Lumps and bumps – evidence of a medieval priory

Our April talk explores a historic site less than 5 miles away – Newstead by Stamford Priory. 

Uffington looking towards Newstead

Travelling along the A1175 from the Deepings towards Stamford, you pass through the village of Uffington and approach the junction for Newstead.  Look to your left, where you will see sheep or cattle grazing on rather uneven grassland, a number of ancient willows and a stream running off into the distance.

But look more closely – making sure you keep to the footpath. The lumps and bumps in the meadows at the western end of Uffington Park have, for many years, raised lots of questions among antiquarians, archaeologists and landscape historians. Satellite images, crop marks and LIDAR mapping have revealed detail not previously available – but questions still remain.

• Some researchers have been looking at the route of the Welland Navigation, also known as the Stamford Canal, which was in use between 1650 and 1865. This is where the canal was fed by water from the River Gwash before it flowed into the Welland.
• Others, however, have been looking for the location of Newstead Priory, a 13th century Augustinian establishment, about which there is archival evidence but hardly any physical remains.

Google image 2006

Crop marks after the drought in 2018 (Rex Gibson)

Local historian, Nicholas Sheehan from Uffington, became sufficiently fascinated by these earthworks  to explore their physical nature, their national importance and the ultimate demise of this little-known religious house.  In 2018, he published “Newstead by Stamford Priory”.  

Read a review in The Local Historian (British Association of Local HIstorians)  Vol 14 No 4 October 2019 p.342

• “The book is engagingly written and richly illustrated in colour.”
• “… the range of references, as recorded in the extensive bibliography, is impressive.”
• “Sheehan places the limited evidence into a much broader context.”
• “… this history of Newstead will be welcomed not only by the people of Uffington and Stamford but also by a wider audience.”
• “The author makes a significant contribution to the history of the area and more widely to the history of monasticism.”

Nick Sheehan will present his talk in the Village Hall, King Street on Tuesday 16th April at 2.30 pm. after a very brief Annual General Meeting.   Refreshements will be served from 2 pm. Admission £3 at the door.

We look forward to welcoming you for the last talk of the 2023 to 2024 season before the summer break.

Looking back over our last year

West Deeping Heritage’s Annual General Meeting in May marked the end of the 2022 – 2023  season of talks – with a change of venue and breaking all records for its brevity! 

Over a cup of tea (and cakes for some) in the cafe at Vine House Farm, members of the committee and some loyal supporters read through a review of the last year’s events  and looked over the annual accounts.

It was an opportunity to thank committee members, Allan Crowson, Liz Noble, Linda Upson and Paul Bragg, for their help in running of the group, as well as those who serve refreshments and help with setting up the Village Hall, our normal venue for talks.  Thanks were also passed on to Barrie Upson for checking the accounts.

The AGM was over in less than quarter of an hour, so Nicholas Watts  – our host for the afternoon – took us over to the barn which houses his collection of agricultural implements, gathered from all over the British Isles.  There was a story to be told about every tool and Nicholas Watts held everyone’s interest until nearly closing time!

Many thanks to our “in-house” photographer, Paul Bragg, for most of the pictures in this digital record of our visit.

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Our 2023 to 2024 programme starts on Tuesday 26th September  with an evening talk by archaeologist Ian Meadows on Roman food and drink – “Wine, women and stuffed dormouse”!

We look forward to welcoming you to or normal venue in the Village Hall,  West Deeping.

Visit to Rippingale Station

Sunday 25^th June 2 pm: Visit to Rippingale Station with Ken Wainwright, local railway historian

On the Sleaford to Bourne section of the Great Northern line, and opened in 1870, the station served passengers from Rippingale, Dowsby and Dunsby, but closed to passengers in 1930.  An exception was in 1951 when a special charter train took local residents for a trip to the Great Exhibition.

The line from Bourne to Billingborough remained open for goods until 1964.  Since 2022 though, the station has become a destination for visits by model railway enthusiasts – and heritage groups such as West Deeping Heritage Group – but only about eight times a year, in groups of eight to ten and booked in advance.

