Back to my homeland (part 5)

Days 1-4
Days 5-8
Day 9 - Crowland
Day 9 - Croyland Abbey

Day 9 (continued)

It was quite a day for the Cherringtons, but time was short so we pressed on to Thorney Abbey. We don't have any direct ancestral links to Thorney Abbey but there are connections to Thomas Sutton (1829-1906) and a possible connection to the Cherringtons in a roundabout way.

There were two families in which we were interested.  Baley and Buckworth.  James Usill Baley (son of Susanna Usill Baley and Richard Cherrington Baley)married Elizabeth Sutton, daughter of Thomas Sutton; Frances (Fanny) Buckworth (daughter of Rowland and Mary Buckworth) was the wife of Thomas Sutton (our g-g-grandfather's brother).

Both these marriages took place at Thorney Abbey, so it was reasonable to assume that we would find those surnames in the graveyard, also.

 Sometime ago I found the photograph above here. All due credit and full acknowledgment is given to the photographer for capturing this memorial before its inevitable collapse.  When we arrived, all that was standing was the obelisk, which itself is unmarked, so without this older photograph we would never have known whose burial site it was.

The inscription as recorded on the Churchmouse website is as follows:

East side:

 IN MEMORY OF RICHARD WILLIAM 

THE BELOVED SON OF 

RICHARD CHERRINGTON AND MARY BALEY. 

WHO DIED APRIL 27TH 1885 

IN THE 37TH YEAR OF HIS AGE.

West side:

SACRED TO THE MEMORY 

OF MARY 

THE AFFECTIONATE WIFE 

OF RICHARD CHERRINGTON BALEY. 

WHO DEPARTED THIS LIFE 

MARCH 29TH 1849,

IN THE 36TH YEAR OF HER AGE.

North side:

IN AFFECTIONATE REMEMBRANCE OF 

RICHARD CHERRINGTON BALEY 

WHO DIED MAY 29TH 1888 

IN HIS 76TH YEAR.

South side:-

IN LOVING MEMORY OF 

SUSANNA USILL 

THE SECOND WIFE OF 

RICHARD CHERRINGTON BALEY

WHO DIED SEPT. 26TH 1903 

IN THE 86TH YEAR OF HER AGE.
PEACE, PERFECT PEACE

I'm still working on finding out Richard's Cherrington connection.  If, as I suspect, he was a cousin of our own Elizabeth Cherrington, then his son, James, was a distant cousin of his wife's.

The stones are hard to read, having weathered over two hundred years.

However I was gratified to find the burial place of Thomas Sutton's in-laws, the Buckworths.  Unfortunately the shadow of the trees  made it a bit difficult to read or to photograph clearly.

Here is another member of the Buckworth family.

Inside the abbey it was interesting to find this memorial (not one of ours) on the church floor.

More views of Thorney Abbey.

Yes.  It's a boot-scraper.

Away from the Abbey, I took pleasure in seeing this old round house. I love quirky buildings (so why I live in a rectangular box, I don't know) and this is one of many buildings that caught my eye as we travelled.  Interestingly, across the road was this new house.

I like the way "they" have started building new houses less like identical characterless boxes.  New homes in England are nowadays often more in keeping with their surroundings - at least in historical towns like this one.  (I'm not talking about housing estates and frame houses.) You will notice that to give this house the appearance of being older than it is, it has what look like bricked-in windows.  In 1792, owners of houses with 7-9 windows had to pay a tax of 2/- (two shillings), and those with10-19 windows would pay a tax of 4/- so some people avoided the extra tax by bricking in some of their windows. Many 18th century houses can still be seen with bricked in windows, but this one is a brand-new fake.

Next time we head south, to Sussex.

Back to my homeland (part 4)

Days 1-4
Days 5-8
Day 9

Day 9 (continued): Croyland Abbey.  The church of Saints Mary Barthlomew and Guthlac adjoins the ruins of the Abbey. The churchyard is filled with stones - some half buried and many weather-worn and faded.

