The Oldest Features in The Deepings: Part One

St Guthlac's Church. Author's image.

I started to look into the oldest buildings and features in The Deepings some time ago but found myself struggling with illness and then engaged in other projects. I told myself it wasn't a big job and if I put my mind to it, I could easily prepare something for the Easter weekend - how wrong I was! The task of sifting through the reams of listed buildings and features has proved quite onerous at times and I was quite fed up with typing 'squared limestone' and 'Collyweston' in my notes. However, I have a new found respect for the history of The Deepings and now have to stop myself from travelling through the area and pointing at every building and shouting its date as I go!

Today's blogpost covers the oldest features in the area that can be seen (and theoretically touched - but I'm not recommending it) and include buildings and parts of the landscape. So which is the oldest?

Using the Lincolnshire Heritage Explorer website it is possible to view all of the archaeological features in the area of the Deepings, which is a brilliant resource for any endeavour such as this (see the link below). What I've been looking for are features still easily visible in the landscape, which rules out a large quantity of the crop marks visible on dry summer days from a plane or aerial photos. There are lots of Roman, Iron Age and Bronze Age features - some of the new housing estates in Market Deeping have been built on top of complex Roman and Iron Age features - but they are entirely or primarily hidden. However, there are a few worth mentioning. 

The most famous two are the ones I alluded to in an earlier post: Godsey Lane follows the route of Roman Car Dyke, continuing as a dyke to the north of Towngate East; Roman King Street runs north-south through West Deeping. What also need a mention are the two late Neolithic and early Bronze Age barrow cemeteries: one is just north of the Deeping bypass; the other is on Littleworth Drove, and they are part of the same landscape. I'm not naming the exact locations because these mounds are on private land and by people's homes - a gentle reminder, if needed, to respect people's space and property and not to go searching for prehistoric features in person.

There are another couple of mounds dating to the middle Iron Age and Roman period south of Towngate East. The mounds show up beautifully on lidar images (see the Bluesky Mapshop link below) and are part of a saltern (used to extract salt from the brackish water, which tells you a lot about the landscape) and a settlement.

Moving on from the landscape features, we've got our stone-based features. If you've read the post on Peterborough's oldest buildings, you're probably expecting a church, but you would be wrong. In contrast to the Peterborough buildings post I've also included features, which includes objects. The oldest features, therefore, are a Saxon grave cover sitting in the porch of St Guthlac's Church and part of a cross shaft in the chancel. They are dated to the late 10th or early 11th century and are in incredible condition for their age.

The Saxon fragment in the porch of St Guthlac. Author's image.

St Guthlac's isn't the oldest building, however, that award goes to the church at Deeping St James. Formerly a Benedictine priory, it was part of the wider Thorney Abbey portfolio and the settlement was known as East Deeping. The church is dated to 1139 but has, like all popular churches, had many additions and improvements over the years. The Saxon objects at St Guthlac's (a Saxon name) do provide evidence that there was a religious building - said to be a chapel - on the site before the current church and suggest that the prize should go to that site, but of course the Saxon building is no longer standing (for evidence of Saxon features in churches you need to head to Peterborough and my earlier post). The high banks that first helped to stop the river flooding the low land in the Deepings were also first created around 1,000 years ago (and should themselves be recognised as an important historical feature*) which allowed the ground to dry out and churches to be built.

St Guthlac's is dated to the late 12th century, with St Andrew's in West Deeping dated to the early 13th century. But St Andrew's is eclipsed in age by a rather curious feature practically hidden in the fields of northern Peterborough. Kenulph's Stone is the remains of a stone cross thought to date to around 1200. It marks the location where the north of Peterborough butts up against South Kesteven and South Holland. You might be thinking to yourself that surely it belongs in The Welland, for that is the boundary between Peterborough and Lincolnshire and you would be partly right. The cross was described as being in the water in the past (likely the surrounding bog rather than the actual Welland) and has been moved over time, but so has the river and banks, and there has been more than one argument over the siting of the cross. It gained an additional stone - a top - in 1819, which gives a little more height and gravitas to the cross, as have the other crosses in The Deepings.

Towngate Cross. Image by the Milepost Society via Geograph

Towngate Cross base also features in this list, the base dating to the 14th century. It too has an additional stone top which gives it the look of a stone traffic cone! It sits at the cross roads between Halfleet and Towngate and I guarantee that thousands of people travel past it everyday completely unaware that they're passing by an object that's been sat there for over 600 years.

There is another cross at Deeping St James and this is both the most impressive, but the most changed. Dating to the 15th century, the cross was made of beautiful carved stone, quite unlike any of the other local crosses. In 1819 (recognise that date?!) it was converted into a lock up, which is its current form. The old cross forms the top of the lockup, with a newer square stone room below it to hold criminals. 

The Lock Up at Deeping St James. Image by Rex Needle via Geograph

All of these buildings and features are designated scheduled monuments and/or Grade I listed buildings with the exception of the Saxon features which are named in the St Guthlac's listing and identified as monuments on the Lincolnshire Heritage Explorer website. Everything except the prehistoric features are worth a visit, and it's easy to visit two or three with a short walk, or all of them in one day if you're up for the challenge!

