The Old House & Early Recollections
compiled by
Sidney Arthur Hampton



Earliest of all I can remember a great comfort and pleasure in crawling under the dining room table and feeling the carved lions' heads on the legs putting my small hands into their wide open mouths, it was out of everyone's; way and all my own.

Early Memories
The earliest memory I have is one of pain, the baby sister who was born 15 months after me, had to have some eye drops applied which caused her to scream. I can still see the living room with the large dining table, children gathered around, I could only just see over the top. The moment the baby was placed on the table she began to scream, my eldest sister had to press open the eyes for Mother to drop in the drops or it may have been the other way round, then the, to me, piercing cry as the pain came. How we smaller children wept!!

The old house in which we were born, was a gabled half-timber house covered in stucco in my time with part jutting out over the pavement supported by wooden posts on stone slabs. I remember how proud I was when I could jump from one stone foundation to the next without putting a foot on the pavement; the final post being very difficult because it had so little foothold. The house was situated at the crossroads and went round the corner with shop front facing one street while the door to the house was in another. This door to our home was really the entrance to another house adjoining and was quite separate except for a door leading from the living room just inside the front door (which led directly into the living room) opening into the ladies' fitting room of Father's boot shop, men being measured and fitted in the shop itself. I believe this door must have been put in by my Grandfather whom my Father followed. It was up two steps and narrow. I remember as a very small child running up through the fitting room into the shop and being greeted by "Stillard" as a little girl because I wore a small skirt. I was so annoyed and upset that I rushed back to my Mother in the living room, threw my arms round her skirt and begged her to make me some trousers. Next morning the trousers were forthcoming and I marched into the shop to silence the shopman's slander quite a satisfying sensation to a small boy.

The rooms above the shop were reached by the means of stairs at the back of the shop, reached through the ladies' fitting room into a passage turning left for the foot of the stairs and right to the head of the stone cellar steps where there was a twist to the back door leading to the back yard. This passage had a darkness so complete that it seemed to belong to another world and the fear of it, with which I fought, remains as an intense experience of such things today. The utter blackness and the knowledge of the even blacker cellar steps and the cellars below hastened my small steps to the foot of the stairs and to safer places. These cellar steps went down in a half circle to bring you to a large basement wash house with a stone slab floor, large counter-like shelf under the window which looked up through a grating in the pavement which the house was built over so that light was always very dim and only effective on the shelf. There was a fire place with two little hobs on which a large iron pot rested for boiling water. In the corner at the left-hand side of the window was a tap and drain. Leading to this drain was a strange little stone gulley running right across the place and through the wall into the next cellar where stood a large rainwater butt, this gulley taking the overflow to the drain.

All the washing of the house was done in the underground cellar and at Christmas time the iron pot was used to boil the Christmas puddings, the small children kept the fire going and kept adding boiling water from a bottle to the big pot, roasting chestnuts and potatoes meanwhile. There must have been a single open gas jet for light over this fireplace because I remember the light was not sufficient to see the wall opposite which had a shelf along it with larger pots and a stone trough for salting beef which I used to try to keep minnows in, poor minnows. I took the few limp survivors back down to the brook in sorrow for having failed to keep their fellows alive. The back cellar with its water bath supplying soft water for the wash house was the coal cellar and had an iron lid in the pavement. Large lumps for the house and a large heap of slack for the workshops and at the other end directly at the end of the passage leading from the foot of the stairs was a cask of cider the journey to which with a jug for a small boy was indeed an act of courage along a dark passage groping for the top steps then down to blackness which felt as though it had to be pushed aside arm outstretched until the barrel was felt ears alert for the sound of moving rats or the like. Then the return journey with jug full, sustained with a sip, but moving with utmost care quite blind and only feeling and what feelings!!

The stairs from the back of the shop led up to a large square landing with another flight of stairs going straight on up into an exactly similar landing above. Along the side of the first landing was a large cupboard "dirty clothes" cupboard into which all the bed linen etc. was thrown until washing day. It had a weird second part. You went into the far corner to find an opening into another part turning back to the landing but with no other access. Next was a large china cupboard, doors above and below, an old chest of drawers - then three bedroom doors leading to Mother's, the oldest brothers' and sisters' bedrooms. Along the side where the stairs came up was a long wooden blanket box called 'The long box'. I shall ever remember this box because in the darkness of this landing it seemed always a gamble if I should feel first the corner of this box or fall down the open stairway.

