PIG, PUBS, and PEOPLE : CHAPTER 1
THE BUILDINGS of EAST HADDON
The oldest building in East Haddon by far is the Church of St Mary the Virgin. Picture. There has been a place of Christian worship in the village since the 11th century – the Domesday Book records the existence of a priest – but the present church dates partly from the 14th century. Its architecture is English Gothic, with elements of Decorated and Perpendicular styles. The tower, which belongs to a later period and was completely rebuilt in 1673, contains six bells. East Haddon heard its first peal of five bells in 1756: the sixth, treble bell was added in 1928. The bells were used to announce deaths; one bell for a child, two for a woman and three for a man, after which a single bell tolled the person’s age. The organ, made by Taylor’s of Leicester, was installed in the same year and cleaned and rebuilt with enhancements to the tone of the instrument in 1992. The clock in the tower was made by J. Cram of Daventry and installed in 1863. Its mechanism was overhauled and repaired in 1983 and the face was restored in 1995.
The font, dating from the 12th century and so one of the oldest parts of the church, is situated near the door, because the porch has had a very significant part in christenings and the so-called “Churching of Women”. The latter meant that women who had recently given birth could come up to the Church and prayers would be said for them. Some of the women residing at the Hall maternity hospital during the war went through this procedure.
The nearby Vicarage (Picture) was built by the Rev. Locock in 1856, on the site of what was possibly a farm. According to a book on Northamptonshire published in 1874, it is a “substantial building of stone in the Gothic style”. Some of the outbuildings on the site were probably part of the farm. The main building was probably designed by William Slater, who was responsible for restoration work on a number of Northamptonshire churches, including those at Higham Ferrers, Kingsthorpe, Finedon and Brixworth. He was born in Northamptonshire, but had been an apprentice in London to the architect known as “Old Carpenter”, and the Vicarage is familiar in style to other buildings designed by Old Carpenter himself. His trademark, featuring depictions of a man and woman, is found in the corbels of the entrance doorway, while the Rev. Locock’s shield appears above the door.
There is rumoured to be a tunnel, stretching all the way from the Vicarage to the Manor, that Dickie Neale, who used to work at the Manor, one day had the misfortune to fall into while digging. “It goes right under the Post Office garden, across the corner of Rose Cottage garden, under the playground and comes across where we used to live next to Mrs. Talbot’s, and straight down to the Vicarage passing near to the pond. It ends near to the front door to the Vicarage.” Dickie’s father’s stepfather remembered the tunnel as not being very large, so that anyone walking through had to bend over. He though the tunnel must predate the building of the Vicarage. The Manor itself dates back at least to the early 1600s, according to Dickie. Jane Barrow, who lives there now and has done so for nearly 40 years, remembers that the building needed major renovations when she and her husband moved in. Firstly, they had the thatch removed: “All the thatchers got infections because the thatch was removed in August when it was very dry and the dust got everywhere. We tried to burn it in the garden but it caused so many complaints that it all had to be taken away to be disposed of.” They also needed to replace the beams inside, rewire the entire house and install a heating system.
At one time, there were three manor houses in the village. Saddler’s Cottage is thought to have been Dyve Manor House originally, and was probably used as a farmhouse before being divided up into three cottages, one of which was a saddler’s premises.
One of the most attractive features of the village is the old village Pump, (Picture) constructed with a thatched roof in 1550 and in use until 1920. During the First World War a lorry hit the pump and knocked the top off, but this was restored with the use of a crane.
Still prominent in the garden behind what used to be the Post Office is the Water Tower (Picture) that supplied the village until the arrival of mains water in about 1950. It was built in 1890, and had two 5000-gallon tanks fed with spring water pumped up from the Washbrook. The remains of the ram pumps are still visible in their original site.
In 1790, Henry Sawbridge, who came from a family of drapers well established in Daventry, chose East Haddon as his place of retirement. He built the Hall (Picture) to live in, with its magnificent iron gates and bronze statues of Diana and Apollo. The Sawbridge family lived there until Capt. Sawbridge sold the property to Charles Guthrie in the 1890s. Work was carried out in the Hall in the 1960s by Margaret Wrathall’s husband, Guy, including the removal of beams from the top storey where dry rot had taken hold. Margaret grew up in the Hall but has since moved to a smaller house nearby. She is pleased to see the Hall in such a good state of repair and believes it will it will last another 200 years without the need for any further significant work. The Beynons, who live there now, have been responsible for recent renovations, including the addition of a new kitchen wing, built in the style of the original house. They have also retimbered and retiled the roof. Inside, all the top floor rooms have been opened up, along with a black spiral staircase that had not been used for several years. The main cantilevered staircase has been restored and panelling (which was not original) in the main hall has been removed, revealing three niches in the walls. More bathrooms have been added, and the central heating boiler transferred to the cellar. In the grounds, the former swimming pool, which had been filled in, has been cleared out and transformed into an ornamental pond.
