Chapter  7 - THE FIRE SERVICE IN WOODSTON

Present day Woodston has a long list of predecessors - the earliest sign of man being flint and stone hand axes stretching back to 200,000 BC when hunter/nomads seem to have been inhabiting the area although no sign remains of their settlements. When agriculture was introduced to Britain about 5000 years ago (Neolithic period), the hunter/nomad existence gradually gave way to a more settled existence and the establishment of farming communities and probably clans or family groups. Food was available not only from crops grown but also the game on surrounding limestone uplands.

Bronze and Iron Age settlers (c700-43BC) continued the agricultural way of life and significant amounts of Iron Age pottery have been found in Woodston, which would have been like Flag Fen. The Romans didn't leave too many clues apart from their buildings such as the fortress under Thorpe Wood Golf Course. They inhabited the area from around 43AD and one of them (or at least their skeleton) was still there in 1981 when a startled digger driver on a building site dug up a skull and later the bones that went with it. Urgent police investigations were undertaken but the late Mr Martin Howe solved the "murder" mystery by declaring the bones to be around 1600 years old and, to the relief of all concerned, promptly removed them to the Museum.

The Anglo-Saxon (West Germanic tribes from 5th Century AD) gave Woodston its name, possibly derived from Woden, the foremost Anglo-Saxon god who represented war, poetry and death. They helpfully, even if unintentionally, left more evidence for future generations. Two burial grounds have been located which show that individual burials and cremations (open pyres) took place. Personal effects, such as shield, household goods and toys were buried with these people appropriate to their age and sex. These cemeteries were probably used for about 100 years. Unfortunately nothing remains to give any clues about the size of population or location of their settlements.

With the introduction of Christianity (7th Cent) to Britain these burial grounds would have been abandoned for those of the new religion and possibly the inhabitants of those times left their established settlements and formed a new one round St.Augustine's Church which continued through the Middle Ages. Most information in this part of the introduction is taken from an article by the late Mr M Howe and used in appreciative memory of him.

King Edgar (959 - 975) gave the manor of Woodston to Bishop Ethelwold of Winchester in exchange for other land and the Bishop gave it to the Abbey at Thorney which held it until the Dissolution of the Monasteries in Henry VIII's time. Some of the earliest recorded history about Woodston is in the Domesday Book which was compiled in 1086, only 20 years after the Battle of Hastings.

"in Woodstone 5 hides taxable, Land for 9 ploughs. Now in Lordship 2 ploughs on 1.1/2 hides of this land, 16 villagers with 4 ploughs. A church and a priest. Meadow, 16 acres, underwood, 4 acres. Value before 1066, 100s, now £4.00". The Woodston mentioned in the Domesday Book would have been the estate of Woodston, which may have included parts of other parishes.

Woodston is recorded as having a windmill and a fishery in the reign of Edward 1 (1272 -1307). Also in the 13th century the abbot had a pillory and tumbrels.

In his book, "Along the Nene", H J K Jenkins writes about the following: In the 13th century Woodston was quite a separate settlement away from Peterborough although only a very short distance up the Nene. Like much of the area in that period it was owned and administered by the religious foundation at Thorney Abbey. The monks obtained a royal charter for an important market at nearby Yaxley and took to bringing in goods for sale via Woodston which had its own wharf then and for several hundred years afterwards, thus avoiding the tolls which had been charged at Peterborough. The burgesses of Northampton, representing Peterborough, took exception to this and brought a successful legal action against the monks for what were seen as unfair trading practices. However, in 1268 Thorney Abbey quietly obtained a new charter, supposedly for a market at Woodston. This market was very rarely held and allowed any amount of goods to be landed at Woodston and then transported to Yaxley.
Used by kind permission of H J K Jenkins.

In 1553 Edward VI granted the manor to Sir Walter Mildmay and his son Anthony inherited it. In 1674 Woodston was sold again and up until 1697 James Wright, MD of Kensington, Middlesex owned it but sold it in that year to Robert Thompson of Stanground with the advowson (right of presentation to a vacant benefice) of the Rectory and all appurtenances and rights for £3,604. In 1809 the Lord of the Manor was Carrier Thompson. Woodston remained in the Thompson family until 1914 soon after which date the estates were sold and the manorial rights presumably lost.

Elizabeth I granted the Dean and Chapter lordship of the vill in 1541 and the Dean and Chapter administered the civil courts until the County Courts Act in 1846. Until then, the Dean and Chapters' High Bailiff had held courts above Minster Gate in the Cathedral Precincts. The High Bailiff was also the returning officer at parliamentary elections.

Early 19th century Woodston's population was less that 150 people, mostly poverty stricken peasants but in 1841 had grown to 250 - only one of whom had a reputation being of "scandalous life and conversation". H J K Jenkins - St Augustine's Church.

In 1845 Peterborough had the first links with the railway system which was eventually to prove the
end of the river transportation economy. The first railway line in the city was the Peterborough to Northampton line which ran along the south bank of the river, right past Woodston Wharf. This track can be followed today by taking a ride on the Nene Valley Railway from near Railworld to Wansford. This journey would also take you over or at least very near the site of the village or settlement of Botolphsbridge between British Sugar and the Gordon Arms.

