WEDDINGTON CASTLE - An Online History

OLD ATTLEBOROUGH - AN IMAGINARY TRIP

Imagine if you can, a trip back in time, teleported back to Attleborough in the year 1848. What would you see and how would it look then? It is hard to imagine in this day and age of the ubiquitous motor car, the street lamp, electric plastic neon lights, all sorts of electronic gismos, to find ancient Attleborough amongst the turmoil of 21^st century life. It is just possible to imagine it, but only just and you have to know the lie of the land. Begin this imaginary journey, if you will, being transported to the Nuneaton railway station by antiquated steam engine hauling a string of wooden railway carriages. Transmitted from your cosy fire side into  a different time and space. Making our entry by rail a year after the Trent Valley Railway opened in 1847 is deliberate (the early station is pictured to the left). It sets the scene for what is to come. Of course rail travellers today are wafted along in air conditioned comfort by one of Virgin’s modern electrics. The pace is fast and effortless but in those far off days things were decidedly more prosaic. The carriage you will be travelling in will not be designed for creature comforts that’s for sure. It is one up from an old horse drawn carriage and travelling second class as I imagine you might,  would probably entail sitting on a bare wooden seat, or at best a stiff horsehair cushion. The carriage itself would be  jiggling about all over the place, the sides and the roof in perpetual discordant motion. The clippety clop of short spaced rail joints transmitted straight to your posterior through inadequate iron springs. The frequent lurches as the engine snatches at the couplings as it collars its load for an uphill climb. As we pass over the point work at the approach to the Nuneaton station a nasty jolt rattles us into thinking we are about to come off the road, but thankfully not. The antiquated steamer gasps into the station and we set down from our carriage, a long step to the low platforms with which this original way side halt was built. Nuneaton station then was nothing like it is now. It had two platforms and a set of buildings which were designed like the lodge of a fine country house. When erected Nuneaton was regarded as a second class station on the Trent Valley line whereas Atherstone, Tamworth and Lichfield were first class stations.

Having trodden across the diamond  pattern blue brick flagged platform we enter through double doors into the booking hall lobby with its quarry tiled floor and waist high tongued and grooved boarded walls. The boards painted dark green and the walls above a lighter shade reminiscent of grass green but with a hint of blue in it. Then out through the double doors on the town side of the station to crunch across the station yard in search of transport to our destination. There was no such thing as a cab in those days and we may be lucky to find a friendly pony and trap driver. Sixpence might see us transmitted to Attleborough and return, so off we set with our jovial jarvey in charge. It was a fashion of trap drivers to wear fancy waist coats so in my mind's eye I see this fellow wearing a rather snazzy silk one (manufactured in Abbey Street of course!). The only brightness about an otherwise drab attire of ubiquitous grubby dark grey.

We set off across the station yard which apart from a central part which is paved with hard stone setts  the rest is loose stone chippings pack with dust and mixed with dried horse manure. In those days there was no such thing as tarmacadam. The roads were dusty and gritty in summer and covered in a thin slurry in winter. Today is fine, we are warmed by the Warwickshire sun as we move off, crunching across the station yard and down Bond Street. The horse kicks up a fine dust from the roadway which will cover us by the time we are finished this trip. On left and right as we roll down Bond Street we see a pub in an old fashioned house but with a familiar name – The Crown – many old wooden framed, thatched roofed cottages and some more modern red and blue brick cottages with their many paned windows.    Most have dingy hinged shutters fitted so that they can be closed off whilst the inhabitants are away. In many cases the last vestige of paint has dropped from these shutters so that their wooden appearance shows streaks of blackened rust from ancient nails used to bond them together and to their iron hinges.  Doors likewise have greasy dark patches around the handles and latches whilst their bottoms are uneven and badly fitted board ends.

