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Residents Researching & Recording Village History

Open Meeting at the Church Hall at 7.30 p.m. Tuesday 9 April 2013

A Village in the Context of the Witham Valley

An evening with Naomi Field, an archaeologist involved in ’digs’ in Cherry and Fiskerton in the 1980s. She will help us to understand more about the historical/archaeological context of

Cherry’s Witham Valley location.All welcome

Cherry WillinghamHeritage Society

Newsletter No.1

March 2013

Residents Researching & Recording Village HistoryThis is the key activity for the Society - a way of us as residents engaging with village history. At our open meeting on 12 February, we heard reports from various members who have undertaken to research/record specific aspects of village history. The following is a brief summary of these reports:1. Sue has looked at the display materials for the

pond and feels that most of the work for this has been done. She has begun to research the Marmion, Becke and other families of significance in the village history.

2. Anne is working on the 19th and early 20th

century censuses to look at the ordinary people and families of the village including locating them in particular properties and their occupations.

3. Lesley has not managed to start meeting people to record their memories. But will do so soon.

4. Ian P & Mike are looking at the history of farming in the village as this has had a major impact on both people and places. Ian had found some fascinating information in relation to curly-coated pigs, Lincolnshire red cattle and long-wool sheep which have all played a significant

role locally. They are looking at land ownership and hoping to learn more about the 1725 glebe terriers map. They have located a lot of information on the internet.

5. Jackie encourages members to let her have as much information as they can for the web-site as they go along.

6. Charles already has a lot of information on WW2 and other military history which will be on the web-site in due course - see article on page 4.

7. Jim has started to look at a heritage trail and will look to build on last year’s projects with the Community School.

8. Ian L will look at the geological and geographical data. He is also interested in producing a time-line of events nationally/internationally and in Lincoln/Lincolnshire to relate to significant dates for Cherry.

9. Marjorie would like any resident who has information about the older church on the site of the current building.

Hazel spoke about the materials and information she has gathered over the years. She is the process of listing it so that it can be made available to other

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members carrying out research. She has also identified material held in CW Library which is not well recorded and it was agreed that Anne will approach LCC Libraries staff about the possibility of the Society having some responsibility for it in order to make it more easily accessible.Eunice shared with us some of her experiences

growing up in the village and she was encouraged to write these down.If you are interested in any of the above and would like to join in, or have another aspect of village history which you would like to explore, please contact Mike. We will be pleased to provide any information which is already available.

CW2020 Vision/PlanThe CW2020 Steering Group presented their report to residents at the Annual Parish Meeting on 18 March. It reports that 83% of respondents to their consultation considered that understanding the heritage and history of the village is important to its future. It encourages the work of this Society in delivering this aim.This lies at the heart of what we are trying to do through our Residents Researching & Recording Village History project described above. We are very keen to see how the proposals relating to the creation of a community hub might meet our desire for permanent display space!

Future ActivitiesThe Society will be active at the Community Gala on Saturday 13 July with opportunities for attendees to share their experiences of the village.

We are also planning an official “launch” of Gilbert’s pond around this time - a chance to celebrate the recovery and regeneration of this mediaeval fish pond.

There will be further events linked to our Residents Researching & Recording village history - please watch out for details of all these.

Our unusual 18th century Georgian

Parish Church on site of much older churches

Our congratulations go to the congregation on the completion of some major works last year for which

they were winners of The Georgian Society architectural award for restoration for 2012.This picture shows some unusual markings found during this work.

Below and overleaf are some pottery artefacts discovered in a resident’s garden near the pond -along with the identification of them by ‘experts’.

ResourcesOur web-site is in the course of development but please look at it and let us have your stories, documents or memories to add to it and let us know what else you would find helpful on it.The Society has become a member of the British Association for Local History. This gives us access to their resources and publications. http://www.balh.co.uk/If you are interested in local/Lincolnshire history we can recommend a visit to The Collection -more details on their web-site at http://www.thecollectionmuseum.com/ Lincs to the Past is a site that contains hundreds of thousands of records covering items held in Lincolnshire’s Historic Environment Record, Archives, Libraries, Museums and Tennyson Research Centre - http://www.lincstothepast.com/Membership of the Society for Lincolnshire History and Archaeology ht tp://www.slha.org.uk/ and the Heritage Trust of Lincolnshire http://lincsheritage.org/ is open to anyone and again their web-sites contain lots of useful information.We have secured some funding to enable us to begin to create a library of appropriate reference books - all suggestions welcome.Glazed handle 12th/14th

century splash glazed

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For more information about the Society or items in this newsletter, or to ‘get involved’ in our work, please contact our Secretary Mike on 01522 823857

or by e-mail mike.mason4@ntlworld.com

Funding Our WorkWe have been fortunate to secure several ‘pots’ of money to enable us to get underway:-1. West Lindsey DC’s Community Action &

Volunteering Fund - £250 for electronic storage equipment and cupboards for holding materials and artefacts.

2. CW Parish Council Grants to Community Organisations - £100 for hire of rooms for meetings/events and the general start-up costs of the Society.

3. Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) - £500 towards ‘launch’ event for Gilbert’s Pond as part of the grant for refurbishment of the pond.

4. WLDC Local Councillors Initiative Fund -£450 for e.g. voice recording equipment for oral archives project, reference books and maps plus cost of accessing web-based data.

In addition the Committee is looking to make a bid to the recently announced HLF Sharing Heritage fund. This will provide between £3,000 and £10,000 to groups that can demonstrate that they are developing their local heritage in ways that ensure that local residents, especially young people, learn about that heritage and assist in its development. If you have any ideas for ways in which this could be possible, please let us know.