*By the 1850s Woodston had become the domicile of various wealthy residents , a point illustrated by the fact that a "ladies day-school" had come into existence. This was a private venture, operated by a certain Mrs Johnson, and had no connection with the longstanding village school founded in 1728. Agriculture was still the community's mainstay, but a small brick-manufactory had appeared on the scene,as had a variety of new shops.*" H J K Jenkins - St Augustine's Church. This growth reflected the growing wealth and power of Great Britain as the first industrialised nation in the 19th Century. It was around this time that Woodston and Peterborough merged into each other - the building of new houses, the flax factory in Celta Mills Road and brickmaking adding to the community's prosperity. In 1868 the Parliamentary Boundary Commission decided that because Woodston and Fletton were so bound up in the life of Peterborough they should form part of the constituency. Local matters were still dealt with from Huntingdonshire.

1872 saw the formation of a committee to apply for a Charter of Incorporation for Peterborough partly to help eradicate unruliness at elections where, at that time, poorer voters were being bribed with beer tickets to support a particular candidate. A meeting of this committee was held in the Cherry Tree Inn to enlist the support of Woodston and Fletton voters as the ecclesiastical parish would be included in the Charter which was granted on March 17, 1874.

Under the provisions of the Local Government Act 1894 , the parish of Woodston was divided into Woodston Rural Parish containing 984 acres which was controlled by Old Fletton Urban District Council and Woodston Urban Parish containing 70 acres which was included in the Municipal Borough of Peterborough. The ecclesiastical parish was undivided. In March 1894 a school board was formed in Woodston because city ratepayers would not pay for increased educational facilities in the district. It was pointed out that this refusal gave the Woodston people a rudimentary knowledge of local government - a comment aimed at the meanness of city ratepayers. Woodston's population by now was around 2000.

The subject of bathing in the Nene caused some problems in July 1882 when it was pointed out in an extract from the Peterborough Advertiser of the day:- "A few weeks ago two correspondents drew attention in our columns to the fact that bathing frequently took place in the river other than the recognised bathing places, thus seriously interfering with the legitimate use of the river for boating and also closing those walks near the river to ladies. " The report concluded with the hope that the Peterborough Police should be given instructions to prosecute any wilful exposure. Times have changed..... This bathing place was more or less opposite Wharf Road although entry could only be made from the opposite side of the river. It consisted of planks floating on the water in a rectangular arrangement so swimmers could rest on the planks which floated well out from the bank. Other sources, who shall remain nameless, have told me that the boys who swam there used to pick holes in the hessian curtains dividing the boys and girls changing areas so that they could peek through them. No comment!

Public transport got a boost in 1896 when Mr William Bailey, licensee of the Swan in Midgate, realised the business possibilities of such a scheme and started a horse drawn bus service in the city and this service included Woodston. Horses were changed at two-hourly intervals.

*In March 1899 a man called Leverett employed a group of men to run a fen lighter. Their lighter was at Woodston(e) Wharf when it was found that the cargo of tightly pressed straw was ablaze. The blaze probably started from a spark from a passing locomotive engine. There was great concern about this because the lighter, which was cut adrift away from other vessels, was very close to a timber bridge. The blaze was eventually prevented from reaching the timber bridge by fire-fighters and crews of other lighters. It was thought that several of these craft were not insured - cost cutting was becoming more and more common as river traffic was overtaken by the railways. *
Used by kind permission P Waszak
used in a Nene Valley Railway magazine.

Peterborough's Industrial Chaplain, Rev Mostyn Davies, told us that he buried one of the last bargees in the area, Mr Arthur Tyres, some years ago. Mr Tyres knew the waterways of the Middle Level like the back of his hand but was cautious with whom he shared this information.

Up until around 1934 there was a staunch (lock and barrier across the river together with a house for the lock-keeper) at Woodston which would have helped shipping traffic time their deliveries.

Huntings Field (in Wharf Road and in 1912 Frank E Hunting, Farmer is recorded at living at the Manor house in Wharf Road, approximately the site of Mitchell Construction offices) boasted several large walnut trees and even up to 1950s schoolboys were still raiding the walnut trees and doing their utmost to avoid the geese that lived in the field. The "jitty" (lane) beside the church also boasted walnut trees. This jitty is supposed to be haunted by a lady in black whose dying words were that she would come back to look over her children. So many sightings were reported at one time that, according to the Evening Telegraph of Oct 26 1973, the local authority posted notices near St Augustine's graveyard saying "Beware, the ghost of the lady in black". Mind you, this was in 1908. And a neighbour of the lady who died is reported in same article as saying that the dead woman's children had said they had seen her.

