RADWINTER RECORDER’S ANNUAL REPORT 2005-2006

Funding
A project is underway on behalf of the Friends of Radwinter Church to bind further copies of the parish magazines. The magazines commenced publication in 1881 and provide an invaluable record of the life of the village. Copies have already been bound by the Friends of Radwinter Church up to 1998 but a further 29 copies need binding in four volumes up to 2005. Later bequests and researches in the archives have brought to light a number of magazines that are missing from the previous binding and need to be re-bound in seven volumes, while a further four volumes need to be made that fall between existing volumes. On the recommendation of Martin Everett, a quotation for the work has been made by Riley Dunn & Wilson Ltd which was for high quality bookbinding to library standards at half the price I could obtain locally. I have applied to Awards for All for funding and am currently awaiting their response.

Radwinter at War Exhibition
We staged an exhibition entitled Radwinter at War with a grant we received from Home Front Recall. This was coupled with a WW II quiz night. Well over £200 was raised at both events for the British Legion.

Stan Sutherland, ran a family history stall at the exhibition and displayed memorials of the Radwinter fallen. Several photographs were brought in and Stan copied them overnight and put the copies on display. By the end of the exhibition all the people in the photographs had been identified, including an entire pre-war Radwinter cricket team and the ladies of the Women’s Institute.

A major outcome of the exhibition was the re-discovery of a sculpture by Karl Wescke, which had been lost to the art world. Wescke, who died this year, was the leading artist of the Cornish School. Carolyn Wingfield was in touch with Karl Wescke’s widow, who is delighted that at least one of his sculptures has survived. She let us know that Wescke also prepared set designs for shows that the German Prisoners of War put on in the Radwinter Camp theatre. By great good fortune, photographs of the German Prisoners of War and of one of their shows, were lent to us for the Exhibition by David Haylock. We were able to copy these and send photographs of Karl
Wescke’s set designs to his widow.

Oral History Project
We have now purchased an Olympus AS 4000 PC transcription kit which enables us to transcribe the oral history recording we have made with our Olympus DS-2200 digital voice recorder. It allows the transcriber hands-free typing by using a footpedal and earphones.

Radwinter at War Book
As part of the grant we received from Home Front Recall, a book was planned. Work began on this during and after the exhibition but it has become clear that it will not be completed before Home Front Recall is disbanded. The problem has been the wealth of first class material which has come to life, both from local sources and from the National Archives at Key. It now appears that the Radwinter Youth Camp for German POWs was of National importance and events occurred there which make very interesting reading indeed. There is a similar situation with the Great Sampford RAF Station on Radwinter’s boundaries which impacted on Radwinter’s life during the War. Even the local school was the centre of a major dispute between the teachers and the Bishop with the staff being threatened with dismissal. We aim to proceed with research up until the end of May with a view to applying for a further grant for publication in perhaps a year’s time.
The bound copies of the parish magazines and the parish council minute book are both providing invaluable sources of information for this project.

Radwinter Plan
The Radwinter Plan is still in process. All the questionnaires have been returned and analysed and an outline plan will be discussed at the next meeting on Thursday.
Radwinter Reredos

Following further fundraising the wings of the Radwinter Reredos have now been restored and conserved by Hamilton Kerr of Whittlesford. They present a magnificent appearance and it is hoped to produce a further booklet on the wings which included descriptions and illustrations of the source works which inspired the various panels.

Archive Transcriptions
Mrs Muriel Muckleston has completed her transcription of Dick Lloyd’s Radwinter History notes made largely from interviews with Radwinter inhabitants who have long since passed away. This is now on computer and is searchable. It has already proved invaluable in answering family history enquiries and in the Radwinter at War project.

Talks
Radwinter War Memorial
Stan Sutherland has been researching the Radwinter War Memorial and delivered a talk in October 2005 to the Radwinter Society entitled Radwinter Fallen During the
Two World Wars.

Many men were serving in some very unlikely regiments when they died, because, as their original companies or regiments had been almost obliterated, they were absorbed into others.  Stanley had found that Private Harry Colman had joined the 34th Bn, Australian Infantry, AIF and was on a war memorial in Australia as an Australian Citizen although he was definitely a Radwinter man, born in Hempstead.

A poignant moment came when Stanley revealed that Mrs Lydia Halls of Old Hill Radwinter had lost three sons during the First World War, Leonard in 1915, Joseph in 1916, and Frederick George in 1918. For George, the last of these sons to lose his life, Mrs Halls was given as the only next of kin, her husband, Mr Edward Halls, not appearing. If she had lost a husband too, he did not appear in the list of Radwinter burials. Perhaps a surviving relative could throw some light on this.

