RADWINTER RECORDERS ANNUAL REPORT 2012

Radwinter Society 2011 AGM
The existing committee of Michael Southgate, Chair, Wumf Tuxworth, Secretary, Tom Chamberlain, Treasurer and committee members, Sue Taylor and Peter Thomas were re-elected at the Radwinter Society AGM on 24th March. An illustrated Annual Report of the finances and activities of the Society during 2010 was distributed at the meeting.

Reg. Bacon and the Bacon Family
Sue Taylor and Wumf Tuxworth mounted a stunning display of the life and times of Reg. Bacon and the rest of the Bacon family at the AGM. Thanks to Michael Swan we were also able to play a tape of Reg. Bacon singing at The Plough. Sue added several more Bacon photos to those already provided by Michael Swan or that were in the existing Radwinter collection.

I had been prompted by Diane Redfern to look into the life and times of Reg. Bacon and the rest of his family. She had been given a tape of Reg. Bacon singing at The Plough and wondered if I had any way of transferring it to a CD. As it happened, I had only recently purchased a USB Audio Capture device that enabled both CDs and tape cassettes to be copied to computer. So I was able to burn a new CD from the recording captured on the computer.

I also obtained a commercial CD of very high quality featuring Reg. Bacon singing at his home in Water Lane. Diane introduced me to Michael Swann and I spent a very pleasant afternoon with him at his home in Saffron Walden, looking at the photographs he had collected of the various members of the Bacon family. He also played a tape that he had of Reg. singing at The Plough to a very appreciative audience. Some time ago, I heard that some of the stories that Reg. used to tell about the old times had been published by Age Concern in a booklet entitled Yesterday’s Memories. I obtained a copy of the booklet and together with the tape recording and photographs that Michael Snow had lent me to copy, I was able to build up quite a story about Reg. and the Bacon Family. The producer of the purchased CD was also able to give me information about Reg. from when he visited him to make the recording in his home.

Reg Bacon aged 16

The Plough
The future of The Plough Public House being very much in all our minds with the then threatened closure, it was decided to make the history of the pub the major AGM presentation. At the time of the AGM presentation, we only knew part of the story and this was published in Saffron Walden Historical Journal. Since then research has continued; the early beginnings have now been researched, some of the gaps have been filled in and a copiously illustrated draft 32-page booklet on the Plough is almost ready for publication.

Without anticipating work that is still to be published, we can say that we have researched back to the seventeenth century when the Rushforth family owned what was then call the Freshwell Ashhouse. Its use at that time is still in question but it may have been associated with the Potash Industry. Ownership passed through the female line when is became a wheelwright’s shop with brewing and trading as an alehouse as a sideline. By then it was known as The Ash. Taken over by Benkskins the brewers and pub-chain owners, it eventually became a fully fledged public house trading as The Plough. In a similar way, the Potash was taken over by Benskins and there used to be a photograph displayed in The Plough showing The Potash in its Benskins livery.

The Plough had been the meeting place of the Radwinter Friendly Society which provided an income for Radwinter Tradesmen and Labourers who were unable to work through injury or illness. The first meeting of this Society was held on the 27th day of February 1836 with rules that prohibited membership to anybody over the age of 30 and refused payment to members whose injuries had been caused by drunkenness, brawling or playing football. Members were fined if their wives came into the pub while the good old boys were meeting and drinking their pints!

The oldest known photograph of the Radwinter Plough taken in 1878

The Plough in 1910. In the picture are the new landlord, William Garratt with the pony and trap, his daughter in the centre foreground and his infant son, Arthur Walter with the older man by the doorway. The pub was then owned by Hawkes & Col and their name is clearly displayed by the front entrance. What appeared to be the original ash tree is still in place.

A shortened version of the Plough History has been published in Saffron Walden Historical Journal and copies of the original rules of the Radwinter Friendly Society are available from the Radwinter Society price 50p plus another 50p postage and packing, if required.

Bell Ringers Photographs
Thanks to Barbara Mizen, Joy Matthews and Beryl Barbour we now know the date of the bellringers photograph shown last year. It was taken at the 1970 Radwinter Flower Festival and featured George Turpin, Ruth Underwood, Marcus Ridsdill Smith, Joyce Jarvis, Bob Baynes and Gerald Bacon. They gave a recital outside the church. Mrs Joan Drane, née Richardson, had given the photograph to the Radwinter Archive collection.

Chips Cottage
Uli Gerhard of Chips Cottage has responded to my researches on Stocking Green and told me that there was a pond in his garden at Chips but that it suffered when the header pond at Greatford Cottage was filled in by a previous owner. He also told me that he had met a lady who used to live in the cottage and that she still lives in Radwinter. If that was you or you know who it might be, could you please let me know because I would be very interested in recording your memories of Stocking Green and Chips. If you have any old photos I could copy them and let you have them back the same day.