The building of a road bridge in the 1980s at Orton Staunch resolved a situation that had been causing difficulties for a long time. (H F Tebbs - Peterborough) said that in 1908 Thorpe Lea Road was projected as the approach road for a second bridge to Woodston, which was originally planned before the First World War. River crossings were a problem at least 100 years ago when the Rev Raper led a movement to have a bridge built at Woodston and obtained 542 signatures.

While the rest of the city suffered or benefited, depending on your point of view, from the massive development programme of the late 20th Century, Woodston escaped almost unscathed - Grove Street area was changed to make way for Tower Court flats. And The Dell was built on Mr Rimes' allotments at the Oundle Road end of Bakers Lane, Peake Close was built on cattle grazing land (this was in the 1950s), there are some new houses off Orton Avenue and Flamborough Close at the bottom of Wharf Road and Orchard Mews on the old Orchard Street School playground. Currently, there are plans to build on the British Sugar site and the old silos, which have been a landmark for decades, will soon be gone. (In 2002, the date of this reprint, the silos have been gone for some years now but are featured in a picture in this book).

All in all a Woodston much changed from the one described in the Domesday Book and the manor bought by Robert Thompson in 1697 for £3,604 who would have had no idea of the term "water rates" which, in 1952 in Woodston were "2/-(10p) in the pound, net rateable value. Happy days ........

In 1996 we have found that the community spirit spoken of by several people who can remember far further back than before we were born, is still very much in evidence. Woodston is a definite community with a definite life and identity of its own. The settlement on slightly higher ground on the edge of waterlogged land was a prime site in the Bronze Age and Anglo Saxon times - and long may it so remain!

Mrs Violet Perrin has lived in Belsize Avenue all her life and recalls that there used to be a farm, in Celta (Mills) Road now the Hotpoint/Redring site. (In front of the Flax Mill). Around 1910, certainly before the First World War Mr and Mrs Hobbs ran the farm, and after that Mr and Mrs Sutton with their son Laurie, who was well known in local football circles. The farmhouse was still standing after the Second World War until the growth of Hotpoint and Redring necessitated its demolition.

Picture Celta Mills Road farm used by kind permission of Mrs Sole of Peterborough.

There used to be a passenger train service run along the railtracks behind the houses on the east of Belsize Avenue and in the 30s Mrs Perrin tells us that her grandparents thought they were staying up late if they weren't tucked up before the evening train for Leicester went past. At 8.10pm!

Further down Belsize Avenue, on the corner with Orton Avenue, Mr Crowson ran a butcher's shop which had the distinction of selling genuine home produced meat. Mr Crowson used to keep cattle on the land where Peake Close is now and had a slaughterhouse at the back of his shop. This shop became so well known that bus passengers did not ask for Orton Avenue or the Woodston (pub) as a destination but "Crowson's Corner". Mr Crowson kept cattle there until the land was sold for development in about 1950. In 1957/8 the houses in Peake Close were selling for £1600!

On the land behind Peake Close could be seen, (although they are being dismantled) the old "clamp" kilns of one of several brickyards that have been active in Woodston over the last 155 years.

There was no through road from Celta Road to Oundle Road via Belsize Avenue and Bakers Lane until the late 1960s. The land on which The Dell is built used to be allotments owned by Mr Rimes who also had a few garages there which he rented out to local residents. The rest of the site was a once a gravel quarry and rubbish tip.

Mrs Perrin remembers the Anderson shelter in the living room during World War 2 and another other memory is of five fish and chip shops in Woodston during the war, all making their owners a living. There were situated in Belsize Avenue, Orton Avenue, near the cinema in Palmerston Road, opposite Queens Walk and Mr Fleming's which started in a wooden hut with the friers heated by a coal fire (never get away with it now) and this was opposite Huntley Road. In 1915/16 Belsize Avenue was host to Canadian servicemen and Belgian refugees.

Belsize Avenue has kept in touch with the 20th century through the siting of Hotpoint and Redring at the top, a Lawrence David warehouse behind the houses on the east and, up until 1986 when they moved to Priestgate, the production, editorial and advertising departments of the Evening Telegraph and Peterborough Citizen. The papers continue to be printed at the Peterboro Web works which are still on the site. An explosion at the Perkins canteen in the late 1980s was a 20th century event Belsize Avenue could have done without.

The first church was where the car park for the supermarket on Oundle Road is now and seated 200 as well as providing schoolrooms. The congregation grew and on May 31 1900 schoolrooms and a chapel were opened in George Street with the Rev B Knight as first pastor.

Continued growth demanded many years of fund raising and on May 14, 1936 Mrs Knight, the widow of the first pastor, cut the first turf on the present Oundle Road site and the foundation stone was laid by Lady Burghley on July 9 that year. Inaugural meetings were attended by Rev Atkinson from St Augustine's church.

Finally, on May 27, 1937 Mr H Colman, the church's oldest member turned an engraved key in the lock and the new chapel, built of Stamfordshire grey bricks and Stamfordshire hand made tiles, was officially opened.