Radwinter war hero, Private C E Andrews of the 10th Bn Essex Regiment, who died on 3rd April 1918, was awarded the DCM - the medal just below the Victoria Cross - for a gallant action in which he attacked a machine gun post and saved the life of his Company Sergeant Major.

The full list of those celebrated on the War Memorial is Private Bentley Andrews, Private CE Andrews, Private LC Andrews, Private George Barker, Private Edgar Charles Baynes, Major Edward Bullock, Private Charles Carter, Leading Aircraftman John William Chapman, Private Harry Colman, Private Walter Edward Cornell, Private Lionel Ernest Ellingham, Rifleman A Halls, Private Frederick George Halls, Corporal Godfrey Henry Halls, Private Joseph Halls, Private Leonard Halls, Lance Corporal, Albert Arthur Howell, Private A W Potts, Private James Potts, Private G Robinson, Private Alfred Robins, Private E J Ruse, Private George Ruse, Sergeant Arthur Sharp, Private William Spittle, Private H Swan, Private William Dudley Swan, Private William George Swan, Private James John Thake, Private William Thake, Gunner F H Turpin, Private Harry Underwood, Lieutenant J Valiant and Private Ernest Winship.

Stanley has kindly donated a CD of his presentation to the Radwinter Archives, so that relevant details can be printed out or e-mailed to enquirers.

Sampford Heritage Project
In January 2006 Ken Neale gave a talk on the Sampford Heritage Project, which tested the methodology for computer archaeology becoming the blueprint for similar work in assessing the secrets that lie beneath our soil. Although it was not about Radwinter, it was highly informative and an inspiration to the Radwinter Society on what could be done in field archaeology.

Radwinter Rooted in the Soil
A presentation as gripping and amusing as it was professional and informative was delivered by Fiona Wells at the Society’s April 2006 meeting.
Entitled Rooted in the Soil –a glimpse at the landscape history of Radwinter, the talk gave the meeting an enthralling account of how a thousand years of Radwinter’s history had left its impression on our landscape.

Fiona told the meeting that ploughing by ox teams had left their tell-tale mark in the sinuous field boundaries at the parish perimeter. These same boundaries were often accompanied by unusual strip woodland marked by ditch and bank on either side with older trees on the off side.
Moving on to Doomsday she said that the compilers were priests, the only section of the community that could write, and among their number was the oddly named Roger God save the Ladies. They recorded the numbers of working men, cattle, swine, woodland, pasture, eel-traps and fishponds. Radwinter then comprised three manors, Roos or Great Brockholes, Radwinter Grange, and Radwinter Hall.

Bendishes, given by William the Conqueror (or Bastard) to Count Eustace of Boulogne was a separate parish comprising eight villagers, one small holder and eight slaves. Arable land was measured in ploughs. There were four ploughs in the lordship and three ploughs among the men, which at 120 acres a plough gives 840 acres of arable. Woodland was also curiously measured in pigs and Bendishes was estimated as 100 pigs although the actual number of pigs recorded was 28 along with 112 sheep. It was later given to the Abbey of Faversham in Kent, which disabled the land holders from keeping up the fabric of churches and drained the parish to maintain the splendour of their cloisters. Probably a Bendish parish church was lost in consequence. Similar history and ownership of the other manors was also described along with the increasing reduction of woodland over the years.

The manufacture of tile and later brick from local clay came early in Radwinter’s industrial past. Saffron Walden church records show ‘one lod of bryck’ from Radwinter costing 4s 2d in 1454, while in 1471 ‘pathing tyle and brick was bought from Radwinter for 8d. By the 1540s brick chimneys became a possibility for the more wealthy and by 1587 William Harrison commented on the number of chimneys in Radwinter.

Potash was also in great demand for clothes washing, dyeing, soap making and bleaching linen and its production from ashes was a common industry until at least the 1830s. By 1907 Potash Farm was also a public house.

But agriculture was always the mainstay of Radwinter and Fiona’s presentation mapped the changing fortunes of its labourers. The shortage of labour after the Black Death when a third of the population was lost saw a rise in wages. By the late fifteenth century, however it took 15 days to earn enough for ¼ bushel of wheat. By the seventeenth century it took 48 days and by 1804 52 days. By 1900 agricultural labourers were at their financial best and it now only took 10¼ days to buy the same amount of wheat.

Every field was named at one time, Fiona told the meeting, and she suggested that a project be launched to record known names of the fields. As research for this project, Fiona obtained a copy of J King and Son’s 1859-59 plan of Radwinter to accompany the 1838 Tithe Apportionment already in our archives. The field naming project is at an embryo stage based on this Tithe Apportionment.

Michael Southgate. Radwinter Local History Recorder
Further information on many of the subjects briefly described here can be found on the Radwinter History Website: www.radwinterhistory.org.uk