten or fifteen years.

The last 150 years

Thomas Brawn bought the cottages in 1858 but he may never have lived there. We know that he moved to Lutton before 1861, where he took over Manor farm previously rented by William Cheney.

In 1870 the property is described as 2 dwellings, and Robert Austin starts its 120 year period as a wheelwright's and carpenter's shop. Sometime before 1910 John Orton moved in and from before 1927 the Faulkners lived and worked there. Tom Faulkner lived in one half of the cottages until a couple of years before he died.

50 MAIN STREET

Jeffery Heighton rented Faulkeners Cottage for a few years, from 1783. He was one of two or three blacksmiths in the village. The place he moved to and eventually inherited was where William Austin (the Blacksmith) lived in 1851 (see page 59 map on the right of Main Street, half way up). The house/cottage was replaced in the early 1900's. It was immediately opposite the White Hart Pub. The only pictures that remain are what looks like the smithy shown on the right of the picture on page 5 and you can see the end of the cottage as picture 9 on page 2 -"Houses no longer with us". The house that stands there now is picture 20 on page 25. Jeffery Heighton was in that cottage from 1786 to 1827, but was gone by 1831. In 1841 (at over 85 years of age) he was further up Main Street on the right hand side still approx where R Fletcher was in the 1851 map on page 59.

There is conflicting evidence as to when he actually owned the place. The Land Tax returns show him as owner in 1822 but not in the previous list of 1816. For years the owner is said to be "Oakley's estate". In the Manor Court Rolls it says that John Heighton, Ironmonger, of 19 Free School Street, Horsley Down, London acquired the property in 1817 and passed it to his heir, Jeffery in 1825. John was Jeffery's eldest son, who died in 1825. The Manor Court Rolls for the period 1808 to 1834 have several entries on these transactions. They state that Jeffery is his son John's heir but also that Jeffery paid John £100 for the property and soon sold it to William Austin for £150. They may have been related but they were also business men !

By 1831 the land tax returns show the property is both owned and occupied by William Austin, newly arrived in the village from Deenethorpe. William Austin was Jeffery's son in law who married his daughter, Hannah in about 1827, and so he probably took over from Jeffery in 1827 or soon afterwards. William died in 1875 and so the property had already stayed "in the family" for 100 years. William's son William was also a blacksmith and took over the property from 1876 to 1883, when he seems to have left the village. It is possible that the property came to his brother Robert who owned the copyright and occupied number 55/57 Main Street. Robert married Fanny Yeomans in 1865 and although there then follows a gap in our knowledge, it is probably not a coincidence that by 1910, ownership had passed to the Yeomans, who were butchers. So how did it come about that Jeffery Heighton "just happened" in 1786, to move into the house he was going to inherit 40 years later ??

One Samuel Oakley bought the property from John Coles - blacksmith of Titchmarsh (south -west of GG)- in 1786. It turns out that Oakley was a school master in Lowick (west of Tichmarsh) and he left the property to his nephew- also Samuel Oakley, and also a schoolmaster - in Deene (NW of Oundle) about 1808. In 1817 it came to John Heighton as the "nephew and heir of Samuel Oakley, deceased". Jeffery's wife was Elizabeth Bright and it looks very much as though Samuel Oakley, Junior, married Elizabeth Bright's sister, and the Heighton/Bright family provided the means for Jeffery to live and work in Great Gidding for some 50 years. It cannot be a coincidence either that William Austin, who eventually inherited the property was born in Deenethorpe, no more than a mile or two from Deene. Neither can it be a coincidence that in 1881 the apprentice wheelwright working with Robert Austin was one Thomas Oakley.

Taking the ownership back further in time, John Coles bought it from William Danford of Oundle who bought it from Josiah Smith in 1780. Josiah Smith was a butcher and there are records of some property being passed down from his Father - also Josiah Smith and a butcher who bought some property from Thomas Gostelow in 1711. Before about 1730 the records are in Latin and I am prepared to assume that Thomas Gostelow was left the relevant property by William in 1688, and William by another Thomas in 1659 and Thomas by James Gostelow in 1630. The satisfying thing is that the property we have been following was indeed owned by Thomas Gosteloe on our 1641 map.