Over the years, many people have claimed that the Hall is haunted, and one of the present occupants, Dorothy Beynon, had a strange experience recently. One night when she was not feeling well, she went to one of the smaller bedrooms on the first floor, intending to sleep there. She tried to get into bed, but felt a strange force preventing her from doing so. In a corner of the room, she noticed a black shape, apparently a man with long silver hair. She said out loud: “Go in peace, in the name of the Lord”, and the apparition disappeared. She finds this encounter hard to reconcile with her belief that there are no such things as ghosts!
The Hall Flats are contained in an attractive sandstone building with a beautiful round window: it has a 1663 date-stone, but parts of it may be older. It was possibly the Bailiff’s house for the Manor.
Another old building in the village is the original classroom at the Church of England School, (Picture) also built in 1790 when the school was founded, and still in use, although alterations have been made over the years. It was extended in the mid-19th century through a donation from H.B. Sawbridge, and was further enlarged in 1904. It was originally for boys only, with a separate girl’s school being situated at the top of Ravensthorpe Road. The “Dame School” was in existence at least as early as 1837, the year of Queen Victoria’s accession to the throne, and between 1851 and 1884 there were 14 girls attending at any one time. It used to have an extra-wide front door, thought to have been designed to cope with ladies’ crinolines!
For many years, there also existed School House, where all but one of the school’s headteachers lived from when it was built until 1966. It was erected on land again donated by the Sawbridge family, but was demolished in 1970. It is still possible to see where the School House was situated next to the school. Made of sandstone and rendered at the back, it was at right angles to the road and jutted out into the pavement. It had originally been thatched, but the thatch was replaced with tiles in the early 1960s. In 1966, Mona Cross, still headmistress at the school, moved from the School House to the bungalow she had bought for her retirement. The house was then rented by Jack and Diana Halliwell, on the understanding that they would have to move out before the position of head teacher was advertised, because the house went with the job. Jack had been commuting every day from Wellingborough to Daventry, where he was a head of department at the Grammar School. They had been looking for a house near Daventry, and were naturally pleased to hear about the house in East Haddon. They vacated the School House as agreed, but the new head, Mr Ozier, who already lived in neighbouring Ravensthorpe, decided he did not want it, and it was demolished and the playground enlarged.
The Chapel, which is now a private house, was originally erected in the 11th century in spite of opposition from the Church and the Lord of the Manor. Services had been held in barns and people’s houses for a hundred years before it was built. For many years, the Holt family maintained the Chapel.
The Red Lion Inn (Picture) in East Haddon has been in existence from at least as early as 1765, although not in the present building, which was used in part simply as an off-licence until about the time of the First World War. The inn was, until then, in what is now Hall Farm, owned by the Fraser family. It is recorded that in 1765 the business became managed by John Facer, who passed the tenancy on to his wife the following year so that he could resume farming. The inn was under the control of the family until 1824, when they were succeeded by William Burton. A number of other landlords followed in the 19th century, most of whom had other occupations as well as being licensee of the inn. At this time, it was often the case that village pubs were not profitable: the customers were mostly agricultural labourers and artisans, whose wages were meagre. The longest tenant was William Braine, who took over in 1885 and stayed for 25 years. During the First World War, alcohol could be served from the inn from 6.00am to 11.00pm. The Red Lion has been in its present home, an attractive building on the main street, for nearly 90 years, and has changed hands a number of times during that period. The present landlord is Ian Kennedy, who took over from the Tenniswoods in 1977.
A village landmark for around a hundred years was the Tower Windmill, which was regarded as one of the finest of its type in Northamptonshire. Built of sandstone blocks, it was about 35 feet high with a diameter of 23 feet at the base. It is not known when exactly it was built, but was in existence in the 1820s, from when it was allowed to become derelict. At this time it was bought by a Mr Robinson, the then publican of the Why Not public house (latterly known as the Buckby Lion) across the road from the mill. The structure gradually deteriorated over a number of years, and was eventually demolished around 1950, although the foundations remained as the border for a flowerbed.
There used to be a wooden building, known as the Reading Room in Butcher’s Lane, now St Andrew’s Road, that performed various functions over the years. Jean Holt remembers it as being used for dancing. Her father used to tell her about dancing there with a Mrs Bourne who, apparently, was “light as a feather” on her feet but was “ever such a fat lady”. According to Paul Capell, it was later boarded up, but when Canon Keysell became vicar of Eat Haddon he opened it for Ginny Chapman, who was a laundress, to use for his laundry. It was a big room, and Paul says that she had plenty of space in which to do the ironing! Later, at the beginning of the war, George Smith turned it into a fish and chip shop for a short time, but as George and Joan Page recall, it had to be closed because fire regulations would not permit such activity in a wooden building. Paul Capell says that during the Second World War he and others used to cut nettles and dry them in the Reading Room so that they could be used for camouflage.
A building still in existence, but no longer fulfilling its original function, is the old Fire Station. H.P. Sawbridge provided the land for this in 1865, but it was closed in 1945 and is now the bus shelter on Main Street.
Well and Deane Cottages are believed to be the oldest cottages in the village. Thought to have been built in the 15th or early 16th century, you can still see soot on the beams from an open fire that used to exist at floor level.