Click on the pictures for a closer look, and use the back button to return to the blog.

Our mission was to find graves of ancestors and to see the place where great-great-great-grandfather, Joseph Sutton married great-great-great-grandmother, Elizabeth Cherrington.  It was also the place where all their children were Christened.

 This is one of many Cherrington gravestones we found, but it was almost as hard to read in real life as it is now.  It might have been easier to take a rubbing of the stone, but we didn't have paper and crayons to do it with.  This one dates to the early 1700s but the date is hard to make out.

These could be the graves of Elizabeth's parents - my great-great-great-great-grandparents.  But they might not be.  Research that far back isn't easy.  Still it's gratifying to know that they lie still undisturbed.

Entering the church the font is the first thing we see. 

The font in the middle of the floor is several hundred years old, and is almost certainly the one used to Baptise Elizabeth and her children. There is an older font set into the wall, which more resembles a well.

The area around the font is well-lit with natural light from clear glass windows.

There is an ornate screen before the altar which has traces of coloured paint on it.

The ceiling above the quire (or choir) has a depiction of the Green Man.  An ancient Pagan symbol of fertility, commonly found in old English churches.

On the wall, a wooden plaque commemorates the passing of a man, his wife and children, and reminds us of our own mortality.  It is dated 1706.

I was excited to find this on the wall near the altar.

"Beneath this stone lieth 

Interr'd the Body of 

Frans Cherrington, 

Relict of 

Willm Cherrington, 

who died August 1:1787 

Aged LX Years.

Reader stay: it is but just

Thou dost not tread on common Dust:

For underneath this Stone doth lye

One whose Name can never die.

Trace her through all the Series of Life,

You'll find her free from Envy, Hate & Strife."

I believe William and Frances Cherrington are Elizabeth's grandparents, which makes them my great-great-great-great-great-grandparents.  (In case you were wondering, we each have one-hundred-and-twenty-eight of them and I have no idea who the remaining one-hundred-and-twenty-six of them are!)

I have a greater appreciation of some of these old churches nowadays.  I've always enjoyed reading monumental inscriptions, but how much more interesting they become when they are for one's own ancestors.

In the next instalment we'll be heading for the south of England.

Back to my homeland (part 3)

Days 1-4
Days 5-8

Day 9: Crowland, Lincolnshire.  This is where it all began, in a way. Our great-great-great-grandfather, Joseph Sutton, came to Crowland at some point and married a young widow called Elizabeth Price.  She was from a long-established Crowland family by the name of Cherrington and had recently inherited a large sum of money from her wealthy uncle.  Joseph Sutton had a business in West Street in which he was variously and sometimes concurrently a grocer, draper and postmaster.

Click on the pictures for a closer look and use the back button to return to the blog.

This is where West Street meets South Street today. Few buildings at the beginning of West Street date as far back as 1840, when we know Joseph had his shop, but there are many other buildings further down the street that do. Since we don't know exactly where his shop was, we can only try to imagine how it looked based on what we can see now.

 The pub on the corner of North Street, bedecked in England flags for the 2010 World Cup, dates back to 1789. It faces Trinity Bridge - originally built to provide a dry crossing over three converging streams but now provides an intriguing focal point in the middle of the road. I can imagine generations of children playing on, under and around it.

This is North Street, as seen from the top of the bridge.

This small Fenland town is quiet, flat and has plenty of wide open space and isn't crowded with people and traffic.

At the South end of the town stands the church of Saints Mary Bartholomew and Guthlac which is built within the ruins of Croyland Abbey.

The thatched roof of the Copper Kettle Tea Room with its thatched tea cup abuts another building with ornate brickwork commonly found in houses of the 17th century.

Time for lunch at the Copper Kettle.

This is absolutely the best tea room in England.  Look at that. That was my lunch.  Then look at this:

All the cakes are freshly baked on the premises.  I had a slice of the chocolate and orange cake on the right, but I must say I would have loved to have tasted that lemon cake in the middle.  The tea room is housed in what was a Victorian pharmacy for the doctor who worked next door.