The Woodston Brickyard was founded in the 1840s by Richard John Head, a draper, on land leased from Lady Charlotte A Gordon. Robert Gollings managed the yard and in the late 1850s probably became the manager of the yard and ran it until 1880. A W Itter and Alfred Rixom took it on a 15 year lease after that but ceased trading in 1886/7. A short lease was taken by James Craig but in 1980 Lady Gordon's trustees sold the site to Fletton B.C.L and five years later J C Hill of the London Brick Company bought it and it became their No.4 works.

In 1863 another site was bought by John Thompson who began a brickworks. He sold it to the Peterborough Patent Brick and Tile Co. Ltd. in April 1877. This company developed financial difficulties and the site was auctioned in May 1881 and bought by Henry Knight. He died soon after and the works had several changes of owners until L.B.C. and Forders bought it in 1928/9.

In April 1990 J C Hill bought a site then called Woodston Lodge Farm. This was to be an extension to L.B.C.s no.3/4 works and was excavated in 1908 after geological changes were found in the no.4 works pit.

J C Hill acquired most of the next site between 1895-1900 and the remainder by exchange in 1905. Most of this site was sold off by Hill's mortgagees to the government in 1919 for the building of a large flax mill (the same one mentioned in the piece about Wellington Bomber assembly elsewhere in this book, so that places this one around the Hotpoint/Redring area).

The old pub was a fairly long building with numerous small-paned windows and two brick built porches, one with a sloping roof and one with a pitched roof. It came as a surprise to find a picture, taken in July 1927, of a group of ladies posed in front of a bus on the pub forecourt, all dressed up for an outing. We were unable to reproduce the picture because of production difficulties despite the permission of the owner.

Palmerston Arms: A previous landlady, Mrs Threapstone, believed that the Palmerston Arms was a farm outbuilding of Fletton Towers (or even a farm near Huntings Field). It used to be a coaching inn, the walls are 14 inch thick, built of local stone and is listed at the Department of the Environment as a building of special architectural or historical interest. No great surprise to learn that this old coaching inn was named after Lord Palmerston, Prime Minister 1855 - 1865 and it stands at the top of Palmerston Road.

Cherry Tree: A hostelry well known until a year or so ago for Mr Pete Carter's jazz sessions.

The New Inn. Now refurbished and named Johnny Burns but for years before looked as it is shown in the picture.

Proclamation of the city's fairs used to be: St Peter's or the Cherry Fair proclaimed from the old Town Hall steps; the Bridge Fair from the centre of the old Town Bridge and then in the fairground - all shouted out by the Town Crier of the day. Before the turn of the century drinking booths and boxing rings and travelling cinemas could be found at the fair together with trading in wood and livestock. Mr George Baines remembers the boxing booth with two or three boxers who used to challenge members of the crowd to stand up for two or three rounds as well as the fairground stalls and booths. There were two entrances to the fair, the current one and another also in Oundle Road leading to the second fair meadow where Marshall garage is. George also recalls stalls on the roadside. The fairs used to be illuminated with paraffin flares (imagine the smell) and a large steam engine used to be at the main fair entrance providing power for some stalls.

19th century fairs seemed to have been great attractions, because in 1859 the London and North West Railway brought 2500 visitors, Great Eastern Railway 2400, Midland 1500 and Great Northern 3000. In 1864 tragedy hit when a woodman living in Oundle Road was found drowned in the river with his pockets rifled and in 1869 there were 11 arrests for gaming, three for watch stealing, and two for housebreaking.

The English weather produced some spectacular effects after prolonged rain in 1875 - the "mud fair". The entire fairground was turned into a mud lake and a young lady in a white dress fell full length and slithered for several feet while a young man fell head first and had to be extracted by his friends.

Innumerable complaints in the press about unruly behaviour and drunkenness had accompanied the fairs but in 1886 the fair was revamped into a cross between an "autumn carnival and a Sunday School treat". This fair was proclaimed in the nave of the of the Cathedral by a few "earnest words of exhortation by the Dean" and was the first fair in meadows laid out as a pleasure park.

Further tragedy in 1921 when, during extremely hot weather, Mrs Jackson, wife of the licensee, of the White Horse in Cumbergate fainted in the heat, fell off a roundabout and sustained fatal injuries. For the first time ever, local police reported no pick pocketing at that year's fair.

Not all the fairs enjoyed by Woodston inhabitants have been held on Fair Meadow. August Bank Holiday 1895 and the Peterborough Advertiser reported that at a fair and gala in Fletton Recreation Ground, Mademoislle Adelaide Bassett and Captain Owen would parachute from a 20,000-square-foot- capacity hot-air balloon called Victoria. Instead of a basket below the balloon there was a metal bar for the intrepid pair to hang onto. This spectacular, if foolhardy, stunt ended in tragedy when Mlle Adelaide slipped off the bar when the balloon flew a bit low and her parachute failed to open. She fell to the ground like a stone and was killed instantly. After all the fuss had died down, the crowds swarmed over the back gardens of nearby houses to try to find the place of death. This turned out to be a "deep indent in an onion bed". The news swiftly spread throughout the town and was telegraphed to "every corner of the country".