To recap:

• the oldest features are the Neolithic and Bronze Age barrow cemeteries
• the oldest building is the Church of St James in Deeping St James
• the oldest objects are the Saxon grave cover and cross in St Guthlac's church.

If you want to look into the records then head to the Lincolnshire Historic Environment Record at https://heritage-explorer.lincolnshire.gov.uk/map

If you want to explore the landscape using lidar and aerial photos then Bluesky Mapshop is the place to look https://www.blueskymapshop.com/maps/ 

If you want to explore the list of listed buildings in the area then the British Listed Buildings website is a good start https://britishlistedbuildings.co.uk/

For more information on Kenulph's Stone then this blogpost by Deepings Heritage is great https://deepingsheritage.wordpress.com/tag/kennulphs-stone/

*I appreciate they will have been adapted and even moved over the years, but so have the roads and dykes.

The Plague Arrives in Peterborough

This is the longer ramble of a shorter post on the Peterborough Women’s History Group blog here, which focussed on women during the plague. This post is where I delve into more of the wider context of the plague in Peterborough and consider where the pesthouse once was. Huge thanks must go to Gail Richardson (no relation) at Peterborough Archives who first pointed out the fascinating church accounts detailing every victim of the deadly virus and suggested I should investigate it.

The plague arrived in Peterborough in September 1665. The bringer of the great pestilence was a woman. She was a stranger who had travelled up from London and died in September 1665. It seems very likely that the woman who cared for this sick stranger in her final hours was Katherine Hambleton, for she was the first victim in Peterborough. All we know about her was that she was the wife of Cornelius Hambleton and that after her death a small cross was marked against her name in St John’s church register, a cross that would be scratched hundreds of times over the next couple of years.

OS Map of Newark, Near Peterborough, 1889

Interestingly, the plague didn’t first appear in the centre of town, where you might expect a weary traveller to arrive at an inn, but just north of the town. Although no location was given to the burial location of the unnamed woman, or indeed Mistress Hambleton, the disease spread to the woadgrounds and then on to Newark (the name is preserved in Newark Hill School). The woadgrounds was an area where people were growing woad plants to extract the vivid blue dye from them. (For more information see my earlier post 'Woad You Believe It'). It was smelly, dirty, backbreaking work and it’s possible that the woman had arrived to offer much needed support at harvest or processing time and was a temporary part of their small community. Alternatively, she was taken in by the transient community who were likely ostracised from the town due to the processing of woad, but who were happy to help a woman in need.

It should be no surprise that it was mainly women and children who died first. The key to these deaths, and to so many more, is that women provided (and still provide) the lion’s share of all caring work, be it tending to the sick, the elderly, or indeed their own children. The proximity of care and physical touch was what led to a higher rate of women dying than men: 58% or 266 of the recorded burials were women.

The Dance of Death

Another interesting factor, and part of the wider context of this outbreak of the plague, is that many people had died during the Civil Wars and in considerable numbers after them. We naturally think of the soldiers who were killed in combat, but war is more than the battles won and lost; the whole country was weakened by the events of war. Families found themselves in poverty, former soldiers were traumatised or injured: this was a particularly bad time for the plague to arrive.

There aren’t any specific figures for the number of Peterborough men who died in warfare during that period, but it is likely that a diminished male population contributed to the gender differences in the reported deaths with only 42% or 194 of the plague burials of males in the city. These figures are not large – Peterborough was a small market town in the 17^th century – but when we consider that the total population of the city was roughly 2,000 people then the female deaths alone represented around 13% of the population. Combined with the males, this gives a figure of 23% which is similar to the death rate elsewhere in the country.[1]

In addition to this, those with money, other properties, or family were able to move out of the city to nearby villages, country manors and safer towns. Peterborough Feoffees’ account books, which ran through the 17^th century, were notably blank during the plague. The feoffees were the cream of society, the men trusted to make important decisions on welfare and town improvements, but they did not remain in the city. None of them were on the list of the dead. None of their families were on the list of the dead.

However, the Feoffees had made an important decision in 1642 by agreeing to create a pesthouse in the city. Deadly infectious diseases were common until vaccinations were created, so a pesthouse – a building where those with infectious diseases could be isolated and cared for – was always going to be a sensible addition to any town or city. There are clues in the Feoffees’ accounts that tell us where it might have been. In 1646 a reference to the pesthouse was recorded when Widdow Tinkerson rented ‘two closes neare the Pesthouse in Westgate and a cottage’ and later to a ‘Pesthouse close’ situated at ‘Peterborough Westfield’ in 1683, approximately 13 years after it had been dismantled.[2] This doesn’t give us an exact location for the house, but a quick view of John Speed’s 1610 map of Peterborough does show us that Westgate finished roughly where Lincoln Road starts now, with fields and only a couple of cottages further west. 