CROWN COTTAGE

I have some reservations about tracing the history of the occupation and ownership of Crown Cottage because only between 1711 and 1748 is there any mention of a cottage, but by following both the land ownership and the occupation, the result seems to agree closely with other information that exists.

OWNERSHIP

On the 1641 map the property boundaries in the area opposite the Church are less accurate than they are further up the street. What is now Crown Cottage appears to have been built in the freehold property of Brian Serles

There is a document in the Public Record Office in London which includes a transaction between a Mr Serles and John Henson in 1642. As the Serles family then disappear from the village, I guess this was a purchase by John Henson, perhaps the same John Henson whose initials and the date 1629, were inscribed above the door of the cottage which stood on the site of Manor Site Farm until the 1920s.

The Hensons also acquired some land in 1696 from the Cooper family who, in 1641 owned the property below Serles. By 1851 the property on Main Street, (which later included the Alms houses and Manor Farmhouse), was owned by the Lord of the Manor, There is a document of 1659 which may explain what happened, but 7.5 acres of Cooper land — probably in the open fields — remained to be sold to the Hensons.

The Hensons were very certainly a major family in the area, for over 300 years up to the middle of the 19th century. It must be assumed the property stayed in the family until it was left in 1713 by another John Henson a yeoman (ie a farmer), whose Will has survived which shows he leaves a cottage which, if his infant daughter dies before she is 18, passes to his eldest son — also John. This seems to have happened, for the son dies in 1748 and in his Will he leaves the cottage to his wife, Ann.

When she dies in 1770 the property, which retains some of the Cooper land, is divided between their two married daughters Ann Ladds and Elizabeth Chambers, with the elder daughter, Elizabeth, inheriting the major portion including the cottage.

From 1781 rent and land tax records exist and in that year one finds that widow Ladds (I cannot find when Ann's husband, William Ladds, died) is paying tax for "Chamber's cottage", a nice re-assurance that I am on the right track. Thereafter it is plain sailing.

In 1804 Elizabeth Chambers died and left her portion back into the Ladds family — to her nephew John Henson Ladds. Ann survives for another 20 years and in 1824 leaves her smaller share to her son William, — brother to John Henson Ladds.

In 1827 both brothers decide to sell to Edward Maltby, (who later became Bishop of Durham), for a total of £240. The bishop sold it in 1841 for £350 to William Simpson, who six years later sold it to John Simpson for £495 — a doubling of value in under 20 years. The tithe map of 1851 confirms that the Crown Inn and the close behind it were then owned by John Simpson, so this chain of ownership I have followed seems to be more or less correct.

In 1861 it was sold to Edward Yeomans, and by 1898 it was owned by Jenkins & Jones, the owners of the Falcon Brewery in Huntingdon. It ceased to be an Inn in 1928. It returned to private ownership and since 19xx has been the home of David Shepherd, who has done much to retain the connection between the property and the consumption of fine ales.

OCCUPATION

In the early years it is difficult to tell whether a member of the owners family lived in the cottage, or whether they rented it out. In 1711, John Henson's Will tells us it was occupied by one John Coles. He may have stayed as the tenant, with his wife Lydia, for some time, for they were still in the village up to their deaths in 1736 and 1737.

By 1757 I believe that the occupiers were John and Elizabeth Weston, Certainly John paid land tax on it in 1767 and by 1780, widow Weston was still there, John having died in 1774. In 1781 and 1782 widow Ladds lived there briefly, although it is possible she had been living there for a while, with the Westons.

In the History, I surmised that the first Innkeeper of the Crown was John Knighton, for from the mid 1780s he was paid for the supply of ale to the village residents when communal work was undertaken, such as clearing out Townend Pond. I can now confirm this was so, for in 1783 he is recorded as taking over from widow Ladds. It is probable that this is the time that the old cottage was replaced by the purpose-built Crown Inn. If the 1641 map is accurate, then the original cottage was slightly higher up the hill than the position of the Inn.