In pre NHS days the annual fund raising carnival for Peterborough Hospital used to start from the Fair Meadow, parade through town and come to rest in Stanley Rec.

The traditional sausage luncheon (now supper in the Town Hall) started when the High Bailiff (the fair was still administered by the Dean and Chapter) and gentlemen walked to the fair and stopped at a nearby booth for a bite to eat. This custom was carried on by the Corporation until the First World War when it lapsed, to be revived by Mayor, Arthur Craig in 1929. It lapsed again in World War Two but was revived in 1945 by Mayor, Mr Farrow.

Mr P Laxton recalls that after the war the Fire Station was turned into the Fire Station Flats (he once had to explain the origin of the name to an interested inquirer) but that these were knocked down around 1956.

Modern day fire-fighting is done, in the heroic tradition of the service, from the modern station at Stanground.

The following is a description of an entry in the Punishment Book for St Augustine's School, dated 1901 - three strokes of the cane on the seat for fighting and abusive language. The last entry in the book is dated 1956.

Orchard Street School takes its name from the fact that it is built on what used to be part, or all, of Fletton Towers orchard. This was shown on an old map held by the Development Corporation and on show at the time of the start of the expansion of Peterborough. Thanks to Mr Pat Laxton for that information. Orchard Street School is now used as a Social Services Resources Centre. The school was built on an old gravel quarry and from the time it was built in 1907 until it closed in 1961 the school had only three headmasters. The playground is now a housing development, Orchard Mews.

Before the infants of the parish went to Brewster Avenue,(the whole project cost £35,000 in the late 40s/early 50s) they went to a school on Oundle Road. The school took its name from Mr Jerry Brewster who owned the land it is built on. Mr Brewster was a bit of a local celebrity because he had one of, if not the first, cars in Woodston when he lived in New Road. He also kept pigs.

Miss W James can remember her first day at school. She wore a blue velvet dress, with broderie anglaise trim on her white pinafore with a hanky pinned to it. She also remembers skipping in the street before there was any traffic about.

In the 1930s Woodston County Primary School didn't have its own playing field as it does now. The field next to the school, the one they use now, was the playing field of Fletton Secondary School whose pupils had to cross London Road for their games lessons. This school started with four classrooms and four teachers plus the headmistress. The headmistress was Miss Chapman and her staff were Miss Smith, Miss Stanyon, Miss Braybrook and Miss Green who later married Mr George Alcock of Farcet, a well-known local astronomer.

St Augustine's School had a father and son headmaster team (one after the other). George Hankins and Ken Hankins
Picture of Mr G Hankins and some of his staff used by kind permission Mrs M Bates, seated bottom right.

Woodston's Mission Hall, in Orton Avenue, is still standing today, over 90 years after it was built on land donated by Mr J C Hill. Two years after it was built, the library at the Mission Hall was augmented by some books from the Parish Room library bringing the book stock up to 300. Library facilities cost 1d a month and were available every Sunday at 4pm. The hall also had a harmonium, paid for out of public subscription.

In December 1925 the Mission Hall was leased by the Church Army as a non-licensed social centre for the area. The usual attractions of the time were offered: light refreshments, table games, Billiard Club, Reading Room, Concerts, Lectures etc. There was an Evangelist/Manager who was required to say brief Family Prayers each evening before the Centre closed as well as an informal Evangelistic Service each Sunday to be at a time of his choosing but not later than 8pm. The Rector of the Parish could have the use, without charge, of the Centre except the Billiard Room and Canteen for twelve days of the year and arrangements were made for Mothers' Meetings and like gatherings. Mrs V Perrin's mother, the late Mrs A Vice, used to go to Whist Drives at the Mission Hall and Mrs Perrin also speaks of party political meetings taking place.

In 1928 there was talk of the Mission Room being taken over for school purposes. In the Chronology of St. Augustine's School (previously Woodston Church of England School) there is recorded the fact that in 1931 the main school and the infants school amalgamated with the title Woodston Church of England School. From the late 1940s/early 1950s there was a gradual reallocation of infants to the new school in Brewster Avenue and a separate establishment for the secondary age-ranges. We have not been able to find out exactly what it was that stopped the Mission Hall being used as a school. The social centre work of the Church Army suffered somewhat as a result of the rumours running around about the change of use but in October 1928 the Church Army was made aware that their work could continue in Belsize Avenue and the hope was expressed that they would be left undisturbed, for some months at least, to recover lost ground.

The cessation of the Church Army's work in the Belsize Mission Hall is not recorded in any of the material we had for research.

After the war, when it was used for engineering purposes, the Mission Hall was re-dedicated. Up until 1995, Father Douglas Stevens was holding services in the Mission Hall. Today, a market is held every Tuesday 10am - noon and lunches for the elderly are held regularly, too. It is planned (written in 1996) to sell the Mission Hall as well as the Wooden Box for housing development.

The Mission Hall was used for engineering purposes during the war and was re-dedicated at the end of it.