Mother's bedroom was over the pavement supported by the pillars and looked straight down the street and beneath was the door to the living room, my brothers' room was the same but formed the corner and had a view right down the High Street, a fine viewpoint for all occasions. I remember finding his volunteer rifle and resting it on the window ledge, having the whole High Street at my mercy. My sisters' room was over the other part of the shop and just looked across at the Lord of the Manor's House, a beautiful gabled half-timbered place which as a boy I watched being uncovered from its ugly stucco. There was however a convenient lead top to the shop window onto which one could get when exciting things were going on in the street below.

Ascending the stairs up to the next floor one came to another large landing which was much lighter because it was just under the roof and there were skylights. This landing had two doors one leading to the workshop where three men worked making and mending boots, the door was in one corner and each of the men had a corner in which to sit at a bench surrounded with tools and little pots on shelves ready to hand from a sitting posture. The other door led into my Father's cutting-out room which had a large counter with large and small cutting knives and the leather was suspended round the walls and from the ceiling. There was a smaller room off this with an old chest of drawers and cupboards in which from time to time I used to find pears and apples put away to ripen and sometimes walnuts of large size and good quality. The cutting room was also used for storing apples and potatoes from our garden so the children were greatly drawn in that direction during autumn and winter. It was however forbidden territory because of the temptation and also because the language and tales of the cobblers were not what Mother and Father considered suitable though I have a very vivid memory of the three men and of their conversation. The oldest was normal build and was of Irish blood. The other two used to spend much of their time talking at him until he reached the limit then the flow of invective was terrific but the tales were good one better than the other type distinctly cobbler style such as the one in which a man was walking with a gun through the fields when he came across two hares but had used his last shot. However he felt in his pocket and found a lump of cobbler’s wax charged the gun and plugged in the wax. He fired at one hare and hit it square on the forehead upon which it bolted and collided with the other head on and so became stuck together on account of the wax and so he bagged the pair! I was also severely tested in mental arithmetic and trick questions fired at great speed i.e. "If a herring and a half cost 1½d how much for 12!? etc. They were always kind and I was very interested in the work. I remember one Sunday afternoon poking around Wilde's corner looking at his tools some of which I hid then putting my hand into a jar on the shelf which I could not see into only to find that it was black stain for staining the leather. My hand was quite black. I do not recollect that anyone found out this escapade but it did take a lot of washing off.

Back on the landing the walls were covered with wooden feet all with little patches of leather on them in various places where bunions, corns and odd swellings come. There was also a door onto the roof which opened onto a wall between the gables with a chimney sealing off the one side without a gable. This was a rather frightening place because of the height down which was seen from beside the chimney and when one climbed up to the crest of the gable roof but it was always a winner at hide and seek.

The windows in the cutting room were very old with leaded glass. They were right up in the gable and when one looked out the sensation was of being suspended right over the pavement. One afternoon before school I was up there raiding the apples when on looking out I saw a scissor grinder at work immediately below with two of my school pals watching. I had at hand a most suitable rotten apple and was unable to resist the temptation to drop this on the boys. It fell with a delightful slosh between the boys and the man, rather to my relief, but the man reported this disgraceful thing to my elder brother who worked in Father's shop and soon he was before me, wanted to know what I was doing up there and to explain dropping rotten apples on scissor grinders. I explained that I wanted to hit the boys and that Mother had given me permission to get one apple. I had a tough minute or two and got away without a hiding but only just. In the school playground I met two very irate boys and had to fight so I was never tempted in that direction again.

The part of the house in which we younger children lived was the one over the living room entered by a door at the end of the wooden pillars over the pavement. It was really another house and had been a shop because at the side of the door was a large window which small children could get into. This was screened by a framed iron curtain very small perforated sheet iron framed to fit the window. Along the side of this was the sofa. There was a large dining table with carved legs with lions' faces on each. This table had several large spare leaves so that it could be extended to take large parties. One Christmas I volunteered to have my dinner in the kitchen so that thirteen would not sit down together. The entire opposite end of the room to the window was taken up with a large range with ovens and hot water tank at the side.