A map of Peterborough is at the bottom right of John Speed's larger map - zoom in if you can

This is interestingly in the vicinity of medieval St Leonard’s Leper Hospital, which was located close to the eastern side of what is now Midland Road. Westgate used to continue west (hence its name) from the city, and is likely to have passed through what is now Rathbone Crescent and/or Granary Close, to the east of Midland Road, which is where an archaeological dig was carried out in advance of the house build in 2014.[3] The dig did not reveal St Leonard’s Hospital but it did reveal a mass grave with skeletons from several time periods, sadly none from the 17^th century. It’s believed that St Leonard’s was no longer used after the dissolution, but there were other suggestions that the site – or a nearby site – became used as a pesthouse. This means the gravesite of the plague victims is likely to be close to the location of the leprosy victims and could potentially be sitting under houses, industrial buildings, or even the East Coast Mainline…

Westgate travels from right on left on the picture and would have crossed Midland Road on the left of the picture

The last woman to die from the plague in Peterborough was Alice Hall, who was buried on 28^th April 1667. Unusually, nothing much is known about her either – the fatigue of the pandemic had no doubt taken its toll. Most women were described by the man they were related to – daughter of, wife of, widow of – but Alice had no such attribution. Following the wars there was a rise in the number of independent women, for there was never going to be enough men to make wives of them all. And of the single men who had returned from war, a widow, perhaps with wealth inherited from her husband and a proven record of child rearing was a better prospect. So there were more single women, too old to still belong to their fathers, but never married.

Sadly, it was not declared where Alice had been buried either. The grounds of the pesthouse, where hundreds of the deceased had been buried, was undoubtedly full, but without the detail of a burial in her own grounds, it is likely that the pest house was her resting place. As an unattributed woman she is less likely to have been buried by family, and even less likely to have been buried on family land, particularly because there are no other Halls in the records.

The last person to die from the plague in Peterborough was a child, a little boy named Roger Whittington. He was the son of Roger Whittington and was buried in an undisclosed location on 9 May 1667.

In a final note, it is worth adding that there was a surge of weddings and baptisms once the plague appeared to be over. After years of fear, the people of Peterborough wanted to celebrate their unions and new arrivals in the sight of God and what remained of their congregation. The human desire to enjoy the good and find hope descends through all generations.

If you want to look at the St John’s church records, then Ancestry.co.uk is the best place to look. You can do so for free on a computer in Peterborough Archives, where you will find the Feoffees Accounts, old maps, and microfilm of church records. If you’re looking for more local church registers with evidence of the plague, good places to explore are Oundle and St Martin’s, Stamford Baron. 

Images:

OS Map of Newark printed in 1889 from maps.nls.uk

Dance of Death by OpenClipart-Vectors from Pixabay

John Speed’s Map from Wiki Commons

OS Map of Westgate, Peterborough from maps.nls.uk

[1] The vast majority of statistical data from the time period is based on estimates and extrapolations. London statistics are the most frequently shared, but even they are open to interpretation. A population loss of 23% is certainly at the higher end of supposed population loss and could suggest that the population of Peterborough was in fact higher than 2,000, but it could mean that the city was hit hard and in a particularly weakened state. There is a good chance that the recorded number of people who died in Peterborough from the plague was incorrect, as people buried their family privately or they were missed from the records in times of overwhelming stress. We should also consider that there are no deaths of infants or the elderly that we would expect to see in the records, so there will have been other deaths/burials unrecorded, in addition to the plague deaths.

[2] As an aside, the wood from the pesthouse was kept for some time in the belfry of St John’s after the building had been dismantled, presumably to be used again elsewhere. This, and other facts, are from the Feoffees Accounts.

[3] https://peterborougharchaeology.org/st-leonards-leper-hospital/

The Beginning of a Post

St Guthlac's Church, Market Deeping

I find myself ill again and raging against the rather frail shell I live in. I had intended to write a blogpost for January but time and energy have both escaped me. There are plenty of things I wanted to research and write about but I have not been able. Instead, I am leaving myself a note - a springboard from which I can begin my next blogpost.

After researching the oldest buildings in the Soke of Peterborough (a really interesting journey - see the other blogposts) I'm going to turn my attention to the Deepings. The area sits to the north of the River Welland and starts at West Deeping, heading east through Market Deeping, Deeping St James and Deeping St Nicholas, gobbling up older, smaller locations like Frognall, Towngate and Hop Hole as it spreads out across Deeping Fen. There is some fascinating history sitting in the silted land, from large Roman engineering in the west, to a priory and a (relatively) recently dried up lake covering much of the land to the east (see the blogpost on Deeping Fen).

I'm going to be searching for the oldest buildings in the area, but also some of the oldest features. This will include a little bit of the Roman engineering, medieval crosses, and buildings that have features in them that appear older than the building itself. Researching this will take time and brain power, which I have in short supply at present, but if I set myself the task I will get there eventually.

My prediction is that the churches of West Deeping, Market Deeping and Deeping St James are all the oldest buildings in the area (all worth visiting but West Deeping really stands out for me). I suspect the old cottage with the blue plaque on Church Street Market Deeping is one of the oldest domestic buildings in the area but there are some beautiful old buildings in West Deeping and two or three old mills to check out too, and I would be thrilled to find an unexpectedly old feature hiding in plain sight.