Housed in the Goods Shed at Rippingale Station is a heritage project which began about five years ago when former teacher Ken Wainwright began working on a 160 sq ft replica of Bourne Station.  It has long since disappeared from the town’s landscape, but after long hours of research, he has built a replica of how the station would have looked to passengers between about 1935 and 1949. He has added the Bourne to Rippingale branch and a model of the station there.

As well as intricately laid-out station buildings and rail furniture – from turntable to signalboxes – surrounding buildings from the period have been faithfully reproduced.  Along with the layouts, there are extensive displays of memorabilia and exhibition boards.

(Stamford Mercury. 27 November 2021- chris.harby@iliffepublishing.co.uk)

Up to 10 West Deeping Heritage supporters are invited to take part in the visit on Sunday 25^th June, at 2 p.m.

(From West Deeping, go straight up King Street on to the A15, carry on through Bourne and take the turning to Rippingale just past Haconby –  only 20 to 25 minutes away!)

To book a place and to arrange transport please contact wdheritage@hotmail.co.uk or phone 07808 585189

 

West Deeping Heritage visit Vine House Farm in Deeping St Nicholas

 

Tuesday 16^th May 2023 2 pm for 2.30 pm

Instead of our usual venue at the Village Hall in West Deeping, the last meeting of the 2022 – 2023 season will be at Vine House Farm, Main Road, Deeping St Nicholas, Spalding PE11 3DG, for the AGM and a hosted visit to the barn which houses Nicholas Watts’ collection of old agricultural implements. 

(See the Events page for organisational details)

Some of these tools are likely to be the same type as those used in the fields of West Deeping, in the days when agriculture was the main occupation and before much of our village’s agricultural land was transformed by gravel extraction.

Besides their agricultural past, there are several other historical links between West Deeping and Deeping St Nicholas.  Part of the area now known as Deeping St NIcholas actually “belonged”, in terms of local government and administration, to West Deeping.

From early times, West Deeping Fen had been common land – Inhabitants of the village had commoners’ rights in the fen, including the right to graze animals there during summer months, when water levels receded and left rich grassland,

The Enclosure Award of 1813 changed everything. The layout of the agricultural landscape and even the farm buildings of Deeping St Nicholas owe a great deal to the enclosure of the commons and the transfer of ownership.

The “Commons” of West Deeping

From the Enclosure Award for West Deeping 1813

 

The parish of West Deeping and its extra-parochial settlement –  before adjustment in 1931

The administrative district of Deeping Fen was  described as “an extra-parochial liberty” by Samuel Lewis in “A Topographical Dictionary of England”, [i] published in 1831.  It “was enclosed from part of the waste land formerly belonging to several parishes, and is partly held by adventurers, for draining, and partly by persons who are free from drainage expenses by the nature of their tenures; all the land is exempt from the land tax, and from ecclesiastical and all other assessments.”

[i]  Lewis, Samuel : A Topographical Dictionary of England, 1831: Vol 2 p2

The administrative history of the area is rather confusing!

The parish of Deeping Fen was created in 1846 after the land had been drained, and was formed into a civil parish, known as Deeping St Nicholas, in May, 1862. It was in the Bourne Registration District, whereas West Deeping was in the Stamford Registration District. This apparently caused some confusion even for census enumerators during the Victorian era – there are notes on the census pages to explain that the entries for West Deeping Fen were to be classified as “other houses in the Fen”, and (in 1901) “detached parts of the parish of West Deeping”. In 1911, the addresses appear to be even more confusing!  The West Deeping Fen entries, appearing after the village entries, were for 2 households at Castle Cottages, (Deeping Fen, Spalding) one at Wensor Castle Farm, (Deeping St Nicholas) one at Langtoft Fen, Market Deeping and another at Crown Lodge (Deeping Fen, Market Deeping).

A “detached portion of West Deeping south of the Langtoft Drain Road” remained as such until 1931 when  the civil parish of West Deeping gave up 129 acres of its original area to Langtoft.

Another historical link between the two Deepings is the Haynes family that owned extensive property in West Deeping and the Fen. This family has confused many genealogists due to the frequent use of the name ‘James’ in several generations and in several branches of the family!

