Chapter 8 1851, the third week of May Monday A nice sunny day. Old Jim reckoned that we could do with a drop of rain. The wife is a bit happier about her flowers by the gate. She thinks that some might recover a bit. Not sure if there has been any more nibbling of the goosegog bushes. Can’t really understand it. Something has gone with the leaves on the three tallest branches on just one bush. Must be something that has trouble leaning over. Perhaps that big old hare has been having some trouble with her joints. The wife pointed out that that young Sarah has only one night left to stay with the Parrotts. It’s her wedding tomorrow. Old William has made her a box to put her possessions in. It has the little parrot mark just below the lid. Old Sarah said that each of their children gets a similar box for their going away. She told the wife that there has been a fair bit of brevitting going on in the cupboards, trying to work out which aprons and gloves belong to Sarah and which belong to her brothers and sister. Old Sarah told the wife that there had been some sort of reconciling for the wedding day. They didn’t want any unpleasantness on Sarah’s big day. She said that old William had found it difficult, as he hadn’t been able to talk about his feelings on the matter for ages. He still can’t bring himself to call Elizabeth his mother-in-law, even after all this time. The whole thing must have been twenty-five years ago. It’s a long time to go without talking to one of your neighbours. Apparently, William went round to Cobbler Wiggins’s cottage yesterday afternoon. After some difficulty, William was able to talk about how he felt about his dad getting married for the third time at the age of sixty-five, and to Elizabeth, just being twenty at the time. Not that he could blame the old boy. He said that he was only just over thirty years old at the time and he can remember how happy his old dad was back then. He said that he should have paid no notice to what folk were saying back then. He can remember that his heart hadn’t been in the best fettle before the wedding. He was sure that Elizabeth made him feel like a young’en again, even though twas for just that short while. Elizabeth told William that she was sorry for being a bit quick off the mark looking for another husband after Joseph died. At the time she was worried about how she was going to be able to live. Old Sarah said that things seem to be on a bit better footing now. William didn’t come back till dark. Old Jim Wiggins got out his home-made wines. Started with the peapod. He can’t remember what came after that. Sarah said that it was the parsnip wine that did for him this morning! I didn’t go to Church yesterday, but I have been wondering if I might be missing out on something. I can cope without the Vicar giving us all what for. I have been thinking that some of the farmers might look at me a bit more kindly when it comes to the hiring if they thought of me as a god-fearing soul. It’s a good job our lad is doing well with the work. I don’t think the wife really wants to get back to the field work just yet with young Petal only about five months old. Mind you, there are plenty of folk in the village would look after her. Perhaps when hay-time comes. The wife said that there were quite a few turned up at St Nicks’ this afternoon to have a go at the special cleaning. A few of the women only wanted to help with the decorations. They didn’t want to get their hands dirty with the sweeping and the scrubbing. Margretta arrived from the vicarage when everything was done. She had to make a point of adjusting some of the flowers close to the altar. The wife said that a lot of the little’ns had managed to get flowers from somewhere. She recognised the May flowers from the Brook beyond Manor Farm. Cow parsley and stitchwort as well from the hedgerows. The wife also said that the Hillsdons must have had a go at tidying up the old smithy for the wedding. She said that young Ruth had told her husband Will that the whole place was in a dreadful state. An embarrassment, right next to the church! Tuesday The wife seems to have got over the frost. Now it’s the wind that is drying everything out and bashing her flowers. She certainly does take it a bit personally. It was a nice sunny day for the wedding. Two carts and a pony and trap turned up just before noon. Full of folk from Ludgershall. They headed straight for The Stars. It looked like John Hillsdon, the groom and George Hillsdon, his old dad, were the last to climb down. They were greeted by John’s brother, William who came scuttling up from the Piddington smithy. He had been shoeing one of the Walkers’ horses about an hour earlier. Three blacksmiths together. The bells started early afternoon. I had seen most of the Parrotts walk up to St Nicks’ a bit earlier on. Sarah was in front with Mary in her long white dress, carrying her bunch of forget-me-nots and her big wide smile. A crowd had gathered outside the wheelwrights waiting for Sarah and her father to emerge. The wife had gone ahead earlier with young Petal and Sarah Dumbleton. There is always a crowd of young womenfolk and girls gathered outside the church on someone’s wedding day. I saw Old William set off towards the church with young Sarah on his arm. He looked as proud as punch. He told me last night that he wondered if this might be the last time he gets to walk up the village with a daughter. He doesn’t hold out much hope for Mary getting wed. There was a long line of girls followed them up the village to begin with. Some soon got to skipping ahead and stood all across the track, pretending to stop the bride getting to the church. This evening the wife brought me up to date with goings on at the wedding. She told me that the church was nearly full, mainly younger folk, some with their children and women of all ages. Billy Bottle’s family were all there, and the tradesmen of course: Richard and Sarah Sulstan; Horwoods the Grocers, the Rogers, Old Henry & Phoebe. Jim Wiggins and Elizabeth were sitting close to the front, just behind the Parrott family. The other cobbler family were there: John and Sarah Gun. Taylor John and Sarah and all of their girls. The wife was sat next to Sarah Dumbleton. Sarah told her that she thought the Piddington folk had put on a good display and weren’t put in the shade by