The first mention of the name so far found in 1800 gives it as "Rose and Crown". In 1813 it was the Crown and again in 1851, but in 1854 it was again the Rose and Crown. It did not seem to matter which was used.

John Knighton was still there in 1822 — a tenure of 40 years, although his wife, Sarah had died in 1804, but by the time of the 1827 Land Tax returns, the ownership had changed to the Bishop of Durham and one Thomas Danes had taken over the occupancy. Danes has no other relationship with the village, and so it looks as though the Bishop put him in to look after his assets!

We now reach the time of the Census returns and see Thomas Danes still there in 1841. Perhaps he left when the Bishop sold the property. John Crawley was in the Crown by the census of 1847, and maybe earlier and stayed there until his death in 1867. It appears that his wife Ann kept it going until her death ten years later.

By 1881 the Garratts had begun their long reign as the landlords of Gidding starting with Richard Stevens Garratt (sometimes known as Richard, but also as Stephen) and his wife Charlotte. Richard stayed until 1895 and trained three of his sons to follow him. Frederick was listed as publican at the Crown in 1891 before taking over at the Fox and Hounds in 1894, assisted by his younger brother Richard Junior. By 1901 the third son Arthur Garratt was in charge of the Crown. He was eventually replaced in about 1910 by Charles Burton who ran it until 1927, when the Huntingdon Brewery Company (which had absorbed the Falcon Brewery) transferred its interest to the Fox and Hounds, apparently taking the landlord with them, although he continued living at the Crown until 1931.

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A Millennium History of Great Gidding.

Extracts from 'A Millenium History of Great Gidding'

The name

Some of the variation of names by which the village has been known over the years can be put down to the fact that until the mid 1700's there was no standard way of spelling. In the Domesday Book Redinges and Gedelinge are mentioned, and in later documents Gidding Engaine, Gidding Prior, and Gidding Moynes referred to particular parts of the Parish. The Latin forms Gidding Magna (and Gidding Parva) were used even when the rest of the document was in English, and Magna was sometimes translated as Much or High. Greate Gyddynge, Grette Gidden and Gros Giding are some of the many spelling variations. There does not seem to be any consistent change of spelling through the centuries - just people showing degrees of independence - or ignorance.

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Great Gidding is a parish and village which since the 1980's has been in the County of Cambridgeshire, but since the time of Domesday it was part of Leightonstone Hundred and Huntingdonshire and before that part of Mercia. Oundle (at 7 miles) is the nearest small town, seen for centuries as 'the big city' - but in more recent times Huntingdon and Peterborough (both 10 miles away) have provided work and have brought newcomers into Great Gidding.

The parish is bounded on the north east by the Bullock Road - an old droving road used to take livestock from the North of England to London - with Glatton and Sawtry adjoining.

To the south east the boundary with Little Gidding and Winwick winds and side-steps its way along hedgerows following no current roads and appears to have no natural old roots, except for a short distance where it follows the Alconbury Brook before diving off, once more across the fields. It is entirely possible, however, that it marks the line of an ancient trackway.

The Northern boundary is shared with Luddington all the way, where it is not only a parish boundary but becomes the county boundary with Northamptonshire and here old roads give it some form and are clearly defined. For example, at its junction with the Bullock Road, what was Yaxley Way is now known as Gipsy Lane. When Yaxley Way reaches Oundle Way close to Luddington village, the boundary follows the Alconbury Brook for a while.

The side-step along the brook has allowed in the planners, and some of Great Gidding has been lost to Luddington - and to Northamptonshire. The old and knarled willows which clearly marked the ancient county boundary now form no more than a field hedge. There is a rule of thumb for dating old hedges whereby the number of different tree species it contains defines its age in centuries.

Finally the boundary once more follows a clear track on towards Winwick to its junction at the Thurning Road. A document, now lost, records a man "hanged on the Gibbet at the corner of the hedge at the top of (Gidding) Lordship joining Winwick". As a result of this gibbet the track was known as Gibbet Lane.Links with the past.

The village is in the middle of the parish and on the north side of the brook. Some 17th century houses of timber and thatch remained until this century but they have now all disappeared. The church and Vicarage are at the south-west corner of the village. In 1973, the parish was united with Little Gidding and Steeple Gidding parishes to create a single ecclesiastical parish.