Soon on the right we pick up the River Anker. The road was much lower then than it is now, almost down to the surface of the river so it is no surprise to know that Bond Street flooded frequently apart from a built up section which dated from a 16^th century flood alleviation scheme. The river is a brown fast flowing affair fringed with willows and other mature trees. Then we come to a new blue brick bridge only four years old which replaced an old timber footbridge which had fallen into disrepair. Road traffic used to ford the river here and there are stories of horses being led across the stream when a flood has been rising being swept away to and drowned. Beyond the bridge there is a large spacious yard surrounded by a brick wall of dark brown and badly burnt mottled bricks. In the yard there is some activity with a horse and cart being loaded with sacks of flour. We assume that’s what it is because the loader is coloured white with the stuff and the yard surface has been turned a creamy white by spillages and bags chuffing their contents about as they are laboriously offloaded from the flour store onto the cart. Most men are going about this work with sleeves rolled up and collarless shirts wide open to the elements. We glimpse around the yard various carts in stages of decrepitude as this is the flour store for the nearby flour mill down Mill Walk in Bridge Street and the finished product is removed here for storage prior to being shipped out. Not just flour but animal feed stuffs and there is a large pile of coal, rotting damp sacks and various handcarts stored for local deliveries or for internal moving of sacks inside the premises. We pass the end of Bridge Street and look to the right up this narrow dingy street to the Market Place glimpsed in the distance. Then we move into Church Street where there are supposed to be superior residences but apart from being lime washed or having Georgian features many are still cottage like in scale and not very prepossessing at that. We pass the Kings Head pub on the left hand side. A 16^th century pub which served beer direct from the spigot into the jug right up until its demolition in 1960. On the right, the Queens Head a low cottage like affair demolished when its late Victorian replacement was built later known as the Pen & Wig. Its replacement is still there, of course.

Then the church. It is at this time that we hear of a sanitary inspector’s report for the General Board of Health which mentions that the the churchyard is overcrowded, the graves are opened too frequently before bodies have had time to decompose, and are buried at too shallow a depth. We wonder what that strange smell is and then we see across the road from the church an ancient thatched pub – The Double Plough. It is here where the loyal congregation of the church resort when the sermons become too tedious only to creep back into church before the final “Amen”.

 We notice that the grey stone wall built in 1824 which fringes the churchyard is much higher than the one we see today. That is not surprising because 150 years later the road has risen by a few feet as it has been remade and macadamised over the years. A line of trees a gift of former schoolmaster and church-warden Mr. Benjamin Rayner some twelve years previously (1836), lime and ewe species, are starting to mature along the church yard wall. At the end of the wall we look to the left up a lane. Little more than a cart track. There is no sign on it but it is, in fact, Peacock Lane (now King Edward Road) but then lined with a few cottages, to the right a former clay pit where King Edward College playing fields are now and there are no more houses to the river bridge. There are signs of activity at this time of earthworks being started for the brand new branch railway to Coventry cutting across the road ahead. As we reach this spot and look to the left the trackbed approaches us through an old brickyard. They are just dismantling a few brick kilns and starting to fill up the intervening ground with marl. There is sign of activity as men, and horses and carts move about in a muddy morass. As we approach the river Anker which effectively forms the boundary between the township of Nuneaton and the hamlet of Attleborough the fields on both sides are long and the road is becoming fringed with trees. There are a few cottages too, a pub on the right side – the New Inn, why new you ask when it was old, maybe new by comparison with the other older ale houses in the village some of which stem back to the 18^th century if not before. Standing tall and gaunt on the left side are the Albion buildings with tall windows on the third floor. We can see weavers working away up there, a few pot plants on the window sills, a few paltry curtains, and the click and crash of looms being worked. We cannot see them clearly as it is too high up, but their bare wooden top parts are visible. Ribbon weaving is now on its last legs hereabouts and by the 1860’s most families will have given up this trade, which will then be mostly concentrated in the hands of a few factory weavers. The last Attleborough weavers will then work in the silk factories or the businesses spun off from the weaving trade, cotton spinning, elastic web weaving, worsted manufacturing etc.

Passing along Attleborough Road we would be impressed by the picturesque nature of this section of roadway, long gardens, orchards and meadows lead down to the Wem Brook, on the right but on the left just past the Albion Buildings a tall wall which hedges in the pleasure grounds, paddocks and gardens of Attleborough Hall. This lovely building stands close to the road and there are some tall Lebanese cypress trees and mature trees of all descriptions towering above the roadway on both sides making the final approach to Attleborough village very attractive. Soon we pass the new church on the left only six years old and still then the domain of the Rev. Mesac Thomas. Perhaps we might catch sight of this clergymen as he walks down the path through the leafy churchyard. Soon facing us is the Bull Inn, mostly as we know it today. Not, of course, With a busy trunk road in front of it but the turning into Bull Street is unfettered by traffic. On this corner are the posts of the old toll bar, then still in use and the toll house itself near to where the Jireh Baptist chapel stands. A painted finger post points the way to Coton and Lutterworth and back to Nuneaton from where we have come. In tired old Attleborough much of the woodwork needs a coat of paint. The finger post is no exception. The Bull Inn dating back to the 18^th century has a grey stone garden wall with a tall privet hedge. Probably the same privet hedge in 1848 as the mature one of the 21^st century. This little bit of old Attleborough has not changed at all.