The Aims of the Society1. To investigate, study, conserve, publicise and

enhance the historical and archaeological heritage of the parish of Cherry Willingham, Lincolnshire for the benefit of the local community and the wider public interest.

2. To encourage the participation of all members of the local community, including children and young people, in understanding and enjoying the heritage of the village and district.

3. To develop the knowledge and skills of members for investigation, analysis and recording of heritage and archaeological studies.

4. To develop relationships with appropriate national and local heritage organisations.

5. To support County, District and Parish Councils in the management, maintenance and preservation of public heritage sites located within the village.

Society Membership Voting membership of the Society is open to

individuals over eighteen (age limit for legal reasons) but we welcome applications from anyone of any age who is interested in being part of delivering the above aims.

For 2012/13 we have agreed a nominal membership fee of £5.

Alternatively we are very happy to add you to our mailing list without obligation on your part.

Please get in touch with our Secretary.

The CommitteeThe work of the Society is overseen by Officers and a Committee elected by the members. Currently these are Officers

Anne Welburn (Chair)Ian Lacy (Vice-Chair)Charles Parker (Treasurer)Mike Mason (Secretary)with members Jackie Dearing and Jim Blyth.

If you would be interested in being part of this, please contact us.

Toynton type ware with applied decora�on

from medieval kilns at Toynton All Saints

13th or 15th century

Green ware13th/14th century

The article on Page 4 was provided by Charles Parker. If you want to know more, Mike can put you in touch with Charles.

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During the First World War observer posts were set up to track raids by German airships and Gotha bombers. Using experience gained from this system the Observer Corps was officially established on 29 October 1925, with the formation of two groups in Kent and Sussex. Part time volunteers were recruited by the Police and enrolled as Special Constables for observation duties only. This network grew as more groups were established until the Corps covered most of the country by 1939. No 11 Group was formed in 1936 to cover the middle and southern parts of Lincolnshire and the Centre was set up over the GPO Telephone Exchange in Guildhall Street, Lincoln. At the outbreak of war the Corps was taken over by the Air Ministry and it played a major role in the air defence chain, providing details of raids by enemy aircraft to supplement reports from radar. Information from the posts was sent via telephone to Group HQ. On 9 April 1941 King George VI conferred the title ‘Royal’ to the Corps, in recognition of its role in the Battle of Britain. Greetwell post (designation 11/Fox 2) was first set up in Moor Lane, Reepham; about three fields down from the junction with Fiskerton Road. However, when construction started on the airfield it was moved as it would have been near the bomb dump - it was resited to the field immediately west of the junction of Fiskerton Road/the bridleway at Greetwell. The other two posts in ‘Fox cluster’ were 11/Fox 1 Bardney and 11/Fox 3 Billinghay.Chief Observer John Newton continues the story: “The post was created in April, 1939 to fill in a gap which was evident in the general plan of the group. Men were recruited from Reepham, Langworth, Cherry Willingham and Fiskerton - at the beginning of the war it had a strength of 20 men -farmers, farm workers, coal merchants, company managers, council officer, works manager, joiners, railway man, wheelwright, and newsagent. What a varied collection, but nevertheless a grand lot of chaps who blended well and did the job in a first class manner. We had the usual sandbag surround to commence with and in November, 1939, we built a dug-out. Early one morning (a month later) the whole thing collapsed on our Head Observer and his partner. This situation demanded immediate remedy so the post was moved a dozen or so yards and rebuilt . At that time we began to have regular nightly visits from the enemy, who passed over in great

numbers. Several times enemy aircraft circled overhead - looking for something and bombs were dropped near on many occasions. Members of the crew had narrow escapes when going to/from duty, but no casualties were suffered. During 1942 the post was re-sited to within two miles of Lincoln. This move proved a success from an operational point of view, but the crew were spread out some distance from the post. Once more we began to have continual visits from the enemy and our nights on duty were a regular round of bombs, flares, verey lights and other alarms. We had two daylight incidents in this period. The first was two lost low flying Ju88’s. They were picked up at 100 feet by our duty crew, who had the supreme satisfaction of seeing their tracking acted upon by some Spitfires pouncing on the Ju’s with in the next few minutes. Both were downed.On the second occasion a Do217 was dodging in and out of the clouds and it was only seen once south of Lincoln flying west. Unfortunately it turned north east and bombed Lincoln causing some casualties. In the early hours one morning in September 1944, the air was filled with the roar of planes returning from a raid over Germany and the sky was dotted with coloured navigation lights circling and weaving as the planes prepared to land. Suddenly the two observers on duty noticed one plane flying low and steadily losing height. Its navigation lights disappeared from view behind some rising ground and reappeared in a field about 500 yards from the post. Leaving one observer at the post, the other raced off in his car and discovered the plane had made a belly landing in a field of roots. By a merciful providence R Roger had missed the edge of a stone quarry by a bare 20 yards and ploughed its way towards some high tension cables, tearing off its tail unit as it bumped over the uneven ground. After helping to make comfortable four of the crew who lay injured near the plane, the observer hurried off for help and by a further stroke of good fortune, found an R.A.F. ambulance had pulled up at the gate of the field. Stretchers and willing help were quickly forthcoming and the casualties were soon transferred to the ambulance and then to hospital. Towards the end of 1944 we had flying bombs to deal with and again in 1945 we had several enemy aircraft in moon light shooting up the whole area. Here again we were lucky and no one was hit.

11/Fox Two Greetwell Royal Observer Corps Post