Harry Acker and Wife

According to the Radwinter Parish Registers our Henry Akker was baptised on 18 May 1823 and was buried on 22 April 1911, while Ann Clayden Akker, née Andrews was baptised on 3 June 1827, married on 23 December 1843 and was buried on 1 September 1872. While Henry was shown as ‘of full age’ (over 21) at their marriage, Ann was only 16, a minor in those days. So these are definitely the two people in Christine’s family tree but as Ann died in 1872 it is unlikely, though not impossible, that it was her being photographed with her husband outside her house. Her father had told her that everyone in the family tended to have a right eyebrow slightly higher than the left and the lady in the photo had it.

The Radwinter Fête
I was asked at the Fête when the first fete was held as one of our older residents could remember attending it all of his life. Although the Recreation Ground was not opened until 1958 the Radwinter Fête had earlier been held in Radwinter Hall Gardens and on the land at Bridgefoot. After I had written in Ambo that I did not know where I had found this information, Ken Snow contacted me to say that Fêtes were held on the Red Lion’s field which was accessed through a gate at Bridgefoot on the left-hand side of the road leading from the centre of the village up towards The Plough. He remembered scything the field to get the hay off before the fête could take place. The Red Lion beer tent was erected on the field. The fête was always opened by a personality, usually somebody who had been on the radio and who had to be picked up from the railway station. One of the attractions was a miniature railway which was erected round the field. Radwinter fairs go long back into the forgotten past because the Radwinter entry in White’s History & Gazetteer of Essex for 1848 says that, “Fairs for toys etc. are held here on Easter Tuesday and Whit-Wednesday”.

The Wagoners
One of the East Riding of Yorkshire’s most famous monuments is located in the village of Sledmere on the B1253 road.
The story behind this amazing memorial was explained by Stan Sutherland at a Radwinter Society illustrated talk June 23rd. Stan told ua that the local farm workers had banded together in 1913 to form the Wagoner’s Special Reserve. There were about 100 men from Essex, Cambridgeshire, Norfolk and Suffolk who were working in the East Riding of Yorkshire at the time and, of these, four were from our area.

He explained how these farm workers turned soldiers used their special skills with heavy horses and wagons, gained on the farms and how they became an invaluable force of 1100 men in the 1914–1918 war in Europe. The local men who enlisted in this troop were identified and still have descendants in our area.

Moore Family Photographs
Glen Miller, the Curator of the Ashdon Village Museum has come up trumps again and sent us these two photographs, taken at Radwinter School, from the Moore Family who used to live at Redoaks Hill but later moved further into Ashdon.

Fancy Dress Parade at Radwinter School c. 1925

Radwinter School class photo c. 1931

The left hand picture above is of a Fancy Dress Parade at Radwinter School. Bessie Moore is in the center of the back row. The photo dates from around 1925. Bessie Priscilla Moore, spinster aged 27 of Redoaks Hill married Leslie Charles Marshall, bachelor aged 26 of Wimbish Hall Cottage on 3rd May 1941.

The right hand picture is a Radwinter School Class Photo dating from around 1931. Daisy Moore is in the middle row with white socks and a hair bow. Daisy Joan Moore was baptised at Radwinter Church on 8th November 1925, the daughter of Herbert James (Ag. Lab.) and Elizabeth Jane Moore. Larger copies of both these photos are available if you think that you might be able to identify some of the people in the pictures.

Discover Uttlesford
A new long-distance route round the whole district of Uttlesford has been launched. Named The Uttlesford Way, it covers 16 local villages and parts of other parishes in a series of circular walks. The villages included are Stansted Mountfitchet, Manuden, Rickling Green, Clavering, Duddenhoe End, Strethall, Great Chesterford, Hadstock, Ashdon, Radwinter, Thaxted, Debden, Widdington, Henham, Broxted and Elsenham. The route has been devised by Peter Cooper in such a way that each walk links up with the next one, so that ramblers can cover the entire Uttlesford Way over a period, if they wish. But they also stand alone as local circular routes between four and 12 miles in length.

The route is published in a book priced £7.50 available from Tourist Information Office, Saffron Walden as well as from selected village outlets. The author, who lives in Clavering, one of the villages on the Way, has included over 50 photographs and information on history and wildlife seen en route.

The first of a series of walks, based on the book and led by the author, took place in October and the second, starting from Radwinter, was held on Sunday 4th December. Later that month, we had Lord and Lady Walker’s most enjoyable Boxing Day walk. We do have some splendid countryside around us and it is there for all to enjoy.