There are many signs still remaining in Great Gidding that provide links with the past. Some of them are to be found in the lumps and bumps which are still to be seen in the fields, and some are in the form of tracks going nowhere or old hedgerows forming no apparent boundary. (The inside front cover of 'A Millennium History of Great Gidding' pinpoints, with photographs, some of the buildings that have disappeared from the village during the last century).

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The most important links we have with those who used to live in the village are the many documents which remain. These are mostly legal papers and deeds and other official documents but enough remain to be able to see a little of what went on over the past centuries.

Church records
The Church of England has kept records of Baptisms, Marriages and Burials that happened in each Parish. In the case of Great Gidding these records are fairly complete from about 1600 to 1877. Unfortunately the book containing Baptisms after 1877 is missing.

The Baptist Church, which was very strong in Great Gidding in the 19th century, was not so consistent at keeping their records, but a few remain.

Census records
The Census records listing every person in the village started in 1841 and were taken every ten years. Unfortunately for family history researchers these records must remain confidential for 100 years and so the most recent census available is for 1891.

The Parish Records and Census are available for most parishes in the country for at least the past 300 years. But what other records exist depends to a large extent on good fortune.
For Great Gidding there are intermittent lists of those who paid taxes on hearths (from 1523) and on the land they farmed (from 1727). There are rent lists (from 1599) and rate lists of various kinds (from 1780). Some people wrote wills, and although some 180 survive those so far examined have been disappointing in providing interesting detail. However, up to about 1785, some people when they died had an inventory made of their belongings. Although only 47 inventories survive for the village, they give a detailed glimpse of the standard of living in the home and on the farm.

The village was mostly owned by the Lord of the Manor, and for the Watsons of Rockingham Castle and the Fitzwilliams of Milton Estates, good records exist of the leases of land, and the operation of the Manor Court which recorded transfers of property etc. etc.
The day-to-day running of the village and in particular the operation of the open field system under which the village farmed the land, was controlled by elected officers of the village. Churchwardens looked after Church affairs, Constables were responsible for law and order, Overseers took responsibility for the poor and collected the rates to pay for them, and the fields were supervised by the Cow Common Officer. There were other jobs allocated. These jobs were given to the most responsible members of the village (they did not like doing them, so they were taken in rotation). Records exist for these officers from most years between 1617 and 1814. All these officers kept account books, and these are a gold-mine of information. They contain the names of the poor who received money and of all the villagers who paid it, and how much. As the poor rate was linked to the rent paid for land it becomes clear which were the major farmers and which were the cottagers.

To allow us to understand the social position of a person in the community one of the first things we need to know, apart from their age, is their occupation. For more recent years from 1841, the census returns help us and from 1847 there are directories of some of the trades in the village. Before this consistent lists of who did what are not easy to find, but can be gleaned from various records. For instance wills and inventories, marriage entries and other documents such as the village officer's accounts sometimes list occupations. There is occasionally a really useful list such as a hand-out of bread to 60 families in the village in 1788 with the occupation of the head of each house listed.

Map records
There are also estate maps and tithe maps and enclosure maps which sometimes give interesting details, and maps which give the names of commons, fields and furlongs. Of course there is the well known 1641 map which records where individuals had their houses or crofts, and the 1851 tithe map has similar information. It is a challenge - so far unsuccessfully met - to deduce the occupation of each property in the intervening years.

Inventories
Inventories of the Church of England were taken from time to time. These describe, in varying detail, the tithes paid to the vicar, the property kept in the church, and lists some of the villagers. There are also various 19th century records of the Particular Baptists and the Chapel at the time of its greatest influence.

Voting lists
There are voting lists for a number of years from 1710 onwards, and records from the school chest. In fact there is an amazing number of records. And more could well appear.