There was a yard leading from the kitchen and back of shop between buildings under disused stables to the lavatory quite 50 yards of blackness after dark with cats thrown in to add to ones fears. There was no bathroom. We children were all thoroughly scrubbed in a shallow bath in the tiny kitchen every Saturday night and as each was finished he ran into the living room to have biscuits or bread and dripping in our nightshirts by the fire until the last was finished and so to bed up in the sewing room.

It was a lovely home as far as the children were concerned, hard for poor Mother but there was always help a cook and a maid with my eldest sister already grown up in my time. There was no garden. Father had a lovely vegetable garden just outside the town but we children had the fields, woods and hills for miles around and of course the brook a wonderful background for fun and adventures all the year round, flowers and birds nests in the spring, apples and blackberries and nuts in the autumn. Fox hunting on foot in the winter with farms with boy friends to call in at to say nothing of hop picking, fruit picking and eating and rabbit shooting with occasionally fishing on a great lake with two islands where you could see pike swimming under the ice but oh! the walk home after a day on the ice!

Ours was a very open house. Travellers and customers often joined us in our meals. One great friend was a farmer whom we all delighted in. He had large sandy side whiskers and a square beard well down his chest but what a laugh. He had no family and my brother Frank and after him I used to spend my holidays at his farm. What lovely times I had. He always talked to me as a man as we walked around the farm with gun and dog or to look at sheep or steers. I was always expected to do what I was told such as seize a sheep to hold it with head between my legs while he applied lotion for maggots and how he roared when the sheep feeling the sting heaved me about in all directions "Hold him boy"!! Sometimes we would take ferrets for rabbit shooting and my job was to carry the ferret in a small bag and pick same up as soon as it came out of holes - a very tricky job. They had to be seized round the neck and were liable to bend up and scratch the hand and arm while one tried to get them into the bag. I feel that I did not much like ferrets.

The farmer had a plum orchard and at one plum picking we had run out of hampers and so we had to go to the next town about four miles away. The horse was a hunter rather too large for the trap. I felt sitting on the wooden seat which rested across the cart that it was all horse and little else. At the small town I was left outside the shop sitting in the trap not feeling at all good, especially when I heard a traction engine coming up the street. The shop was at a corner and the traction engine came up past us and turned in front of the horse to go up the turn at the shop. All was well until the engine was directly in front of the horse, then, in spite of all my pull on the reins he walked straight up to the tractor and was only checked by the farmer rushing out and seizing the horse's head just as its nose was about to touch the big wheel. We loaded up the hampers --small round ones - and set off for the farm. The road was up and down hills and at the top of one of these hills about two miles from home something happened to the horse suddenly. I saw two hoofs go up past my face shattering the tail board and away we went at full gallop down the hill. I remember the farmer saying "Hold on" which I did to the seat which had a back to at. At the foot of the hill the farmer pulled the horse into a ditch and tall hedge, the cart fell over on its side (my side), I was deposited on the grass verge and covered by seat and contents of cart. The farmer, pulled by the reins, had disappeared over the other side into the hedge. I stayed a few seconds, everything was perfectly still, I was unhurt so crawled out stood up and saw the horse lying on its side quite still with no signs of the farmer but on going round the upturned cart there he was right down in the ditch with harness all round his neck face bleeding and holding in his hand one of the horse's hoofs to protect his face. I tore away the harness and helped to pull him out. The shaft of the cart had kept the weight of the horse off him. As soon as he got up the horse kicked madly and if he had done this before the farmer had got up it must have killed him. However he was only hurt in his leg and he limped up and down saying "Oh for a gun if I only had a gun I would shoot the beast" and how he would deal with this horse in future he should be put on the plough. Eventually a tramp appeared and began to loosen the harness then a butcher with pony and butcher's cart. I was told off to hold the pony while the butcher helped the tramp. I had a most frightening time with the pony. Every time the horse kicked and tried to get up the pony went up into the air lifting me with him and backing away. No-one took any notice of me while I was wondering what would be my fate if the pony decided to bolt instead of backing. Meanwhile a lady who knew the farmer and lived quite close took him into her house and sent a boy on a pony in to tell his wife that he had met with an accident but was not too badly hurt. Eventually I, covered with harness, was happily and proudly accompanying the tramp with horse back to the farm house.