So if you're reading this and you know (or suspect) there is an old house or feature near you in the Deeping area, do drop me a message below or email me.

The image below is one of the hidden features in the centre of Market Deeping. It contains an old doorways and windows and a dated wooden beam!

Both images belong to the author

Beef, Plum Pudding, and Ale: Victorian Christmas Food and Gifts

There seems to be nothing more important to people at Christmas other than gifts and food (and maybe festive television), so I thought it would be interesting to look back at the food and gifts on offer to the poor and working class in Victorian Peterborough.

Peterborough Workhouse often saw its numbers swell around Christmas, primarily due to the cold weather, but also at the chance of a warm meal and a little festive cheer. The Christmas menu in the workhouse was always the same in the early Victorian era. Inmates were given beef, plum pudding, and ale; a pint for the adults and a half pint for the children. In some years reference is made to the addition of potatoes, but it is almost always to beef alone. Tobacco and occasionally pipes were also provided, particularly to the sick and elderly (for comfort, not for evil intentions). These festive offerings were provided ‘by subscription’ – charity by those who could afford it. The guardians refused to pay out for the extravagance and stated in no uncertain terms that such events should not be paid from the money allocated to them. There was no mention of any gifts offered.

Elsewhere in Peterborough during the Victorian period residents of the city almshouses received gifts of tea, fabric, and coals, as well as the occasional offer of beef and small amounts of money. In the city jail the inmates were also provided with beef and plum pudding, but notably, no ale, because drunken Christmas brawls were for the streets, not the jail.

Wealthy landowners such as the Fitzwilliams gave presents of beef, money, coals and even slips and stockings to their employees and their families (the slips and stockings were for the women, of course). For those with large estates this meant presents for hundreds of people (1200 for the Fitzwilliams).

These gifts were more than affordable by the richest in society, so the offer of Christmas gifts ‘by persons who are moving in the middling sphere in life’ was noted in the paper in 1847.[1] Two employers offered gifts to their employees, one of coal to all of his staff, and the other ‘above thirty loaves of bread, eighty pounds of mutton, and a quantity of sixpences’. The giving of beef dominates the Christmas stories in the papers, so it is refreshing to find other gifts offered and to be offered by those who cannot so easily afford it but valued their staff.

By the last quarter of the nineteenth century the scene in the workhouse had changed somewhat and there was a more celebratory feel (or at least a change in reporting). The traditional beef and ale had been partnered with Yorkshire puddings and the dining room had been ‘very prettily decorated with evergreens and winter flowers. Crosses, triangles and other devices were suspended on the walls, together with mottoes and Christmas texts.’ [2] Interestingly, exactly the same text appeared in the 1878 and 1885 report in a newspaper, with the exception of the word ‘crosses’, which shows both a continuation of tradition and poor journalism. I think we can also assume the mottoes on the walls were a little more ‘Joy to the world’ than ‘Live, Laugh, Yule Log.’

Local dignitaries (the Vergettes, Buckles etc) attended to help with carving and handing out their Christmas gifts. Many gifts were given to the inmates, these included: plum cake, tobacco, tea, sweets, money, chocolate, books, nuts, toys, oranges, a Christmas letter ‘from a lady with a loving heart’ to every resident (in both years), and a peep show(!). The inmates also had a visit from the band of the Northants Engineers who played music to the residents during the festive season. All the well wishers went home satisfied the residents had enjoyed a very pleasant day, but also with the knowledge that they had helped with the festivities, not just financially, but with their time too.

These examples show how traditions change and also the varying face of gift giving and charity. We still decorate our houses with evergreens and we still gift chocolate, books, and money (but beware the friend who gifts you a bag of oranges and a peep show!).

Merry Christmas and thanks for your support this year. I hope you enjoy your Christmas festivities, whether it’s eating roast beef and drinking ale, or eating chocolate in your new stockings.

[1] ‘Christmas Gifts’, Cambridge Independent Press, 2 January 1847, p.3.

[2] ‘Christmas at the Workhouse’, Peterborough Standard, 28 December 1878, p.5., ‘Christmas at the Workhouse’, Peterborough Express, 29 December 1885, p.3.

 Images by Robert Owen-Wahl and Clker-Free-Vector-Images via Pixabay

Mrs Shipley Ellis and The Pantiles

In my previous blogpost I looked at the life and legacy of Edith Ball. The daughter of Canon Ball, she had followed his desire to provide care and support for the poor by creating The Haven, a scheme that had been applauded by none other than Octavia Hill! I thought I had discovered another building that she had helped to create, but it was part of the Co-op depot. But in my research I discovered that Edith wasn't the only person inspired by Canon Ball.  A new social housing project began in 1927 spearheaded by Mrs Shipley Ellis and I was curious as to who she was and what her link to Edith was, so I started to research her and came across a fascinating life story with some impressive legacies.

Hilda Anne Bristow was born in Fletton on 7 September 1873. She had been born into a wealthy family and lived in the manor house in Fletton in her early childhood years, the youngest of twelve children. Her father James was an auctioneer at the time of the 1881 census.

