Good old Seighford
It’s a job to know where to start, as the village and its
occupants from years gone by are in the St Chads Churchyard, every time you
walk through the grave stones you find yet another family name and of a trade’s
men farmer or farm workers and all their families.
Up until the 1940’s we were almost self sufficient as a
community.
The wheelwright
made all the gates built all the farm carts wheel barrows and feed troughs and was
also the undertaker.
The blacksmith as
well as shoeing all the horses in the area repaired the machinery most of which
was horse drawn, hooping wooden wheels with the wheelwright, right down to
making iron work in the old fire places trivets, chimney cranes and the like.
In The estate yard
there was a handyman come builder come Thatcher who, a man who could do he
plumbing, most of that was lead pipe, the galvanized iron pipes were only just
coming in.
The village shop
carried most of the basic necessities like salt sugar flour and also the Post
Office, and also sold paraffin for the oil lamps in the houses and cottages,
and for the tilly lamps used to carry outside and in the farm buildings.
The School. Children walked in from as far as two miles away in all
directions, from the surrounding hamlets. The head teacher at one time was also
the tax collector and would put pressure on the children when money was due.
The Pub. Beer was
brought up from the cellar on big jugs, and the customers would sit at a
scrubbed wooden table with all sorts of oddment chairs. It would be all local
people who walked or came on a bicycles.
There was also a Cobbler who made and repaired boots and shoes, as well as repaired horse harness, and all things leather.
There was six farms
actually in the village, the land and fields belonging to them spread out in
all directions, although on the area of peat land on the east side of the
estate, everyone had a portion, so it fragmented all the farms. There would be
around fourteen farm workers all in tied cottages, cottages that went with the
job, and as tractors came in the number of workers reduced, milking machines
again reduced the labour force, old cottages went into disrepair and were
eventually pulled down to form a building site for new house’s.
The Landlord lived in the “big” house on the bank just out
of the village, rent was paid to him on rent days “Lady Day”, and “Michaelmas
day” at the Holly Bush pub. When you had paid the rent to the agent, you were
then invited to have a drink at the bar on him. I was told by my father that in
his early days on the estate they all went to a hotel in town to pay their
rent, and stayed for a slap-up meal. It
was a change of estate agent that change that to the pub in the village.
The Village Farm Cottages
Each farm worker had a cottage,
went with work they did,
Work was hard worked long hours, to
earn an honest quid
Dug the garden to grow the food,
all to feed the kids,
Milk and logs they came free,
with the work they did.
Men left the land to get more
money, cottages left empty,
Thatch it rotted let rain in,
knocked them down for safety,
Tiled roof ones they lasted
longer, ventuly they succumb,
Rubble for field gateways, a new
building plot become.
Owd Fred
The new electronic
interdependence recreates the world in the image of a global village.
Marshall McLuhan (1911 - 1980)