Where the former Robinson's Garage on London Road is now, in the Second World War the production of ammunition belts for machine guns took place on the site.

Decades after the war was over there was a supposedly secret old army store behind the garage block on the outer perimeter of the Woodston complex where the Evening Telegraph was produced. Photographers used to see, from their department's windows, lorries turn up, often at night, stay for a short while and drive off again. Nothing was said or asked about this until the late 1980s when the store was pulled down and it was revealed, to the disappointment of some enterprising photographer perhaps hoping for a front page picture of a spectacular explosion, to be a dried food and a cold store for meat .....thanks to ET photographer David Lowndes for that anecdote.

Although not known whether it was before or after he flew the plane that dropped the bomb on Hiroshima, the pilot, Paul Tibbetts visited friends in Oundle Road in August 1945. This is a link with a never-to-be-forgotten piece of history.

In December 1914 men of the 5th Norfolk Regiment were billeted in tents on Woodston recreation ground. One wonders what they would have made of the bombers and radar - used only 21 years or so after the end of their war - and the Hiroshima bomb would still be the stuff of nightmares and science fiction.

Below is a list of the men of the 6th Northamptonshire Regiment who fought in World War 1 and who had links with Woodston. If we have missed any name from this list we apologise in advance and have no intention of causing distress to any surviving member of families involved.

W E Baker 164 Palmerston Road
? Darby Palmerston Road
P Haynes 52 Palmerston Road
F Hughes Palmerston Road
G Pick Oundle Road
H Simpson 216 Oundle Road, Woodston.
E A Stocks Wootten Avenue

Men of the Suffolk (Cyclists?) Regiment were billeted in Woodston in the First World War and Mrs Perrin's father was billeted with her grandma and grandad Mr and Mrs Knowles. Romance blossomed between Charles Vice and Annie Knowles, the daughter of the house, and the family connection continues in Woodston to this day.

Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND)

Spring 1985. Included in a heated discussion in the Council Chamber over the council's controversial policy of blacklisting firms who worked on the cruise missile site at Molesworth, was the use of the air raid shelter in Celta Road by CND. Council leader Mr Charles Swift praised the peaceful protests by CND at Molesworth and stressed that the anti-cruise move was in line with Peterborough's nuclear-free policy. Today the shelter is boarded up - an unexpected development in the cessation of the arms race, Cold War, demolition of the Berlin Wall or whatever.

BOMBS

A high explosive bomb in World War 2 scored a direct hit on two houses in Oundle Road (just before the New Road turn on the left coming from town). Although the replacement houses have weathered in over the years it is still just possible to see that they are not as old as their neighbours. Bombs also fell in Queens Walk and London Road directly opposite Park Street.

The influx of evacuees during the Second World War caused concern in municipal circles because they felt there might be a health threat in overcrowded houses. Better that than being blown up in London, Coventry or Liverpool. Evacuees were taken to the Mission Hall by bus and collected by the families who were to give them safer shelter.

The Home Guard operated from the Drill Hall (which used to be where Kentucky Fried Chicken is now on London Road) during the war and the house that forms the base of the London Road Drill Hall used to belong to the Wickham family until it was sold to the Ministry of Defence.

In October 1923 the Co-operative Wholesale Society took over Woodstone Wharf for the production of coal wagons. Production continued there until December 25 1963, the date of the termination of the Co-op's tenancy. Mrs Judy Bunten, whose father was the manager of the wagon works recounts his memories of the men who worked in the wagon works swimming in the Nene from the bank beside the works and one of the men rode a motorbike over the river when it was frozen. This would be sometime in the 1930s. Dead bodies were occasionally fished out of the river there too. A regular pastime for some Woodston schoolboys in the 1950s was skimming metal oval wagon plates, from the Co-op Wagon Works along the surface of the river. When the river was dredged in the early 1990s it is not known whether it yielded a jolly good haul of scrap metal! In September 1980 it was reported that a quarter-scale model of a CWS wagon, made at Woodston Wharf was to be displayed in an exhibition to mark the 150th anniversary of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway held in the North West Museum of Science and Industry, Manchester.

The site of the Wagon Works is now part of Woodston Reach. According to the Evening Telegraph of 18 October 1984, Woodston Reach is the walk between Orton Mere and the Town Bridge. Some landscaping has been done and only a very slight hint remains that there was even a wharf or works there at all. There are some concrete blocks on the river bank which line up with the end of Wharf Road and a few railings in the river bed at the same point. A bit further on there is a line of rotting planks holding up the river bank - almost certainly part of the CWS wagon works. The underpass of the railway line which gave access to the wagon works has been filled in and now a slope leads to the railway line and onto the river bank.