Map of Fletton Manor House from OS 25 Inch England and Wales Map via National Library of Scotland, www.maps.nls.uk

The 1891 census is the most illuminating and gives the fullest picture of Hilda’s childhood. By then Hilda was 17 and her mother Jane (née Lambert) had sadly passed away; she had died five years earlier when Hilda was only 12. Hilda was living at home with her sisters Edith and Ethel, as well as her father James and a couple of servants. They also had a visitor, a 16-year-old girl named Jenny (her surname is illegible), who was a scholar from Zwickau in Germany. My interest was instantly piqued and I immediately made a connection to Laurel Court School – was Hilda a pupil? I checked my database of the school pupils and confirmed that older sister Edith had been living at Laurel Court in the 1881 census. It looked incredibly likely that Hilda was home from school for the holidays and had invited her friend Jenny to join her.

By this point Hilda's father had founded a brickyard at Fletton and they were very well off. The only place fitting for the upwardly wealthy family was Fletton Towers, which is where they were captured in the 1891 census. The family did not live there for a particularly long time, her father and a few sisters having moved away together by the 1901 census. Hilda, however, stayed in the city along with several other siblings who had married, including Edith. In a beautiful snapshot of the Bristow sisters' lives, there was a description of the outfits they wore at Edith’s marriage to Thomas Corby Wilson in February 1894. Edith’s wedding dress was ‘a rich ivory moire silk dress’ and Hilda, along with her sisters Ethel and Minnie wore ‘heliotrope Bengaline silk dresses, trimmed with cream lace. They also wore black velvet picture hats.’ Ignoring the fact they would have been frozen in such thin material, they would have looked quite the picture in their silk dresses and large hats, and would have brought a touch of glamour to wintry Fletton. I include this fact to labour the point that these were a wealthy, glamourous family. It is also very unusual to find a description of clothing worn by the subject of such posts, so it adds an extra layer of detail to our understanding of Hilda and her family. Perhaps it was also that silk dress and black velvet hat that drew the eye of Hilda’s future husband…

1891 Census via Ancestry

Hilda married John Shipley Ellis (of Ellis and Everard) at the same church in 1896, aged 22. They went on to have three children: Margery, Jane, and Francis John.[i] In the 1901 census John, Hilda and Margery were living on London Road in Fletton in a house close to Saxon Villas. It was a road of impressive Victorian villas and having a residence there showed they were people of substance. John was labelled as a ‘Grain (coal) Merchant’ suggesting his primary income was from selling grain, but he was also providing coal. By the 1911 census the whole family were living in ‘Abbey Fields, The Park’ which was another select location to live: the address is now on Park Crescent. John was a coal company director, and they were also rich enough to afford a governess for their children. Hilda and John remained there for the rest of their lives and took a very active role in the life of the city including John becoming a city magistrate.

Hilda was known best for her philanthropy, which filled her married life. She helped to form Canon Ball’s ‘Guild of Help’ (see the Edith Ball blogpost) and was also involved with the Florence Saunders Nursing Association from the start, along with her husband (they were both present at the 60^th anniversary). I think it very likely that Hilda and Edith were friends and it's possible they were at Laurel Court together. It could have been this close friendship that led Hilda to engage in Edith’s father’s scheme and Edith’s aunt’s association. Newspaper accounts reveal that Canon Ball preached his social schemes to his congregation, but Hilda attended St Margaret's in Fletton and then St Mark's on Lincoln Road, so she must have been influenced by him personally. To remain devoted to the causes over decades strongly suggests a personal relationship with the extended Ball/Saunders family, a factor that would explain why she took up the baton on social housing after Canon Ball's death and Edith had left the city for Oxford.

The Pantiles. Author's photograph

In 1928 work began on The Pantiles, three two-storey blocks of flats that sit around a grassed courtyard at the bottom of All Saint’s Road. The flats were designed to provide comfortable homes for widows and unmarried women, of whom there were many after the Great War. Hilda had been the driving force behind the new homes through the National Council of Women branch in the city, of which she was president; she wanted to ‘mark her term of office with a practical achievement of definite social value’.[ii] Just like The Haven, the original plan was to build one block of four flats initially to gauge interest, and they were designed to be run as a self-supporting venture. By the December 1927 meeting of the NCW the plan was to build all three blocks at a cost of £200 and they had decided that the company overseeing the housing would be known as the ‘Pan-tiles Housing Association’, a company that Hilda would be the chairperson of until her death.[iii]

Each flat was lit by electricity (which was exciting!) and was going to contain ‘two bedrooms, sitting room, kitchenette, bathroom and lavatory,’ along with the use of a ‘coal bunker’ and gas too. These were a big improvement from the flats of The Haven and very modern in their style. In addition, the central courtyard and foyers were planned to be lit by an electric light all night, offering safety to the women as they came and went. This in itself is a remarkable detail; how many other buildings in the city have been designed specifically for the safety of women at night? Lighting entrances for safety is commonplace now, but there is a very good chance that this was the first and only building to consider the safety of women for many years. For anyone wondering who these forward-thinking architects were, they were Messrs Traylen, Lenton and Warwick.