Grave of James Haynes (1698-1777) at West Deeping

Dovecote at Holly Lodge, West Deeping built in 1755

The Maltings in West Deeping, 1786, built by James Haynes (1738-1801)

Primitive Methodist Chapel & School at Deeping St Nicholas, 1867

James Haynes (1698 – 1777)  is commemorated by the table tomb in the churchyard of St Andrew’s at West Deeping and built, in 1755,  the dovecote still standing in one of the gardens in The Lane. Another James Haynes (1738 – 1801) built the Maltings, (now 43A King Street) in 1786.  James Haynes (1796 – 1868), a prosperous farmer of Wensor Castle Farm inherited several West Deeping village properties and gave land at Deeping St Nicholas to build the Primitive Methodist Chapel and School which was erected in 1867.

Deeping St Nicholas House, formerly The Hollies

A further link between Deeping St Nicholas and West Deeping is formed by another farmer – William Edward Porter.  The owner of West Deeping Manor and Manor Farm between 1917 and 1925 and the first Chairman of West Deeping Parish Council when it was formed in 1919, he and his family previously lived at The Hollies (now St Nicholas House) in Deeping St Nicholas.

Nicholas Watts of Vine House Farm, who will be our host for the visit by West Deeping Heritage Group on Tuesday 16th May, is in the process of publishing a book about the farms and smallholdings of Deeping St Nicholas. We can look forward to discovering much more about the agricultural heritage of the area.

Last of a Fenland dynasty

On Tuesday 21st March, West Deeping Heritage Group’s afternoon talk (the last before the summer)  will be given by Mike Heath, former teacher and author of books on several topics – including “The Life and times of Annie Williams – Last of a Fenland Dynasty”.

Covering many aspects of a life that spanned almost a century – from 1890 to 1986 – Mike’s book is based on interviews with Annie when she was in her 80s.  No doubt we will hear of her childhood and teenage reminiscences, of her time as a nurse, her life as one of the family that oversaw the Borough Fen Bird Decoy and her friendship with several famous people, including Sir Peter Scott.

Peakirk Wildfowl Sanctuary – visit by Peterborough Children’s Book Group 1987

Since the publicity went out for this talk, many people have passed on their reminiscences –  of Annie and Billy Williams in their later years and particularly about visits to the Peakirk Wildfowl Sanctuary.

In fact, my own children, their cousins and maybe children who came along to one of the meetings of  Peterborough Children’s Book Group  will remember our visits during the 1980s,  to see and feed the birds and to enjoy this unique setting.

Annie Williams is still remembered as the friendly and talkative owner of the house adjoining the Peakirk Wildfowl Sanctuary  – with the pond in the back garden, which was home to a colony of flamingos!  Her husband Billy was the first curator of the gardens.

With gravel extraction being such a talking point in West Deeping and surrounding villages at the moment, it’s interesting to note the earlier history of the site at Peakirk.  There was originally a natural spring there.  In the 1840s, when the Lincolnshire Loop railway was being built, the area was used as gravel workings.  Once the gravel had been extracted, the site was left with a large pool of water, with ten islands.  Planted with osiers, it was a good source of materials used for basket making.

Peakirk Wildfowl Sanctuary – cafe area in the 1990s

It wasn’t until 1956 that the  Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust bought the property and transformed it into a popular attraction, with a cafe and shop, for both tourists and educational groups.  With around 700 water birds, several of which were threatened with extinction, the Peakirk Wildfowl Sanctuary became one of the nine Wildfowl Trust sites  and an important  conservation project championed by Sir Peter Scott.

By the mid 1970s there were 64,000 paying visitors, 8,000 of which were schoolchildren but during the 1980s visitor numbers fell and in 1990 the site was sold. The Peterborough Agricultural Society leased the site in 1991 for six years, but it was uneconomical and closed in December 2001 with the birds rehomed. It was sold into private ownership in 2003, in whose hands it remains. Many people wonder what will become of the site – there might be a clue in the Peakirk Neighbourhood Plan 2016-2030. A document published in 2017 makes interesting reading.

There will be copies of Mike Heath’s book available for sale, which Mike will be only too happy to sign!

Come along to the

Village Hall, King Street, West Deeping on Tuesday 21st March –  refreshments will be served from 2 pm before the talk which starts at 2.30 p.m.

No advance booking necessary; £3 admission at the door.

