Eliza’s great-uncle, Reuben, married into a prosperous local farming family in 1814, when he took the hand of Phoebe Willmott. Tragically, all their four children died – Thomas died of tuberculosis in 1826, Elizabeth of the same disease in the following year, and Reuben junior and Daniel similarly in 1828. In 1831 Reuben senior died, also of TB, leaving Phoebe desolate and without a family. Read more
Continuing our story of Haslingfield through the eyes of the Goode family, a life-transforming event occurred at the beginning of the 19th century with the advent of enclosure. Read more
Having looked at village life in Nora Cannell’s time, the next few entries will look at life a couple of generations before, through the eyes of Eliza Goode.
Eliza was the fourth child, and first daughter, of Emma and Thomas Goode, a bricklayer, and was born on 28th December, 1859. Read more
Remarkably little is recorded as happening at Easter in the Haslingfield of former times. There are no stories around Easter in the ‘Haslingfield Chronicle’. Can anyone out there throw a light on any regular Eastertime activity in the past in the village? Read more
In the last of this series on Nora Cannell’s ‘Memories of a Haslingfield Childhood’, we look at a few of the places that meant so much to her. A full text of the Memories is available on the web site. Read more
Nora’s recollections include glimpses of old Haslingfield now lost. Before Broad Lane was built in the 1950s, there was a cart track that was impassable during the winter. On the left stood a meadow filled with elm trees and, in the spring, violets.It was known as The Grove, and on the right was an orchard. The footpath joining New Road, the church and the green was a popular walk, and the meadow on New Road was used for games before the recreation ground existed.
The recreation ground was a gift from Henry Badcock, a farmer on Barrington Hill, and Chivers. It was opened on April 13th, 1925 by Dr. Young, a local GP. Mr. Badcock also paid for a wooden pavilion, which stood until 1974. A cricket pitch was laid, and tennis courts and playground provided, after World War II.
As our thoughts move away from log fires to warmer times, this month’s extract from Nora Cannell’s memories about her Haslingfield childhood looks at the summer holidays of long ago.
Like most of the children in the village, Nora helped out at harvest-time. Read more
Nora Cannell apparently travelled to school every day on a bicycle that she shared with two others. She also had to carry with her her packed lunch, because there were no school meals during the first quarter of the twentieth century. She recalls one family from Cantelupe who brought “a grey, anaemic-looking mass” every day. Tom, the boy, regularly threw this mass against a brick wall at the school, where it failed to disintegrate (mass and wall!).
Nora was a dab hand at marbles and the spinning top, and regularly trundled hoops down the streets of the village. On Shrove Tuesdays children met at a specially-erected sweet stall near Camping Close and Glebe Road. During the three-day Whitsun Feast swing boats, sideshows and sweet stalls were erected on the village green. There was also a dancing booth, with a roped-in platform. Harvest time was also one of great joy for local children, but more of that next month. Happy Christmas!
Nora Cannell didn’t have many holidays from school, so Sundays were a treasured part of her life. She would set off for Sunday School at 10, trying to remember the collect that she would have to recite. Between Sunday School and the Morning Service she would go for a walk if it was warm. If not, she huddled round the stoves in the church that are no longer there. Read more
Thank you to the kind person who recently donated copies of Church and Village from 1971 to 1982 to the Village Archives. Although the contribution is exhaustive (and has been catalogued) there are still a number of gaps in our records. So if you have back copies for the period 1971-82 that you want to get rid of, please contact me on jf.beresford@ntlworld.com or on 01223 514849. Read more
For the next few postings I intend to summarise Nora Cannell’s ‘Memories of a Haslingfield Childhood’, a booklet published by the Village Society in 1983. When we receive permission from her nearest living relation, I hope to publish the whole of the booklet’s text on the website. Read more
We’ve just experienced our wettest summer since 1912, so I thought a review of the impact of rain on school life might provide a fitting end to the season. Read more
I’m sure most of our Olympic stars first developed their talents at school, so a look at what Haslingfield children in the past were doing may be of current interest.
I’ll bet few of them had their activities curtailed in the way pupils in January 1944 experienced. Read more
Victorian Haslingfield could not be accused of being unpatriotic. The Golden Jubilee celebrations seem to have been spread over four days, starting with church services on the Sunday and ending with a meat tea run by the local Conservative Club on the Wednesday. Read more