The Pantiles. Author's photograph

The construction was quick and the first women had moved in by the beginning of June 1928. A comment piece known as Old Scarlet in the Peterborough Standard took a critical look at the new flats. Looking past the ‘half-grown grass and the unplanted flowerbeds’ he noted ‘it is obvious that the buildings will assume in their maturity a beauty and homeliness which is quite attractive’ – how many modern buildings can that be said about?![iv] Sadly, the correspondent could not resist making a dig at the homes for women declaring: ‘I hope the residents to be will live happily together so that when mere men do visit them in their Adamless Eden, they will find an example of harmony and content.’ Given that Mrs Shipley Ellis vetted every applicant and that a couple of the flats would be provided furnished for visiting lady teachers, I think we can safely assume that there were not the sort of fights that the correspondent had suggested. Hilda was not content with the building of the flats and remained devoted to the administration of the association for many years.

The Pantiles was not the only legacy that Mrs Shipley Ellis provided the city with. In 1945 she purchased an oak door for the cathedral in memory of her sisters Hannah, Martha, and Ethel.[v] It is interesting to note that this was during WW2. We saw similar memorials to women during WW1 at a time that grief was ever present but almost entirely (and understandably) directed at the horrendous loss of men fighting abroad. The grief of losing women at this time still hurt, so women with money and connections created memorials carefully, expressing their loss through quiet giving and discrete memorials. The oak door is in St Kyneburgha’s Chapel in front of a staircase. I’ve sadly been unable to find an image of the door (although there are lots of neighbouring St Oswald’s), so if anyone has an image and/or can confirm the door is still in place, do let me know.

Hilda was also treasurer of the local branch of the RNLI for many years, taking both secretary and treasurer roles in the early 1940s when need dictated. Lady Winfrey said of Hilda ‘much of the success of the branch is down to her untiring efforts.’[vi] She was also an enduring supporter of the Conservatives, being a founding member of the local women’s branch, of which she also became the treasurer. In addition, she was engaged with the Red Cross, most notably during the Great War. And it would be remiss of me not to mention the copious number of fetes, church functions and school events that she either opened, judged, or spoke at. She supported as many causes as she could and was always welcomed and appreciated for her hard work and kindness. Some of these she attended with her husband, and later her daughters, but many of them she supported in her own right as a wealthy and influential woman.

Hilda Shipley Ellis died on 1 May 1951 aged 77, her death being announced on the front page of the Peterborough Standard, such was her importance to the city.[vii] Her life and legacy was celebrated, along with her family history, and most touching of all, the article featured a photograph of her and her husband John, who had died in February, beaming at each other. at their 50th wedding anniversary. The couple had been married 55 years at the time of his death, which appears to have been the catalyst for her own demise. She became very ill after he died, being unable to attend his funeral at St Mark’s in March. She began to recover but a ‘seizure’ (potentially a stroke) caused her to relapse and die a few days later. A memorial was erected to the couple in St Mark’s church by their children in 1953. Margery Shipley Ellis, their eldest daughter, took on many of her parents’ roles, including becoming a magistrate, continuing the legacy that she inherited.

St Mark's Church. Author's photograph

The Pantiles still sit on the corner of Park Road and All Saints Road and are nearing their 100^th birthday. As you can see from the images, the 12 flats remain largely as they were built, which is testament to the forethought of the planners and architects. Next time you find yourself in the area do take a moment to admire the first social housing specifically for women and the ‘practical achievement of definite social value.’ There aren’t many people who can claim to have left such a legacy, and far fewer who were women! Perhaps this is another contender for a Blue Plaque?

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[i] The family surname was actually Ellis, so Hilda was occasionally known as Mrs Ellis. Shipley was the middle name for John and their children, but they incorporated it into their surname.

[ii] ‘Flats for Single Ladies’, Peterborough Standard, 22 July 1927, p.7.

[iii] ‘Mrs Shipley Ellis and Flats for Women’, Peterborough Standard, 9 December 1927, p.7, ‘Flats for Bachelor Ladies’, Peterborough Standard, 17 February 1928, p.12.

[iv] ‘Notes and Comments’, Peterborough Standard, 6 July 1928, p.6.

[v] ‘Oak Door for the Cathedral’, Peterborough Standard, 30 March 1945, p.1.

[vi] ‘Social and Personal Notes’, Peterborough Standard, 13 March 1942, p.4.

[vii] ‘Death of Mrs Shipley Ellis, a Great Social Worker’, Peterborough Standard, 4 May 1951, p.1.

 

Edith Ball and The Haven

The Haven, Alexandra Road. Author's Photograph

Edith Mary Ball was born in Peterborough in 1872. She was the first child of the Reverend Charles Ball (later a canon) and Mary Eliza Saunders. Her grandfather was Augustus Page Saunders, the Dean of Peterborough Cathedral and one of her aunts was Florence Saunders, the woman who would later bring district nursing to Peterborough. Her family were exceptional people, and as the first-born child of two very loving parents, Edith was given the skills and support to do extraordinary things herself. This blogpost reveals what life was like for a prominent vicar's daughter at the turn of the twentieth century and how much could be achieved by one woman.