In Wharf Road itself there was Sellars the basket makers who operated from the early 1800s until 1932, who used to make baskets from osiers (willows) which grew in a bed at Raveley's (?) Ford up near Botolph Bridge although the river bank was well provided with willows from Woodston to Orton. There were 44 acres of willow and the firm employed 60 people, 10 of whom worked full time looking after the osier (willow) beds. The willows were brought down river by barge and the last few yards were transported by donkey. Mr G Baines remembers that the osiers were inserted into a metal implement and drawn through it, thus stripping the osiers of the outer covering. The osiers were used to make hampers for the Royal Mail but when the First World War broke out all the skilled men went to war and prisoners carried on making containers for the mail, by that time out of canvas. Before the 1914 war several employees were women doing casual labour. Other customers included agricultural workers, the military in Indian and British Army, Smithfield market and the domestic market of linen baskets. The land was leased from the Marquis of Huntley at Orton Hall. There is a story that the local school master at Water End (Wharf Road) used to send schoolboys out to for a new cane when he had worn the old one out. It may be imagined that they rushed to Sellars when it suffered a major fire in April 1922, far more quickly than they did for a new cane.....

Ferry Boat Inn was close to the wharf itself and it is likely that a ferry of some sort, perhaps a rowing boat, operated from the wharf - whose operator doubtless made good use of the services of the pub.

Mr Thornburn (Wozza) kept a sweet shop down Wharf Road - favourites of the day being aniseed balls and tiger nuts (what on earth are tiger nuts?). 1/2d worth of sweets was a Saturday treat (one quarter of a 1p today!)

Being close to the river meant, of course, that Wharf Road and indeed the whole of that side of Woodston was prone to flooding. In 1912 between August 22 and 27 the River Nene rose five and a half feet and flooding was so severe that the lamps in Wharf Road had to be lit by the lamplighter standing in a boat. The river flooded regularly although not to such a degree. One year it froze right up to the Ferry Boat Inn and people used to skate on it. One particular winter the river froze across its entire width and for some distance upstream, when people could skate to their hearts' content.

Hunting's Farm took up much of the land which is now occupied by the former Mitchell Construction empty office block (someone could more or less write a book about empty office blocks in the city). The Hunting's house was pulled down to make way for Mitchell's. One of the boundaries of Hunting's field which formed part of the farm, was the wall in Wharf Road (this field was behind the former Mitchell's office block). There was a stile or maybe stone steps over the wall into the field which contained a pond and walnut trees. School children used to use the field as a short cut home and dodge the geese which lived in it or perhaps hid behind the cow barns which were in the field also. They were able then to get into Jubilee Street (named for Queen Victoria's Golden Jubilee), cross Jubilee Street and continue on the pathway, across George Street and along the meadows to the bottom of Cherry Tree Lane.

Whilst the children were probably not interested in such a place, there was a hostel for the London North West Railwaymen at the bottom of Cherry Tree Lane. No high speed trains in those days; trains were brought up to Peterborough from all over the country and the crews used to stay overnight to recover from the journey before taking the train elsewhere the following day.

After the end of the Second World War, the government built "temporary" houses called pre-fabs (Pre-fabricated) to ease the housing shortage. In 1968, 23 years after the end of the war a £53,000 replacement scheme was discussed by the city council. The tenants of the pre-fabs were promised that they would be re-housed in South Ward (Woodston's council district). The pre-fabs were on the right hand side of Wharf Road towards the bottom.The old British Sugar laboratory is still at there, although boarded up and is situated behind the site of the second Wharf Road School playing field.

The Corset Factory, in Queens Walk, more correctly known as Symingtons, began producing corsets in and by 1911 was producing 1500 sets of corsets and employing 300 people. The corsets were "an article of universal wear, so universal that it ranks as a necessity of life". The corset factory was a major employer of women in the city -machining corsets. Pictures in Peterborough in Pictures (Evening Telegraph) show that, although the machines were more modern, production methods had changed little over 50 years.

Hotpoint. This company was previously known as AEI. In 1940 the old flax factory, which in the First World War had processed, for the government, flax which was grown on the neighbouring Fenland. AEI started to fit out the factory and recruit manpower when, just before production was due to start, governmental needs resurfaced and the factory was used in the production of Wellington bomber air frames and radar units and over 2000 people were employed there. After the war the factory still maintained links with the government as it was producing washing machines, irons, water heaters and refrigerators for the new Government Housing Scheme although production soon reverted to AEI. The company took every opportunity to expand in the 1950s and production concentrated on washing machines. Who remembers the Countess Top Loader? And in the 1960s the Supermatic Washer and Spin Dryer and Ice-Diamond fridges together with the advertising campaigns on television.

In 1961 the celebrations around the opening by Lord Chandos, the chairman of AEI of the new research and development centre, included a special railway platform being built for a train to run on the branch line which leads to the Hotpoint site from the London to Edinburgh and along behind the houses in Belsize Avenue. A case of the express train turning right at Fletton Junction!

Redring. Is a sister company to Hotpoint and started operations in Peterborough in 1973. Redring Electric took its name from one of its most popular products at the time - a radiant boiling plate first developed in 1929.

British Sugar. For years this concern made its presence felt in the city with the caramel-type smell of the sugar beet works during the sugar beet campaigns. To a lot of people, including one of the authors, this smell signified the start of autumn, together with the beginnings of a rush to start Christmas shopping.