Meantime the boy had reached the farmer's wife and told his tale. The wife's immediate question was what about the boy who was with her husband. "Oh" replied the messenger "there was no boy, no sign of a boy, only the farmer" (as I said no-one was concerned about me and the butcher's pony). At once I was presumed killed and what was to be said to my Mother! Fortunately at that moment in I walked with the tramp to find myself wept over in the arms of a wife much more concerned over me than her husband!

The farmer friend like other farmers at that time was very proud to own a fast-trotting pony for visiting and going in to market. Their pony was put into a very light gig with a basket-work body and large light wheels. I used to have to hold the pony's head until the farmer was seated and gave the word. The moment I let go the pony rose straight up on his hind legs and I had to be in the gig before he came to earth in a leap forward. I remember the farmer's wife shouting "You will kill that boy" and realizing that if ever I missed the step I should be under the wheels but I never missed it and was always one second in front of the pony.

How I remember going to a local hunt race meeting and being entertained royally at another farm house, marvelling at the amount farmers could eat. High tea which finished me followed by a tremendous supper which seemed to last for hours then dancing on the lawn. We were the last to leave but that was in order to pass everyone else with shouts on the way home. This plan was confided to me and I was told that there was only one pony to fear but that he had a load of daughters up and so we managed it with much swishing of whips and loud comments and happy good nights "you old so-and-so". I had a most delicious feeling when we turned practically under my Mother's and Father's bedroom in the early hours wondering what they would say if they had known I was on the road at such an hour.

During school term I used to cycle out to the farm on Saturdays returning in the evening. One evening the farmer was coming in with his pony and said he would race me home. I was off like a shot but there were many stiff hills and miles. He passed me with great glee up the last hill but I passed him again down the other side and was all out for home but the approach to the town was uphill again and although in the beginnings of the street he passed me at the gallop. Great sport. I really lost through too much confidence in walking up one hill which I need not have done, this was proved when at the next challenge he never managed to see me until I was home awaiting his arrival.

This friend at one time had another farm about two miles away with the house empty and Mother, for at least two summers, moved the family out to this farm for the summer months.. It was an old farm house with a moat round it and the old stable sheds to play in on wet days and the fields when it was fine. We just ran wild. This was before I was five because my sisters who were older went by pony trap to school until the school holidays.

Things happened on the farm. First we went into the fields and sat on a wasps’ nest running back to the house making a frightful noise. Then a bat got into the bedroom and as fast as my brother caught it and put it out it came back in until the hole in the wall through which it came was found and stopped up. I remember the large kitchen with stone floor one morning waiting for breakfast and standing holding the handle of the baby's pram. I could just reach the handle. My Mother and oldest sister were busy frying bacon and he kitchen was full of conversations and pleasant sensations and I happily looking at the baby my hand just coming over the end of the pram suddenly discovered that by holding onto the bottom of the pram I could put a foot on each of the wheels and then thought it would be quite clever to put both feet there. In the next second I saw the baby sailing over my head onto the stone floor while I was under the pram on my back. Consternation for the fate of the baby during which I fled to hide until I was assured that the baby was not killed. What a deep impression is made on the small child’s mind. I shall always see that baby sailing in an arc over me as I was gently placed on my back by the pram tipping up!

There was a farm labourer living in a cottage on this farm a little way up the lane and there were many children with whom we used to play. The youngest was called "Little stout" because he was so plump and rounded. We used to get down into the moat, which tended to dry up in parts during the summer, to see if there were any fish to be caught. It was very soft as one neared the water and little stout got stuck. One foot was pulled out but the other required very hard pulling and finally came up minus his little boot.