As we turn into Bull Street we notice on the left the old row of houses which are still there in modern times. Not as we see them now full of shop fronts but old fashioned red brick cottages with shuttered windows. Although some of these cottages are shops there was no such thing as a modern shop front then. The vendors wares are displayed behind the cottage window on a trestle or shelf of unpainted wood. Behind multi paned windows all with hand made panes of glass with air bubbles and distortions which give each pane of glass a different colour and direction of light. Most of the houses in Attleborough are like this. Red brick, timber framing some with thatch others clay roofing tiles, some with grey slate, some on plinths of grey Attleborough stone, others with wattle and daub behind grey stucco applied many years ago and crumbling off showing the timberwork and wattle in places. There is no finesse, no ornament, no brass door knockers, just rudimentary crude ironwork. Visible up alleys and jitties we catch site of the occasional pump. Solid looking wooden cased often with a grey stone bund to catch the run off from it. This bund would be be crudely carved, not symmetrical and partly coloured with lichen and moss. Maybe the Attleborough stone miners had a steady trade in these bunds which were carved at the quarry up Lutterworth Road and stacked four or five on a horse drawn “lorry” which then trundled them all over the district. The timber casing, split and worn out, would be grey and textured dark green, black and dingy looking. The ironwork rusty and pitted. Some pumps were, of course, simply cast iron and to stop them freezing up in winter the inhabitants have wrapped them in old blanket material or cloth, any scrap they could lay their hands on. Maybe that damp dark grey, dank looking wrapping you see there is old grandfathers trousers which when worn out, much patched, having worn them for twenty years without changing them, finds further useful service keeping some old Attleboroughian’s precious water supply above 32 degrees Fahrenheit. We won’t look too closely, they will not bear close inspection. On the other side of the street we see that there is no dwelling between the Bull Inn and the corner houses on the Square. This is a large garden maybe with apple trees, cabbages, potatoes, peas, beans and other vegetables. No lawn just trampled grassy earth where dandelions, twitch, ferns and other weeds grow between Mr. Wright’s home produce.  

It is possible as the few steps along Bull Street bring us closer to the Square that surviving at this time was a building which stood full square in the middle of the road. What could it be? Frankly I do not know and cannot even guess but it was certainly there in 1842 and might still be there six years later when we make our virtual journey to Attleborough. Someone speculated in the 1950’s that it might have been the ancient chapel dating back to before Edward VI’s reign, that once stood in the village with its solitary bell which an inventory taken in 1552 implied “Itm there a oon bell in the steple”. Henry Beighton’s map of 1725 shows it being in existence then but Alfred Scrivener seemed to think it stood between what was later Freer Street and Garrett Street. As he was writing in the 1870’s just thirty odd years after its demise he must have been able to talk to old timers who knew what the old building had been but he does not mention it but has gained a knowledge of where the old chapel is said to have been. Perhaps it was some kind of old market building where traders came and sold their vegetables and produce every week. Although it appears on the tithe map I have no clue to its real useage.

Beyond Bull Street and the Square is Garratt Street which led on towards the Trent Valley Railway and its level crossing where the trackway  which went off to Joseph Thompson’s Attleborough Fields farm or over towards Stretton Baskerville or Hinckley. This crossing was known as Platt’s Crossing in the 1850’s because Mr. Pratt was in charge of the square Saxby & Farmer signal box with its signals which poked through the top of the box. The Livock cottage style level crossing lodge where Mr. Platt lived was on the country side of the level crossing. Garratt Street was quite populous with some better quality houses amongst the ubiquitous cottages where most of the people lived. On the left side of Garratt Street we come across the “Royal Oak” beer house kept by Joseph Moore. A beer house of 1830 it is still there today. A cosy little place which has for years served an excellent pint of “Draught Bass”. Behind the Royal Oak was a row of tenements called Moore’s Yard, rented out to families who paid their rent to the landlord and lined his pockets in the bar of the “Oak” at night.  A bit further up again on the left a wide yard appropriately called “The Wide Yard”, again lined with red brick cottages and at its end it narrowed to a dingy muddy pathway which was hemmed in on one side by the high wall of Attleborough Hall. Overhung with trees it was unlit and night times no place to linger, or for females to walk alone. The lonely stranger walking along the blackened path would be further frightened by the noise of birds and animals moving about in the vegetation and undergrowth over the wall in the Hall’s parkland,  or in the fields beyond the trackway.  

Garratt Street was named after the Garratt family who lived there probably from the 18^th. Century if not earlier. In a field beyond the street which they rented off Col. William Tomkinson was a pond. This field was called The Croft and they used it to graze cows and keep horses.