Newell Engineering. An engineering firm of excellence, making history by being awarded the Queen's Award for Industry in the export AND technological achievement fields together. Beset by rumours of takeovers and the fear of international recession, the company was taken over but sadly closed in 1984.

Not strictly industry,but well remembered nevertheless is the Huntings Butcher's shop in Oundle Road, a picture of whose staff is in this book as well as a picture of the landmark British Sugar silos.

In later years, Palmerston Road had a cinema (programme changed twice weekly), The Savoy, (previously the Gem; there was no "upstairs" and the prices were: 6d (2p), 8d (3p), 10d (4p), and 1s 3d (7p); matinees 5d and 8d (2p and 3p) for two films and the news. It was considered a good night out "go in about 6pm and not come out until 10pm." The Saturday morning children's presentation used to feature Tom Mix, among others, and the projector was in the habit of breaking down. The children, as children everywhere, booed and jeered when this happened. I expect it added to the pleasure of the morning. Mrs V Perrin who also remembers the advertisement Huntings' the butchers had in the cinema "Always pleased to meet you; always meat to please you". This advertisement was noticeable because patrons, when they walked into the cinema walked towards the projectionist, then turned round to watch the screen, and the advert was prominently displayed. A feature of the cinema was "love seats" - seats that two people could sit in at the same time. The cinema started life as a brewery and the distinctive chimney, indeed the entire building, can still be seen in 1996. An advertisement for the brewery offers "free sample on application". The brewery was built in 1912 for A C Malden, a company established in 1868 and converted to a picture house in 1920, being known at first as The Gem and later The Savoy and closed in 1956. Up until 1991 it was used as a warehouse and stands empty today. We were not able to get into the building to see if the large cellars "like an underground cavern" are still there together with the vats in which the beers were brewed. Or whether there was any beer left in them.....

Wooden Box - at the time of writing this is still standing (picture in this section). There were dances every Saturday night in the Wooden Box (previously the Parish Room) in the early 1940s and possibly during the war years. They were run by Mr A W Ludkin, manager of the local Co-op and Rowell Wright of Palmerston Road. Music was broadcast by loudspeakers of recordings by Glenn Miller, Victor Sylvester and Joe Loss. All this for 1/- (5p) and after the War Old Tyme Dances were held featuring the Lancers, Military Two Step, Valeta and so on. Before that there was square dancing, country dancing and waltzes.

A musical was put on annually at the Wooden Box by (we think) the St Augustine Players. Certainly the photograph we have been fortunate enough to borrow from Mrs Bates shows St Augustine's Repertory Company c1937. The Wooden Box belongs to St. Augustine's Church and harvest suppers are still held there. Plans are in hand to sell the Wooden Box for a housing development and build a new parish room in the grounds of St Augustine's School, also in Palmerston Road.

A scout hut stood next to the Wooden Box and at one time a Mr Brummitt was Scoutmaster. Mrs Burton of Palmerston Road gave music lessons at 1/- (5p) per hour.

Mrs M Bates tells of the time when the Sunday School outing the "highlight of the year" and the children were taken in Mr Hunting's coal carts to the Battle Fields (behind Wharf Road School) for a day out with a "bun and an orange". No-one knew why the fields were called Battle Fields but Mr G Baines suggests that it could be a corruption of Botolph Fields. In 1915 the Sunday School Outing was modified, because of the war, in that instead of going to Alwalton in waggons, a tea was given in the Water End schools and games (without prizes) were played on Mr Hunting's field.

The Sunday School outings from the Methodist Chapel were held in Brewster's Field. Jam sandwiches were the highlight of the day and the father of one of the Sunday School children (Mr Hodgy?) always used to arrive with a sack of nuts on his shoulder and throw them about for the children to scramble after. Many happy memories of these outings.

Miss Hartley used to hold garden fetes and jumble sales for the local chapel and RSPCA. The house and grounds were open and it is sad to think that such kind generosity was repaid with vandalised greenhouses and gardens. 20th Century all too apparent in that. At some of the garden fetes there used to be singing of hymns and other good songs led by a man who played the guitar. So far we have not been able to identify him so if anyone knows who it was please let us know.

Mr Hartley Snr was a solicitor and Miss E M Hartley served the community as a magistrate, certainly in 1952 and most likely for years before and after that. Mr H B Hartley also served on the bench and was a director of EMAP - just up the road.

City South would like to thank the author of Woodston Bits and Bobs Marion Brown for allowing us permission to reproduce this book in it's entirety on our website. All copyright belongs to Marion Brown.

We would also like to thank Nik of the following website for pointing us in the right direction Peterborough in Pictures

Woodston Bits and Bobs is NOW OUT OF PRINT - ISBN 0 9528437 0 6

Because the book is no longer in print, the aforementioned is the complete text of Woodston Bits and Bobs as it appeared in reprint form. Essentially it is the same book, the dedication changed as more family members passed away and the opportunity to amend one or two slight mistakes were made. Not all the pictures in the book are on this webpage.