New Photo of the Church

Waxwings in Radwinter
In addition to the Fieldfares and Redwings which visit Radwinter during the winter months, we were honoured by a visit from a flock of Waxwings, which are normally confined to the East coast.

They came during the heavy snow over the Christmas 2010 period to feed on the apples that had been left on trees. Wildlife in Radwinter is another thing we could update, if anybody is interested in taking on Radwinter Wildlife as a project. It could add to our knowledge of the effects of climate change in our area. Photos of Radwinter plants, birds and animals would be most acceptable additions to the Radwinter Archives and sightings of rare or infrequent species could be recorded.

Oral History Recording
Our programme of Oral History Recording has continued, mainly for material for the War book. Recent recordings of Billy Mortimer’s and Alan Rust’s memories have been very productive and have given us much useful material that we will soon be able to publish. Billy’s knowledge of the Radwinter Searchlight site, which he could see from his back window and across which he walked whenever he visited his grandparents at Mill End, was invaluable. An accomplished illustrator, Billy was able to sketch the Radwinter Sound Locator, which was deployed before the installation of Radar was used to locate enemy aircraft. His drawing will feature in the Radwinter Home Front Book.

Alan, on the other hand, was able to give us valuable information about the Jewish refugees who came to Radwinter at the beginning of WW II. We would be extremely grateful if anybody who we have not yet recorded could spare a couple of hours of their time to enable us to record their memories of the period. Perhaps you were one of the two children mentioned in the parish magazine who requested a replacement gas mask box because it had been chewed by a goat!

Record Archiving
We now have 775 records logged on our RUTH database. That means we can search for any person’s name mentioned in those records; any houses, farms or other property mentioned; roads, districts, field names etc.; and a very wide range of topics covered in the documents from chickens to crime and from accidents to aeroplanes. We probably have as many records again still waiting to be archived as soon as the War books have been completed.

There is also now an enormous volume of material on the Radwinter Computer that was given to us by Radwinter Parish Council. Thanks to modern technology that allows us to scan documents on loan, either as a picture or as a Microsoft Word document that can be searched for any word in the document, we now have a powerful additional database. We receive Uttlesford District Council’s weekly list of planning permissions from which the Radwinter mentions are extracted. From another source we obtain the names of all the Radwinter properties sold and the price paid for them. We search through all the local papers every week and cut out any mentions of Radwinter, including property advertisments, pasting the cuttings in a scrapbook. In consequence we have a growing archive of how Radwinter properties have altered and changed hands. There is a large collection of estate agents sale leaflets in the archives which give a historic view of the state of the properties at the time of sale, usually with a picture and often internal details as well.

The 1838 Tithe Apportionment Schedule and Map is a valuable resource in the Archives and it tells us who lived where at that time, listing the names of the landlord and the occupier for each property, the names and acreages of the fields and what tithe was payable to the Rector. The Tithe Maps show much archeological detail with traces of our Saxon and Norman past still visible at the time they were made. The Radwinter records from 1436 onward in Essex Record Office are numerous and very informative. In the 16th century (1500 to1599) there are around 90 Radwinter records and from 1600 to 1699 around 250, many of which are Wills which detail the benificiaries, their relationships and the properties they inherited. Add to these the large number of Radwinter records that have ended up in archives all round Great Britain, mainly because they relate to properties which were part of the estates of wealthy families, and you can see the magnitude of the task ahead if a history of Radwinter is ever to be produced; not to mention Roman Radwinter for which much evidence already exists and further discoveries are on the horizon.

In this connection, we already have the 1881 Census for Radwinter on the Computer and the Website in searchable form, as are the Church records of Baptisms, Marriages and Burials. A future project will be to access the other Censuses as well from 1841 to 1911.

If anybody wishes to take on a small proportion of this task, looking at just one aspect or even transcribing one document and make the subject their own, their help would be greatly appreciated.

The primary tasks for the Radwinter Recorder, however, is to finish the the Radwinter at War books and the Radwinter Ghost book and to get them into publication.

Edited by Michael Southgate, Radwinter Local History Recorder
Published by The Radwinter Society, The Cottage, Radwinter Manor, Saffron Walden Essex CB10 2SP
Tel: 01799 599478 e-mail: radwinter.recorder@hotmail.com

Picture Captions

Bread Delivery at The Red Lion	Ladies Haymaking 1920’s
H Underwood Fishmonger of Radwinter	Long’s Lane Cottages
Maple Lane	Newell’s Shop, now The Old Brewery
Burnt House at Maple End	The Waggoners’ memorial at Sledmere
Bridgefoot Cottages	Radwinter Mill and School 1929
Radwinter Reading Room and Red Lion	Radwinter Outing

Michael Southgate
Radwinter Village History Recorder