 

West Deeping remembers 1914 – 1919

Visit St Andrew’s Church in West Deeping during the next week (until 20th November) to view a display made up of some of the research for “West Deeping remembers 1914 to 1918”, a display put on four years ago In 2018.  That was when we held a Service of Remembrance for descendants of West Deeping men who served in the Great War and re-dedicated a scroll which recorded the names of all the men who had served in the Armed Forces during the Great War.

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One of the display panels tells the story of the restoration of the scroll. Included in the display are the Commonwealth War Graves certificates for each of the 12 men born or bred in West Deeping who were killed in the war.  There’s also a series of posters – stories of some of the men (and a woman!) who served in the Great War. Find out about Joseph Anstee (the miller’s son), Albert Hemsill (a baker, from 1, King Street), George Henson, (a rural postman and keen cyclist, from May Cottages), Lilian Marriott (who enlisted with Queen Mary’s Army Auxiliary Corps), “The boys from The Row” (Frederick and George  Beehoo, Edwin Black, Searle Randall, Jim Smart, James Bertie Wright, Charlie and Jack Wright) and others.

 

To find out more about the Great War period and its aftermath, get a copy of West Deeping Remembers 1919.  It contains nearly 200 pages, numerous illustrations including old postcards of the village in the early 1900s and a Roll of Honour of all those who had a part to play in the Great War.  There are details of many more characters who played a part in the life of the village, and details of where they lived, as far as can be discovered from village documents, census records and newspaper archives.

The book is on sale at the Deepings Community Library, or from 32, King Street, West Deeping – for £18.50 (plus postage and packing if required). Email wdheritage@hotmail.co.uk

 

Heritage volunteers needed!

We are honoured and privileged to have been given a collection of ledgers – account books and copy estimates – some more than 100 years old.  But we need some help to discover and record what they contain.

Have you a little time to spare? What about spending an autumn afternoon each week at the pub, with tea and biscuits, helping to finding out about our village history?

George Barber and William Ackland’s ledgers

George Barber was the village blacksmith, wheelwright and carpenter and his “Bill book” dates back to 1889. It appears that after he died in 1904, brothers John and William Ackland ran the business together before William took it over, having completed his apprenticeship in Uffington. He later became the Clerk to West Deeping Burial Board as well as the Parish Council.  He and his wife Susie lived opposite the cemetery (now 29 King Street) but from 1930 until his death in 1969 at the age of 82, he lived at Stoneleigh, 1 King Street, which we know today as Wheatsheaf Cottage.

His letters, estimates and bills have a wealth of detail to reveal about his customers, the jobs he undertook and the price of materials and labour – covering 50 years of business as a “Carpenter,Wheelwright and Undertaker”. 

Can you help – perhaps just by reading through, maybe making an index or perhaps looking for a particular customer or a particular building where William Ackland did some work?

Give it a try and come along to this FREE event at The Red Lion, King Street, West Deeping on Wednesday afternoons, from 2 pm to 3.30 pm, starting on Wednesday 2nd November. Complimentary tea and biscuits provided

 

Our Lincolnshire heritage: October 2022

Lincolnshire Flag

Our talk for October, just three days after Lincolnshire Day, celebrates our Lincolnshire heritage – and we’ve bought a Lincolnshire flag to celebrate!

It’s on Tuesday 4th October at 7.30 p.m.  Members of Far Welter’d, the East Lincolnshire Dialect Society will be presenting an evening of entertainment and information about the “Linkisheer” dialect.

Full of strange, often humorous, words and turns of phrase – the Lincolnshire dialect is said to be dying out.  It’s certainly true in West Deeping!  Older villagers, the Lincolnshire “yellowbellies”, whose families have been here for many generations, pass on and younger members move away; “gofers” of “frimfoak” (people from another county) take their place.  Moreover, even in this small village, the population is becoming more ethnically diverse.

Whether you’re a “yellowbelly” or a “gofer”, find out how the Lincolnshire dialect developed – a blend of Chaucerian, Scandinavian Anglo-Saxon and Danelaw. Maybe learn some new words to keep our county’s heritage alive …

• West Deeping Village Hall, King Street, West Deeping, PE6 9HP
• Tuesday 4th October 2022
• 7 for 7.30 p.m.
• £3 at the door including refreshments

Post Script: There are several resources you could use to find out more about the Linkisheer dialect:

• Far Welter’d website
• Nobbut a yellerbelly by Allan Stennett
• 50 Words from Lincolnshire Lincolnshire Live 6th October 2019
• Loretta Rivett: Dialect Workshop: Village Voices & report of a talk for West Wolds U3A

To start the New Year programme …

St John’s Church, Morton

The first event in West Deeping Heritage Group’s programme for 2022 is an evening talk on Tuesday 18th January, (7 for 7.30 p.m.)