My Mother was a very forceful character and felt deeply about things. Listening to her opinions and convictions made a great impression on me. In those days farm labourers were paid very badly 12 shillings and 14 shillings per week with £1 at the end of harvesting. Of course they had a cottage and garden and could catch a rabbit. Once when I was staying with the farmer and Mother was back in the town we were going round the empty farm and came to a pile of coal left for the time when the threshing machine should come. The farmer thought that the coal was being stolen and informed the village constable. In the middle of the night we were roused by the policeman to tell us that he had the thief in the lock-up and that the thief was the farm labourer who lived at the cottage. I believe then that the farmer regretted putting the matter in the hands of the police. He went at once to bail the man out but could not save him from a prison sentence. I shall never forget how my Mother put all the blame for the theft at the farmer's door for paying such low wages. Of course he took the coal with a house full of children and the coal being there as though no-one wanted it. It was useless for the farmer to say that if he had suspected his own man he would not have had it happen. After this the man who had had a perfectly good record went wrong again and again but Mother always believed that this was the result of hard handling of the first offence and well I remember her "What do you expect men to do living under such conditions? You would do the same yourself".

N.B. These notes were carefully transcribed by Shelagh Hampton from a number of pages tied up with string originally with the remaining items of our Grandparents recovered from the loft in 36 Bridge Street.

Another set of memories was recorded and is shown here.

Memories of Ledbury
(probably compiled around 1973)
by
Sidney Arthur Hampton (b. 22nd February 1891)



The old house in which we all lived stood right on the corner of the road from New St. to The Southend at the Upper Cross. (No 1 The South End)

We looked across on the back of the Park, Lord Biddulph's house, with its own railed pavement around it for all the world as though it might have been private. I first remember it complete finished with pebbled stucco as was the old house and most of the town. I remember the stripping off of this stucco and finding lots of black pins (had never seen black pins before) on the pavement around the Park which Mother said came from her Ladyship's sewing room which was situated in a room above the place where we found the pins. Black ordinary pins were something quite new and seemed to belong to the aristocracy. From my brother's bedroom window we looked straight down the middle of the High St to the Market House, and so could watch all the goings and comings of farmers in their pony traps and shoppers in and out of the shops. First across on the right-hand side of High St. was Miss Proctors rather select grocers shop then the Taylor's home with grocer’s shop next-door.

People

Miss Proctor who owned the grocer's shop was very prim and proper rather keeping to herself living at the back and over the shop. There was also a door in Worcester Road. I remember doing one day as errand boy and having tea with her. Incidentally I was sick from eating too many bits of gorgonzola cheese which accumulated on the board when it was cut!

The Taylor children were younger than us. Sidney Taylor was the oldest and about my age then there was Horace and one or two younger girls, we went once to a children's party but were never close. Mrs Taylor had the report of being rather withdrawn. Sidney Taylor did not follow in the business but went off into farming and finished up looking after the Princess Royal's horses at Harewood in Yorkshire. Horace took over the business and a son of his now runs it.

Burdens was a very substantial drapers shop. I believe Ethel was apprenticed there. The Burdens were quite elderly with no children.

Next came Luke Tilley with the stationers shop - a toy shop first which his eldest son then turned into a cycle shop when bicycles first came. Luke the father was unique, always wearing a round velvet hat. His sons were Jack and Luke who were older being contemporary with my brothers Will and Ernest. A granddaughter Miss Tilley still runs the shop. At the side of this was an entry leading to the back entrance to Burdens and then on to Tilleys printing works. They published the Free Press weekly paper. Then to Burdens garden past some old cottages and stables into the Worcester road past where the Masefield uncle and aunt lived and where John and his brothers were brought up. The house was called The Priory and set well back to almost the Church.

After Tilley's came a small butchers shop Lewis, where once when elephants came down the street the butcher's horse waiting outside in the delivery trap dropped dead. Then came the chemist – Mr Meacham. There were no children at Lewis the butchers nor at Meacham's the chemist but he always looked to be doing well and eventually retired to Eastnor.

Meacham's was followed by a very large butchers shop Mr. Mayo, with slaughter house at the rear where the animals were driven up a very small passageway. I remember a bull refusing to enter the passage and finally being hauled by dozens of men pulling on a rope around its horns along the High Street and then up the passage and it seemed to me than that it was a pity the bull had not the sense to charge the men pulling on the rope. At Mayo's the butcher had a son and daughter. The son was a great hero, playing full back in the hockey team. He was a big happy fellow with always a cheery word for us. Jessie was a small polite lady who married Mabel's husband’s brother who lived across the way at the Feathers.

