More information regarding Shalstone HERE
It was a busy December for services in Shalstone - three that month - including the village carols and the Benefice Christmas day celebration; we welcomed locals and visitors to a really full church on both of those occasions. Many thanks to all who took part and made the building look so pretty with greenery, decorations and lights during the festive season.
As you receive this Link, you will see a change to services over the next few months; in March, we will be hosting a Lent Deanery Evening Prayer in addition to the usual first Sunday service and on 6 April, Village Worship will replace Family Communion. The first Sunday in June will be the popular Pet Service. Please see the list below for exact details.
At the PCC meeting in January a number of potential village social ideas for 2025 were discussed so please do keep an eye on the various noticeboards for upcoming events including Coffee Morning in The Reading Room – Saturday 1 March 10.30am.
Services coming up in church
- Sunday 2 March – 9.00am Family Communion
- Sunday 16 March – 6.00pm Deanery Evening prayer
- Sunday 6 April – 10.30am Village Worship
- Good Friday 18 April – 3.00pm Choir Meditation Service
- Sunday 4 May – 9.00am Family Communion
- Sunday 1 June – 10.30am Pet Service
Church cleaning
March - Elspeth and Ina
April - Amanda and Kathy
May – Fiona and Janet
Cogitations…The Old Codger aka GPP
Last time I concentrated on the southern end of the Parish. My plan now is to look at the northern end.
Wood Green: I don’t know very much about the farms beyond the crossroads, Den Farm and Wood Green Farm as they were sold before I came here, but I do remember a story about Wood Green Farm. There was a Scotsman, by the name of Gribbon, who had a flock of sheep and a sheep dog. He would go out to his field and the dog would round up the sheep and take them back to the farm. Gribbon put a little stick against each gate, which he left open, and when he had finished his jobs, he would say to his dog “Take them back and, when you come back, shut the gates.” The dog snicked the sticks which were holding the gates open. They slammed shut. Just before Christmas Barry Linford came to see me and I mentioned the sheep dog story – he too had heard it. It was good to have confirmation.
Welsh Lane: The Welsh Lane is so called because it is part of the drovers’ route from Wales to London. The Enclosure Act came into force in Shalstone in 1763. Before that there were no hedges and livestock grazed on the verges as they travelled Welsh Lane. At night they were penned in and the drovers lodged at Den Farm, Wood Green, where they were often robbed of the previous day’s sales. It was called Den Farm as in robbers’ den not foxes’ den.
The Sluices: There are two oak copses bordering either side of Welsh Lane. The northern one is known as Ten Lands and the southern as Cow Pond. The farm has no water, except down by the brook which runs through the village, so, if any cattle were to be fed and nurtured at the top end of the farm, they needed water. In Ten Lands there is an enormous dam and wall and the remains of a sluice which kept the water back. If water was needed for the cattle, they would open the sluice and it would run down the ditch, past the Red Barn into Thistley Field where the cattle could drink. In the early ‘40s we had some very hot weather which engendered a national Polio plague. One of the people in the village actually lost the use of his arm through catching Polio; he lived in Number 18. The drains in the village were then non-existent and any effluent went down in a pipe to the brook which went through the village. If you look across the wall of the western side of the checkered bridge, you will find there is a sluice, which was put in by the council, with a handle to raise it when necessary. On Mondays Jimmy Cannell, who was the road man, used to get the key from underneath the bridge, where it was kept, and raise the sluice allowing the water to swill through the brook. He was a great character; we used to have jumble sales in those days and Jimmy came to one on the Saturday morning, took off his coat, bought one that had been brought in and left his other one to be sold!
Phone Mast: Some years ago, although it only seems like yesterday, a man came to see me and asked whether I owned Evershaw Copse. I said that I did and asked him why. He said that he wanted to put up a telecom mast. I asked a bit more about it and he told me that they would give me an annual rental, which would be reviewed every five years. I didn’t think it would be a problem although one or two people complained when planning permission was eventually granted. There is a telecom network for which masts need to be able to talk to and see their neighbours, however far away they may be. They wanted to extend the height of this one so that it could talk to the mast over at Aynho. I said “Yes! On one condition!” He asked “what’s that” and I said “when you have got the crane there, can I have a ride on it, up to the top?” It was a wonderful view and well worth the effort!
George Morgan – Grounds Farm: Andrew Morgan’s grandfather was George Morgan. He came from Wales in 1933. There was a slump in agriculture around the world and many Welsh farmers came from Wales because they could get a better farm here and the landowners wanted to ensure that their land was tenanted even if it produced little rent. Several other Welsh farmers came – Davies Chetwode, Davies Leckhampsted and Davies Stowe, amongst others. George told me that the reason he took the farm was because, on the farm where he was born, there was an avenue of chestnut trees leading up to it, and Grounds Farm still has an avenue of chestnuts so he must be looking down with great happiness. Before the Napoleonic wars, it was said that a squirrel could go from Bristol to Norfolk without touching the ground because there were so many trees. When George came to Grounds Farm, the land was riddled with roots of trees and I remember him telling me that the field adjacent to Welsh Lane, by Evershaw Copse, he had to plough with a horse, a single furrow plough and an axe because the plough kept getting stuck and he had to chop the roots out of the way as, of course, in those days, there were no JCBs!
The Nook: People have often wondered why the little cottage, to the north of the Manor and to the east of the flats, is called The Nook. It isn’t a twee name; when my grandparents were here, they had a houseman whose job was to stoke the boilers, lay the fires and keep the fires going, and, what is now the bathroom, to Flat 4 of Manor Mews, was a place known as “Cook’s Nook”. When the flats were developed, back in 1953, Cook’s Nook lost its name, so it was transferred to two little buildings opposite. One was a laundry, hence the drying green to the north of it and the other one was a dairy. My grandfather kept half a dozen cows which were milked every day to make butter and provide milk and cream for the house and, after school, the children in the village would come with their jugs, from their parents, to take a pint of milk home.