Use is made throughout 'A Millennium History of Great Gidding' of many of the documents described above. The original documents are mostly kept in the County Record Office, Huntingdon -
tel: +44 (0)1480 375842
email county.records.hunts@cambridgeshire.gov.uk
Website www.edweb.camcnty.gov.uk/archive

Estate papers of the Watsons of Rockingham Castle and the Fitzwilliams of Milton Estates are kept at Northamptonshire Record Office -
tel:+44 (0)1604 762129
email archivist@nro.northamptonshire.gov.uk
Website www.nro.northamptonshire.gov.uk

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Early Days
At the time of the Domesday Survey, in 1086, what are now Great and Little Gidding were one parish. This parish was owned mostly by William Engaine and Eustace the Sheriff, with about 300 acres being part of the estates of the Abbots of Ramsey.

Some 700 acres of the Engaine portion were separated off in the twelfth century, being known at one time as Gidding Engaine before it became Little Gidding. The remainder of the parish continued to be owned by three different Lords of the Manor until the time of Elizabeth I. That part originally owned by the Abbots of Ramsey was sold to the Moyne family and thereafter was called Gidding Moyne, whilst Eustace the Sheriff had sold his 1400 acres to St Mary's Priory and this was known as Gidding Priors. The remaining 650 acres was described as Engaine Manor.

The dissolution of the Monastaries and the Elizabeth I's purge of the Catholics resulted in the whole parish coming under the ownership of the heir to Gidding Moyne. This was the Watson family of Rockingham Castle, Near Corby, in Northamptonshire. For exactly 200 years, from 1587 to 1827, the Watsons and their descendents were Lords of the Manor of Great Gidding.

Which part of the village was originally owned by who, the development of the village and its roads and the location of the manor house, or houses, are not certain, and are discussed in The Millenium History.

The Open Fields
Great Gidding was a farming community. With the possible exception of wool spinning, all the employment in the village was either directly concerned with farming or with a trade in support of farming - blacksmiths, wheelwrights etc. In the nineteenth century there were a few families who made boots and shoes.

Most parishes in the area became enclosed in the eighteenth century or in the first half of the nineteenth. Great Gidding was the last in Huntingdon and the second last in the enlarged Cambridgeshire to give up the open field system - completed as late as 1869.

As the Watsons of Rockingham did not live in the village, they appear, on a regular basis, to have appointed men from outside the village to farm the only enclosed area in the parish - the 360 acre Gidding Grove Farm. These men became, successively, the Squires of the village. How they ran the village can be seen from the village officer's account books and the Manor Court roles. We are lucky that several surveys of the village exist for the last few years of the sixteenth century. A detailed map survives of the village and its inhabitants for 1641 - also the year of a Protestation Return.

In 1827 the Watsons sold their Lordship of the parish to the Fitzwilliams of Milton, who retain it to this day. For the first thirty or forty years nothing much changed, until enclosure.

There is a tithe map of the village showing where the rate-payers lived and who owned each property for 1851 which happily coincides with a census year. During the period of enclosure from 1858 to 1869 there are good maps of the parish and furlong names can be ascertained, but which name belongs to which furlong has yet to be worked out. Lists of furlong names can also be found in the late sixteenth century documents and at can be seen that about 50% of the 100 names survived the 250 year period.

The Village
The houses were originally timber-framed and thatched. The belt of limestone built villages starts about five miles to the north of Great Gidding. There was one stone built house built in 1629, but otherwise timber-frame houses were still being built right up to the end of the eighteenth century, although there is evidence that brick houses were built as early as 1723. The Royal Commission on Historical Monuments wrongly suggests that as many as nine seventeenth century buildings were still standing in 1926. It was just that changes of fashion were late arriving in Great Gidding.

The population of the village remained more or less constant at about 250 or 300 until the second half of the eighteenth century. There is no sign of any spread of the village to absorb the increase, when it did occur, nor indeed when the number reached over 500 in about 1840. Houses and cottages were subdivided or extended and tenements were built in yards behind existing buildings.

A major spur to rebuilding, however, occurred in 1861 when about 150 yards of cottages burned down. Not only was this stretch of Main Street redeveloped, but there was some "keeping up with the Jones" with cottages in Chapel End, Church Farm and the Baptist Manse all being built in 1862. It is not established how much of the brick used in this building boom came from Gidding's own brickyard, which was certainly active throughout the mid nineteenth century.