Now for more of Crowland.  The following are all photographs of West Street.

More of Crowland.

Next time, Croyland Abbey.

Back to my homeland (part 2)

Days 1-4

Day 5: It was a Friday of some driving and some research.  We had lunch at a canalside pub.  How very English.

Click on the pictures for a closer look and use the back button to return to the blog.

Unfortunately I have no idea where we were, but it was quite idyllic.

Most English canals and locks date back at least to the 18th century. (Unless someone knows better.)

After lunch we went to the Northampton Records Office to research our great-great-great grandfather who was from Peterborough, and then we went to our weekend accommodation.  We stayed for the whole weekend at the Axe and Compass, a pub near Leighton Buzzard. (You can Google it if you'd like to see it.)

Day 6: It was unfortunate that we picked a Saturday to visit St. Alban's because it was very busy and there were delays on the roads going into the city.  We managed to do what we set out to do, though.  We drove along Colney Heath Lane where our great-aunt and uncle had lived for many years.  We also visited the town museum where we took our donation of four miniature bottles of Roses cordials (made in St Alban's) and we found the burial place of our third set of great-grandparents.

The grave was unmarked so my sister marked the place herself for the benefit of my camera.  I hope they didn't mind her lying on top of them, but I think great-grandad had a sense of humour...

We returned to the Axe and Compass for dinner and the US v England World Cup game.

That's a heart attack on a polystyrene tray, that is!  Sausage roll, chips and baked beans, all washed down with a glass of Pimms.

Day 7: This was going to be our rest day. We went to Milton Keynes to meet a very old school friend for lunch, and to do a little shopping.  We didn't do much but we did walk around a little bit.  It was nice.  The rest of the day we just meandered around the Buckinghamshire countryside.

Day 8:  On the Monday we left the Axe and Compass and drove to Lincolnshire where me met another old friend in a pub by a shopping outlet near Spalding.  It was a brief meeting but it was lovely to see her again. 

After lunch we made our way to Stamford to see where our great-great grandfather's brothers had gone to school.  It was my first visit to Stamford and as soon as I arrived In knew that a couple of hours weren't going to be enough.  It's on my list of places to visit again for an extended time. 

See what I mean?  Lovely.

More to come another day.

Back to my homeland (part 1)

My recent visit to England and Wales was filled with visiting, exploring, talking, and driving.  I think my sister and I drove about 1200 miles in the course of two and a half weeks and we managed to avoid most traditional tourist destinations while we explored our own heritage.

Day 1 - From West London to a village a few miles from Bath; spent the afternoon with an old friend.  From there to Caerphilly.  (We saw the castle across the way but didn't visit.)  Sadly, due to rain and jet-lag I forgot to make use of my camera that day.

Day 2 - A day in South Wales: we visited two cemeteries, one gift shop/tea room, and an M&S cafe.  It doesn't sound much but it took us all day!

Our great-grandmother died in childbirth in 1897.  We hope she had a sense of humour because that's my sister peeping out from behind the headstone. 

There was a stormy sky over the cemetery, but it has a spectacular view and is surprisingly quiet. It is the final resting place of two great-grandmothers, two great-aunts, four great-uncles, a grandfather, a great-grandfather and, several young children of our family.

Day 3 - We drov to Hereford.  We stopped at another cemetery but we couldn't find anyone we knew.  It's a shame that so many stones are illegible.

We travelled via the Brecon Beacons.  I love this.  Photos just can't do it justice.

We loved our afternoon with cousins and we enjoyed their spectacular garden.  This is just one corner of it.

Day 4 - Quite a busy day on which we began the day in Monmouth, continued into Kinlet (Shropshire) and Kinver (Staffordshire) and ended up visiting more cousins in  in Worcestershire.

This is the interior of Kinlet parish church.  If my family research is correct, this is the church at which one of my sixteen great-great-great-grandmothers was Christened.