the groom’s Ludgershall lot on the other side of the aisle. She said that Young Sarah looked really nice when her dad brought her towards the Vicar. Mary was just behind. Sarah and her sister Mary were the only ones in white. It was Mary and her younger brother William that went up to sign as witnesses. It took a long time before everyone followed the new John and Sarah Hillsdon out into the churchyard. The bells were a clanging. The wife told quite a tale of the crowd milling around inside the churchyard. Everyone wanted to have a word with the bride and groom and the Parrotts. At one time she and Petal got surrounded by a group of mothers-to-be. Susannah Reynolds and Phyllis Barrett only had a couple of months to go. Phyllis was hoping for a boy. Susannah didn’t seem to mind either way. Sarah Dumbleton of course, her nearly due; Ruth Hillsdon, Sarah’s new sister-in-law; not forgetting Sarah Parker, Old Jim’s young wife. The wife also had some other news this evening. The Dumbletons are about to open their shop as a pub. They will see how it goes of an evening. Sarah will keep the shop running during the day. Wednesday Another bright, sunny day. Old John said that it’s too hot for the time of year and that we still can’t be sure if we have seen the last of Jack Frost. He said that there was quite a do in The Stars last night. Must have cost Old William a pretty penny. Went on for ages. He said that he saw the bride and groom leave on their own in the pony and trap before it got dark. He reckoned the pony would know how to find its way home to Ludgershall. Sources & Inspirations Brevetting is, according to Betty Newell, an old Piddington word broadly equivalent to rummage or the Cumbrian ratch. “Our Patrick sometimes comes to have a good brevet in the loft.” Old Joseph Parrott
The relationship between William Parrott and his much younger step-mother, and Old Joseph’s cause of death: Both complete speculation on my part. Home-made wines. Memories of Old Bert Bayliss and his whispered invitations of a Sunday morning. As soon as Dot was out of site and safely set off to play the church organ we would quietly set about his peapod, potato and parsnip wines that he kept in the little cupboard under the stairs. The two glasses had to be washed and put away in good time. Always the same advice. “Don’t say a word Young David!” The Smithy next to the church. I learnt this week that in 1861 William sold “the parcel of ground adjoining the churchyard, where on a building used as a Blacksmiths shop formerly stood but which has since fallen down….containing four perches of land." As we all know, there are four roods to the acre and forty perches to the rood. A parcel of land of four perches is equivalent to 10 metres by 10 metres. William sold it for £5. Crucially this tells us that the “old smithy” was right next to the churchyard. The 1847 map shows several small buildings next to the churchyard. We can speculate which of these may have been the old smithy. The 1861 census shows that William is no longer a blacksmith. He has joined the ranks of Piddington labourers. Maps of Piddington later in the 19th Century show the “new smithy” on the opposite side of the road, close to the old drive to Manor Farm. The next Blacksmith I have found in Piddington is shown in the 1881 census. A 22-year-old Joseph Markham from Blackthorn with his wife Matilda from Ambrosden. Piddington Baptism records 1851
Hillsdon family in Ludgershall. Sarah and John Hillsdon raised a family of seven boys and two girls. At least two of her sons became blacksmiths in Ludgershall. Her first son was named after her brother Edwin. Her youngest child was baptised Sarah, her name, and also that of her mother. The 1881 census shows Sarah, a widow and a laundress. She is living with her youngest two children next to the “5 Bells” in the High Street. Joseph is 16 and is a Blacksmith’s Assistant. Sarah is 14. John Hillsdon died in 1878 aged 60. Sarah’s elder son William is living further down the High Street, a Blacksmith and Grocer with a young family. Sarah returned to Piddington between 1891 and 1901. In 1901 she is living in Lower End, aged 73, the sole occupant of “No 2 Twin Villas”, “living on her own means”. Author’s Notes I started this week trying to be a bit more organised. Now I have moved from having hundreds of different pieces of paper with odd notes in many piles to a rudimentary filing system. I have different folders organised by family names or subjects such a schools, grocers and cobblers. These folders are also stuffed with the same hundreds of different pieces of paper. I also knew that I had to undertake some additional research to confirm the identity of William Parrott’s mother in law. There was no way that she wouldn’t appear at the wedding. Writing two paragraphs about Old Joseph Parrott and his marriages took me hours, getting to grips with the sequence of events and the respective ages of all concerned. I was taken aback when checking through baptism records to discover John & Sarah Dumbleton as publicans mid-1851 and again 11 months later. The March 1851 census just records Jonathan as a grocer. Another publican to add to the list. He may have been grocer/publican before that date. A big thank you to Heather, George & Phil for helping with 20th century publicans at the Seven Stars and to Bob Dixon for the maps showing the precise site of the “new Smithy.” I am moving forward on a few different fronts. I have rationalised writing each new “chapter”, “sources & inspirations” and “author’s notes” into one document. I am now writing all three sections of the document concurrently. I try to update “characters” at the same time. This week I have started to write a new section of “closetothebrook” titled “The Big Houses”. This is an attempt to summarise the family histories of people living in the “big houses” in the 19th Century. Although my main interest has always been the life and times of ordinary working families, it is difficult to write about Piddington’s history without mentioning the “movers and shakers”, the land owners, the main employers and the relationships that develop between these families. It would be difficult to do this by the diarist recounting rambling tales in “The Stars”. The first section of this should be ready in the next couple of weeks. David Cook 24th May 2020 |