Next to the butcher which is exactly the same shop today was what to me was a very elegant dress shop for ladies with rather elite ladies running it, I am not familiar with the main run of shop keepers but next to them came the Wilks a large grocer's with wine licence and lots of children of our age and our greatest friends. Charles and Will were friends of Frank. Nellie was Mabel's great friend. Stanley and Harold especially were my friends and we spent every Saturday morning roaming the countryside and woods knowing every inch of it. I remember smoking our first cigarettes with Harold one pitch black night and having to carry him home on my back. I never saw them again after leaving home. Harold was in the army and died of flu when it swept through the forces in World War I. It was fun going up the long passage to the back of the shop to the store sheds and garden, there was a brick shed for smoking bacon with smoke from sawdust. I also remember early black plums in the garden and sacks of different sugars in the sheds.

Next to Wilks was a rather cheap mens' clothing shop, Spencer's. Their son's name was Freddie - they were strict Wesleyans and as we were Congregationalists we never met. Freddie was kept tight at home and we - at least the girls - were inclined to laugh at him and make fun of him.

Next was Davis the ironmonger, whose daughter served in the shop and once fainted there from lacing in too much so I gathered from the subsequent discussion. Next The Three Stars Inn with Mrs Gabb and her two sons. Her elder son was named Percy and was not of good report and caused his mother much trouble. The younger, named Victor, was quite the opposite. I remember Mrs Gabb greeting Mother in the most friendly manner into the back parlour rather to my surprise but it did give me a better opinion of Mrs Gabb than I might have had.

Next to the Three Stars came another chemist Mr Freeman who had one daughter who eventually married one of Mabel's husband's brothers Charles Smith. Then came Pedlingham's pork butcher, quite spotless and often with large round bladders of pure white lard.

Next was the entrance to the Congregational Chapel one of the oldest in England and up a long passageway because it was built when dissenters were not well-tolerated. It was quite a nice, sizeable chapel with gallery at the back and another behind the pulpit for a choir. Billy Robert played the harmonium in the Chapel and was choir master. Father had his own pew with a support pillar of the gallery in it which made it easy to be sure of. The girls sang in the choir. Father sat at the door of the pew with Ernest and I at the other end where the hot pipes ran along the wall. I remember the first time that I went there. My grandmother Hampton on her way up to chapel called in at the old house and proposed taking me. She was dressed in a tall stiff black bonnet and looked rather fierce and very Puritan. I was told to be good and departed very scared. Granny sat well up to the front at one end of the pew and I at the other end conscious of being under her eye. I came through but it was extremely hard not to fidget. I believe one hymn book did fall from the little, very inadequate shelf but there was never a repeat performance. Either I was always missing or Granny preferred her own company - we'll never know!

Now we are down to the Town Hall and there were three shops. Mrs Parr's china shop it was along this and her kitchen that we went to chapel, then Roberts the baker and cake shop (still there) and Ballard's grocers and wine shop which brought you to Church House.

On the opposite side of the High Street was the C.W. Stevens (Stephens?) Ironmonger, county councillor, justice of the peace and a great conservative. He had three or four daughters - Lily, Norah and a younger one about my age. I can remember one splendid children's party there. We played hide and seek up amongst the bedsteads and mattresses in large stock rooms. Lily Stevens was an artist, she and her sister Norah ran the restaurant Where the Kettle Sings at the Wyche end of Jubilee Drive some distance outside of Ledbury on the way to Malvern.

Next came Bixley the gentleman's tailor with one daughter (Blanch). Then came Lloyds bank and the Feathers Hotel owned by a very gracious lady who had married again but had three sons, Harry, Charles and John(?) Smith. Harry and Charles were great sportsmen. I often played down at the Feathers with a son of one of Harry's sisters.

There were two small shops after the Feathers one a fish and chip shop (Crossley). Crossley came to Ledbury to help his uncle in a fish shop in the New Street just before the Old Talbot Inn which he took over when his uncle Mac(Donald?) retired to live in a small house just by the Ring of Bells. Later he married Toppy Browning and moved to the fish shop next to the Feathers now a sweet and tobacco shop. The other was a tailor Thacker. I went to school with the son Claude.

Then came the Chapel with clock and fire bell and the Alms Houses with horse trough in front to refresh horses and dogs.