Edith was educated at home with her sisters Mildred Mary and Dorothy Mary in her early years, when the family were living in St Mary’s vicarage where her father was the vicar. However, despite having three servants in the 1881 census, they did not have a live-in governess and still had a nurse. This is almost certainly due to the young age of the girls – 8, 6 and 2 – but could also suggest the girls, or at least Edith, had visiting specialist tutors. Edith was 18 by the time of the 1891 census and has so far proved elusive in the records. She was almost certainly at a boarding school and has had one or several of her details mis-transcribed. She may even be known under a nickname (something that was evident in the census records at Laurel Court) and has therefore not been discoverable in any searches.

Picture by Paul Bryan via geograph.org.uk

By the 1901 census Edith was living at home at All Saints' vicarage, Peterborough, with her parents and three younger siblings. They also had three domestic servants and a sick nurse in the house, and unusually we know why. Edith’s father Charles had been taken ill will bronchitis and had spent a few weeks in bed. The sedentary time in bed had caused a blood clot to form in his leg and he was forced to undergo emergency surgery to remove his leg above the knee. He survived, but he had been perilously close to death and was left with quite a severe disability. All of this had taken place in the few weeks prior to the 1901 census, which is why a sick nurse was still in place to provide round the clock care whilst Edith and her family slept. Their nurse, Jessie M Clarabut, was from Sussex and might have been hired through connections at Peterborough Infirmary or more likely through the advice or contacts of Edith’s aunt Florence, who was running her district nursing service by the point. No indication was given in the census of any occupation that Edith or her siblings were undertaking, despite her youngest siblings, Richard and Cisely Mary both being of school age. So what did Edith do? Being the eldest child of a high-profile Canon, Edith had grown up in a world of compassion and duty. Her life was to serve others and make life better for those who could not help herself.

She was also occupied with the duties of a large family, being a witness at her sister Dorothy’s wedding to Rev. George Godfrey at All Saint’s Church in 1899. Her large family included several aunts and cousins too, who lived close to their family home Madeley House on Park Road (now part of King’s School). Her mother’s cousin Wilhelmina Blanche Saunders (more of an aunt figure) lived on Park Road and so did her father’s sisters Hannah and Susan Ball, all of whom had never married. Hannah and Susan lived next door shortly before their deaths in December 1897 and February 1898. So not only was Edith surrounded by a large and loving family, she was also surrounded by wealthy independent women who had never married. It’s therefore not too surprising that Edith didn’t marry either.

Edith’s desire to do good in her life and specifically to help the poor was planted in her at a young age by her parents. Her father was not afraid to preach to his congregation on the subject of helping the poor and was himself inspired by the ‘City Guild of Help’ in Bradford. In a speech in early January 1907 he attempted to inspire his audience to come together to create a ‘City Guild of Help’ for Peterborough, which was an early form of social work to help the most needy and provide targeted support tailored to their needs. His wish for Peterborough was that ‘no one in our city shall starve, or go ragged, or shall look in vain for a friendly helping hand in his time of need.’[1] His words seem as relevant as ever over a hundred years later.

Edith was closely involved in her father’s work and the 1911 census shows Edith visiting a clergyman with her father in Aylestone, Leicester (her father was a curate in the area). She’s 38 and single and her father is 78. We know at this point that she was still living at home with her parents, and she was almost certainly there to provide her father with any care that he needed, given his age and disability. It’s also very likely that they were travelling to visit Edith’s sister Mildred (married to Rev. Cornelius Carleton) in Leicester and meet her four-month-old baby Margaret, the youngest of four.

By this point in her life Edith was at her most productive. Her father’s desire to create a better life for the poor had made a profound impact and she pushed to build the first compassionate social housing in the city – a form of model housing. The Daily News (London) featured an article in May 1912 with the headline ‘Pensioners’ Houses, Lady’s Novel Scheme at Peterborough’ that began:

 

Peterborough is shortly to be the centre of a novel housing scheme for Old Age Pensioners, originated by Miss Edith M Ball, granddaughter of the late Dean Saunders, of Peterborough, and eldest daughter of Canon Ball, until recently Vicar of All Saints’, Peterborough. At present, however, there is a delay in the construction of the tenements, due to the fact that the Town Council at their last meeting referred the plans back, to enable the architect to make the rooms “a little more airy and healthy.”[2]

 

Edith’s plans were rather grand, and she explained in an interview that she hoped to build ‘five houses, all opening on to a central lawn, with trees, comfortable seats, and flower borders.’ The houses were small tenements containing a total of eight rooms, four smaller rooms for single people and four larger for couples. She planned to build one house initially ‘as an experiment’ and if it was successful the others would be built. She also had a little name drop and mentioned that Octavia Hill herself had endorsed the idea! Praise indeed.