Some Institutions

The Baptist Chapel (photo)

The Baptist Chapel was built in 1790 towards which 43 people contributed £33. In 1862, the Manse was built from the subscription of £250 from 250 residents. Some records exist, but they are not complete. An early pastor was Joseph Norris whose autobiography is contained in the Huntingdon Record office's archives.

The Wesleyan Chapel (photo1) (photo2)

The Wesleyan Chapel was probably built in 1839 - the same year as that built in the nearby village of Old Weston. In 1906 a Sunday school was added.

The School

In 1846 the present school was built. There are records of schoolmasters, and schoolmistresses from about 1750 onwards. There were some notably long serving teachers. Benjamin Horsford and his son Cornelius were between them in office for over 80 years from 1764, whilst Richard Hall married his predecessor's daughter and stayed for 42 years.

Fox and Hounds (photo1) (photo2)

The earliest Inn recorded was the Bull and Boar, first mentioned in 1754. This changed it's name to the Fox and Hounds before 1839, perhaps soon after the Fitzwilliams became Lords of the Manor in 1827. The Crawley family ran the pub continuously from 1780 to 1861.

The Crown (photo)

The Rose and Crown - later the Crown - was built as a pub in about 1780 and stayed in business until 1931. The Crawley family also ran this pub for at least 35 years in the mid nineteenth century and were followed for the next 30 years by the Garratt family.

The White Hart (photo)

The third pub, the White Hart, was in operation for 50 years from 1840. The Crawleys did not appear to run this !

From the period 1617 to 1780, there survive some 50 inventories of all their possessions, taken when people died, and listed by each room and valued. These show how many rooms their houses had, what , if any, luxuries, how many animals, what farm implements and carts, etc.

Because so little changed for such a long period, the families in the village remained for many generations, and their progress in the village can be traced through the Manor Court records and the village officer's account books. Lists of these long-lasting and successful families, an idea of what they paid in rent, four of their inventories, some of the rules under which they used the common lands, how they looked after the poor are some of the items contained in The Millenium History.

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The church of St. Michael consists of a chancel, nave, north aisle, south aisle, west tower and spire and a south porch. The walls are of rubble with stone dressings and the roofs are covered with slates and lead. The church is not mentioned in the Domesday survey of 1086. There was, however, a stone church here before the middle of the 13th century, which is the date of the present south doorway; the late 13th century chancel is, undoubtedly, a rebuilding of part of that early church. A western tower was added to it in the first half of the 14th century, but the belfry was not built until about 1370. The nave and the chancel arch were rebuilt arount 1400, and some 60 years later, the two aisles, the clearstory and the porch were rebuilt. The parapets of the tower and spire were not built until the early years of the 16th century. The church was restored in 1870, when the walls of the chancel were raised and a new roof put on and the porch rebuilt again. The tower and the chancel arch were restored in 1925.

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Before reliable census figures became available in the nineteenth century, it is difficult to know what the population of the village was. It was probably remarkably stable, as the method of farming hardly changed and by and large, the same number of people were required to farm the land and provide the necessary manual labour and support trades for the farmers.

It has been estimated that there were about 250 people at the time of Domesday and this probably did not vary much below this number or above 350 until the late eighteenth century.

Population in 1801 - 420

Population in 1851 - 563

Population in 1901 - 337

Population in 1951 - 252

Population in 1971 - 209

Population in 1991 - 344.

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A Recent Historical Event! - Transco Gas Pipeline 1997

This is a very recent event that occurred in the Parish of Great Gidding and the only visible sign of its occurrence are marker posts and fenced hedge areas on the side of the local roads. This was the second pipeline to be laid, the first ran south east of the village. The work was undertaken by Entropose/ Laing, a joint venture company working for Transco.

The pipeline ran from the Lutton road valve complex to the compressor station on Kimbolton airfield taking a north westerly route through the parish passing close to Flitermere, across the fields of Manor Site Farm and Church Farm under the Alconbury brook and on towards Gidding Grove. Work started in January 1997 with a 40m wide strip marked out as working area.

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