Local historian, Dave Mainwaring of Morton, near Bourne will be presenting an illustrated talk: “Pease, puter and piggs” – a Lincolnshire village in the 16th and 17th centuries.

Peas (maybe still growing in the field),  pewter (mugs, plates or even a chamber pot) and pigs (just some of a yeoman’s livestock) – are typical examples of the goods and chattels in the possession of a Lincolnshire villager at the time of his or her death.

Inventories and wills can give a fascinating insight into the households, the occupations and the personal wealth of former inhabitants of villages like Morton – and West Deeping.

Such records survive for West Deeping from as early as medieval times – “inquisitiones post mortem” (IPMs) were drawn up after the death of for anyone who held lands directly from the Crown.  A local jury would be set up – to enquire as to what lands the tenant held, in return for what services, and their yearly value; to ascertain the tenant’s date of death, and the identity and age of their heir and to record the crown’s rights as a feudal overlord.  These records reveal some fascinating details.  For example, when Lucy, widow of Edmund earl of Kent, died in 1424 she held property which was allotted to Margaret (nee Beauchamp), Duchess of Clarence and later to be the mother of Margaret Beaufort,  She “held the following in dower of the Abbot of Peterborough” and referred to a water-mill called ‘West Depyng milne’, worth 60s. yearly.

Will of John Welden, 1585

The National Archives at Kew hold probate records for at least 20 people from our own village – the earliest being the will of John Welden, yeoman of West Deeping, who died in 1586.  Besides land in West Deeping, Maxey and Tallington, he left the lease of Lolham Mill to his son. To his wife Alice, he left an annuity of £15, “foure kyne (cows) and twenty ewes and twenty lambes”,  land in Tallington, “all the stuffe in the olde parlour” and the “use of sixe quishions (cushions) and twelve silver spoones during her naturall lyfe“.

Dave Mainwaring has studied hundreds of inventories and wills for the village of Morton – involving hours of transcribing handwritten documents and interpreting archaic vocabulary and abbreviations – to build up a picture of a Lincolnshire village during the Tudor and Stuart period.

Everyone is welcome to attend – no membership or booking is needed. Refreshments are provided before the talk, from 7 pm, and are included in the admission price of £2.50.

Strangers in the Fens

How and why did these “strangers”  – as the locals called the group of foreigners, the descendants of immigrant Walloons and Huguenots – come to be invited to live and work in the small village of Thorney on the edge of the fens in the 17th century? 

A talk by Dorothy Halfhide and Margaret Fletcher of the Thorney Society  – on Tuesday 23rd November – promises to provide West Deeping Heritage supporters with some interesting insights on “Strangers in Thorney”.

How did their nationality and religious beliefs impact on a traditional fenland community? What was their influence on the landscape? Did their knowledge of land reclamation and the appropriate farming methods for newly-drained fenland  have an impact on agriculturalists in the Deeping area?

The names of these colonists – anglicized and corrupted often past recognition – are still to be found, particularly in the surrounding areas of fen country in Cambridgeshire and Lincolnshire. The name of Coates-based haulage contractors, P J Thory, is thought to originate from the French place-name and a 17th century colonist. French Farm and French Drove (B1167) are the most obvious evidence of their legacy. 

French Farm, Thorney

French Drove, Thorney

Haulage fleet: P J Thory, Coates, Cambridgeshire

Strangers in the Fens: Trevor Bevis

To find out more, either read “Strangers in the Fens: Huguenot/Walloon communities at Thorney, Parson Drove, Guyhirn and Sandtoft” by Trevor Bevis, published in 1983 and now out-of-print –

OR

Come along to West Deeping Village Hall, King Street, West Deeping PE6 9HP on Tuesday 23rd November 2021, at 2.30 for a 3 p.m. start.   (£2.50 admission, at the door; light refreshments included)