 We stayed here for the night, with our cousin.  Parts of the cottage date as far back as 1490. Its the first and only time I've slept under a thatched roof (not including a certain mud hut in Morocco).

That's enough for today... more tomorrow.

Aftermath

My, but it's been a long time since I wrote here.

Turning intentions into accomplishments and getting my thoughts in order are proving difficult tasks at present, because even though I've been home for six days, I'm still feeling the effects of jet-lag. My brain is a jumble of holiday (vacation) memories mixed with thoughts of things I'm supposed to be doing, coupled with plans for projects I want to tackle but which are almost too overwhelming to contemplate.  I suppose I'm also just plain tired after travelling and living out of a suitcase for seventeen days.

Foremost in my mind is what is contained in a certain shoebox which my sister gave me to bring home. It is the latest addition to what is becoming a rather sizable family archive, although this is of more personal significance because the box contains letters written by my father to my mother between when they first met in 1949 and when he moved to London to live nearer to her.

My dad died when I was only thirteen, so I never got to know him as an adult, and these letters are an insight into how he thought, and what his life was like as a young man.  I've only read about half a dozen of them - less than a quarter of the total - but each one brings new insight and food for thought.  It's a pity the letters my mum wrote to him didn't survive.

More of the best museum that no-one knows about

To continue with my thoughts on the Museum of World War Two.

Almost every part of the museum was of great interest to me, particularly to see the many things I had only ever seen in pictures or on film.  After the Holocaust section - which was much as I had expected even though I had to keep reminding myself that I wasn't looking at replicas but at authentic artifacts that had really been used, I found myself in wartime Britain. Churchill's overalls, letters between him and Roosevelt, the D-Day plans.  Yes. The real D-Day plans.  There were German air-raid maps of London with potential (and actual) bomb sites marked out in red, including places very close to where my mother and her family lived at that time.

Another fascinating section concerned Special Operations and the French Resistance. Tiny tools and gadgets for sabotage.  Secret radios hidden in attache cases and biscuit tins. garottes, guns, cyanide capsules, secret maps, parachutes, explosives, blades hidden in shoe heels and knives hidden in sleeves.  Then we saw Enigma machines - those complicated coding devices used with enormous success by Germany until one fell into British hands and provided the key to seemingly unbreakable codes.  There were also devices provided to airmen to aid them in escape attempts in the event of them being captured. There were miniature compasses hidden in uniform buttons, blades hidden inside pencils sent in Red Cross parcels and maps printed on silk and sewn into uniform linings. The ingenuity was astounding.

I'm less interested in weaponry and warfare per se, so I didn't spend long looking at the Sherman tank or guns or bits of cockpits from shot-down aircraft.  There was not as much from the North-African theatre or Italy, but they did have Monty's uniform, which was much as expected. I was surprised to see what to me looked like the uniform of a soldier from a Welsh regiment (because of the Welsh dragons on the collar) marked as a Ghurka uniform.  I wasn't so sure of myself as to say anything to the curator, but now I've had a chance to look it up and have found that it was mislabelled, I'll probably drop him a line.

There is so much I haven't written about here and I'm afraid I haven't done justice to any of it.  The web site has some pictures which give a taste of what there is to see so I suggest you take a look yourself if you are intrigued.  I am so glad we went there. It was a riveting, fascinating visit. We took over four hours to look around and didn't sit down, take a break or have any food or drink in all that time.

Near the end, and rather unexpectedly, there were more of Hitler's belongings.  We'd already seen his uniform and reading glasses, but now there was an entire table-setting of monogrammed linens, hand-painted china and Hitler's favourite tea cup.

There was even china, including a broken plate, and a chair which were found in his Bunker.  Then there was a strip of blue and white fabric which had been cut from the sofa on which Hitler and Eva Braun are supposed to have committed suicide. It had been brought home by General Patton. The oddest and most unexpected things.
 
Go and see for yourself: Museum of World War II