We retrace our way back down Garratt Street and back to the Square. Although the Square could be regarded as the heart of the community it has little to offer. A small beer house with the sign of the Fox and a few cottages turned into shops. On one side we see Freer Street on land owned by John Freer. On the right George Street with a row of tenement cottages at the end – Buchanan’s Row. Where George Street got its name from I know not, maybe from a King by that name, or even George Greenway former owner of Attleborough Hall and a large landowner in Attleborough. After all his law firm partner James Williams Buchanan gave his name to Buchanan’s Row at the end of George Street. We then come to the Green which is quite green actually, being largely undeveloped at this time. The area of ground encompassed by the Green, Kem Street, Hall End and Bull Street were literally open fields where local farmers corralled their stock in Winter. The roadway at the Green was broad and the unmetalled part covered in grass. Shrubbery edged the sides. Kem Street was not then officially Kem Street, that name was painted on a sign in the 1870’s but its name was associated with Teddy Kem the lonely recluse whose winter cottage was in the street as he sought to enclose his few beasts on the village green in winter rather than have them roaming afar over the fields beyond his Dumble Holes farm. Now it is summer and the fields are starred with butter cups, daisies, and dandelions shed their spores in the long verdant grass.

Just a little beyond the Green as we start up Lutterworth Road we can see on the left hand side a pond where cattle drink, maybe still running at that time from this pond was a stream which trickled down Kem Street to join the Wem Brook. A stream which might have later been enclosed within a twelve inch salt glazed terracotta pipe as road making technology led to the desire to reduce nuisances such as this which could turn the roadway here into a muddy mess during the rainy season.

A few yards further along Lutterworth Road we come across a road going off to the right. This is Marston Lane and was, in fact, the lane that led to Marston Jabbett. A large house which stood on the corner here was thought to have been the priest’s house when the village had its chapel and maybe was the four hearthed affair occupied by Samuel Perkins in the 1660’s hearth tax returns. Beyond this house is a field called the Nook and there is a roadway by that name in the village today. Soon we come to the Toll Gate. The gate here was put in to replace the one in the village centre.  It was deemed to be inconvenient and hindered the commercial affairs of the village as it blocked the direct highway from Attleborough to Nuneaton.

Further along is the Cross Keys Inn which was by then a very run down affair. It would survive a few more years before succumbing to dry rot, broken thatch and fractious sand stone.

Now, of course we start to retrace our route back through the village, our journey of less than two hours from Nuneaton train station is coming to an end, but before we leave we must comment on the people we see and glean a bit of their lives. Many of the cottages have weaving shops attached to them and here and there we can see people behind their large multi-paned weaving shop windows engaged in some kind of treadle motion with a big framework of wood and wires, thread and iron. They will have to work many hours to earn a square meal, their weekly rent, clothe the children and many more to spend a few coppers in the beer house or the pub.  The kids meanwhile play in the streets, dirty, dishevelled, bright eyed youngsters (our ancestors) bearing the names Paul, Garrett, Hackett, Armson, Dalton, Stanton, Lester, Oakey, Wagstaff, Petty, Harris, Wright, Rose, Freer, Garratt, Kinder, Hobley, Green, Gudgeon, Daffern, Chaplain, Thurman, Jeffcott etc., Warner, Fortescue, Leake, Flowers, Lilley and more. The ladies around the Green with their bonnets and pinnies, long dresses, a hard boiled lot,  doing their old fashioned shopping with wicker baskets, a bit of meat wrapped in brown paper, a couple of fresh baked loaves from the baker. They stop and natter and look up and down the road for their kids. A few old men shuffle about with their baccy pipes, scruffily dressed, with dirty unchanged clothes. Maybe life has not altered here for a couple of hundred years. There are no young blades in smart clothes and straw hats, or portly looking top hated gentlemen with cigars. The village not much bigger now than the Hearth Tax village of 1662-1674. Most people were poor, some hardly scratch a living from the rough trades of the village. Attleborough was no different from thousands of rural communities up and down the country. The new railway had passed by the village and does not stop here. Nuneaton will, in twenty odd years time (1870 onwards) benefit from it but Attleboroughians never will. A siding to the quarry only provided a modicum of traffic. Coal in, stone out.  Not until the growing suburbs of Nuneaton encroached outwards that Attleborough increased in size and prospered in outlook. Much of the trade which invigorated the local economy will be at the Nuneaton end of the village.

In fact this place was so insignificant many of you will wonder why it is worth writing about. However, the soap opera of life which was old Attleborough meant something to us because it was our ancestors' home. You see it is in their blood!

"Old Attleborough - An Imaginary Trip" written by and (c) Peter Lee