The article had followed one in the Peterborough Standard which stated Edith’s ‘philanthropic works are well known in the city.’[3] It also explained that the five houses or blocks, would be built on Alexandra Road and that the rent would be ‘as low as possible.’ She was also hoping for the scheme to be ‘self-supporting and NOT a charity.’ The furnishings for the room do sound rather old fashioned, so it is worth remembering that this was 1912:

 

Each room is to have a large window, a ventilated food cupboard, a china [sic] cupboard, kitchen range with boiler, seat combined with coal box, and dress cupboard. The four rooms on each floor are to share a lavatory, and a scullery, the latter containing a sink and wash tub. Each tenant is to have the use of the wash tub one day in the week.

 

The trail goes cold in the newspapers and you’re probably trying to recall the street, wondering where these tenements are on Alexandra Road, or if they were ever built. Indeed they were, but only the first block.

  

Map: OS six-inch England and Wales, 1842-1952 from maps.nls.uk

 

Edith’s model house, known as ‘The Haven’ sits above the D at the end of ‘Alexandra Road’ and has a long narrow garden. There is space in the plot to the west of the house to build more tenements, but they were never built. I have yet to discover why the remaining tenements weren’t built, but it was likely deemed unsuccessful – too expensive to run for the peppercorn rents that were going to be charged.

But Edith wasn’t happy with only one Haven in Peterborough and pushed for more. In 1920 she spoke passionately on the creation of a Public Utility Society which would oversee the building of three more Havens to provide a total of 24 new homes. She had had two meetings with the Housing Commissioner and correspondence by letter. Her hard work had secured the support of the government and the promise of financial subsidies towards the cost of the new houses. They created a deputation consisting of Edith, Mrs Clayton, and Sir Richard Winfrey, M.P. who were going to approach the Ministry and ask what money was available. However, there is no evidence for any further model houses built in the city. It is possibly because in the same year in October the council were building their own social houses in St Paul’s Road and at Westwood Grange, so the impetus for the creation of her houses was unnecessary.

The 1921 census should have been an excellent indicator of where she was living, but she appeared to have gone on holiday with her family. Her father had passed away in 1918, so it was an all-female holiday. Edith and her mother Mary were staying in a house named ‘Kilbreen’ on Austin Street, Hunstanton (which is a most beautiful street) and they had been joined by Edith’s married sister Mildred, and Mary’s cousin W Blanche Saunders.

Austin Street, Hunstanton by Rob Johnson via georgaph.org.uk

Edith was one of the founder members of the Peterborough Association for the Blind in 1911, signing her name on the first minutes as their chairman. By 1914 we know that Edith was the ‘secretary of the Peterborough Committee of the Midland Counties Blind Association’ and was in communication with the Free Library Committee.[4] She requested that the ‘volumes of braille type’ in the library were ‘increased from five to eight per month’ suggesting there was a real need and desire for such literature. She was still working as the secretary in 1922, her name appearing in the paper as she organised a January party for blind Peterborians at the Bedford Coffee Tavern on January 17^th. She remained on the committee, although no longer the secretary, from 1924 to 1927 where a notable fellow committee member was Miss (Enid) Hartley of Fletton Towers. Edith had connections to all of the great and the good in the city.

In her later years Edith moved to Oxford, close to family members, which is where she was captured in the 1939 census. She had made a special trip back to Peterborough in 1932 to celebrate the 21^st birthday of the Peterborough Association for the Blind. Edith not only continued her tireless work for the blind in Oxford, but she frequently corresponded with the Midland area organiser on matters of the blind, such was her commitment to the cause. I can’t help but wonder if she was also involved in the provision of a wireless radio for Miss Gibson in 1925 as she became increasingly blind in her latter years.

Edith died on 17^th November 1951 in Oxford around the time of her 79^th birthday. Recollections of her life in the ‘Old Scarlett’ section of the Peterborough Standard claim she was born at St Paul’s vicarage (not the current building at the Triangle) where her father was the first vicar, before they moved to All Saints, where he was again the first vicar. It’s a reminder that Edith was born at a time of great change, as Peterborough grew from a small population to a vast one, and she was perfectly placed to make her mark on the city through her philanthropic deeds, providing homes for the elderly poor and comfort to the blind of the city through decades of work.

Her legacy lies in The Haven on Alexandra Road (owned by the council by the time of her death) and in the many lives she improved in the city. Her aspirations were big, and I’d like to think that if she had built the additional houses on Alexandra Road that there might already be a plaque up remembering her good deeds, but you don’t win accolades for not finishing a job! I suspect there are some more buildings in the city that owe their creation to the work or inspiration of Edith Ball, but for now, building the city's first model housing is enough. My next blogpost will be on the building I suspect she helped to create, but that is for another day...

 

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[1] ‘Canon Ball’s Crusade’, Peterborough Express, 9 January 1907, p.4.

[2] ‘Pensioners’ Houses’ Daily News (London), 4 May 1912, p.3.

[3] ‘Miss Ball’s Scheme’, Peterborough Standard, 27 April 1912, p.6.

[4] ‘For the Blind’, Peterborough Express, 30 September 1914, p.3.