A
little bit of Amy's history.In late April, Amy came over from France and she thought it would be interesting to see where some of her Great grand parents came from.
Born in 1995, Amy lived mainly in St.Annes in Lancashire before moving out to France with her mum, Claire.
Amy's
dad, Ian, born 1967 was 28 years old when he had Amy. He spent his childhood in Croston, in Lancashire. Croston was a village mentioned in the doomsday book
and was in existence from before the 10th
century.
Ian was mad about computers, he went to collage & followed his hobby to work with computers in the IT industry.
His
dad, Frank born 1938, (Amy's granddad) had Ian when he was 29 and he spent most of is
childhood in Manchester. Married to Kathleen, after meeting in the RAF, he
became a salesman, spending most of his life selling around the north of
England.
Franks
mother, Florence, born 1911, (Amy's great grandmother) was 27 when she had him & came
originally from Whalley in Lancashire and was a Hebden. She left school at 14 &
like most of her family, went into the cotton trade as a spinner in the village.
She married Arthur, who, becoming a civil servant, moved them to Manchester. All
Frank's school holidays, from about 9 years old, were spent with his Grandparents at their cottage at 2 Poole End, in Whalley. A two up, two down, mid
terrace Tudor cottage, where her parents raised 5 kids.
Florence's mother, Nellie (Gooderham), born 1886 (Amy's great great grandmother) had Florence aged 25.
Married to Billy Hebden, a bus driver for the Ribble bus company. So far was
Frank remembers, Nellie never worked outside the home. She helped raise Frank
over all those school holidays. Still living at home was her youngest son
Kenneth. A wonderfully kind & generous women, she died in 1954 of
cancer, just after Frank had started work at the age of 15.
Nellie's
mother Mary, born 1852 (Amy's great great great grandmother) was relatively old at 34 when
she gave birth to Nellie. We know that in 1901 she was a cotton winder and her
children were all cotton weavers, from the census returns in 1901. (Nellie was
14 then) Frank thinks her name was Lund, but has yet to prove that. Mary was born in
Shipley Yorkshire. Her husband, George Gooderham, was a railway worker. He was killed on
Whalley railway arches, in 1907. George seemed to have followed the great
expansion of the railways, as he was born in Bressingham, Norfolk.
All of them lived a lot of their lives in Whalley. We thought it would be lovely to see this lovely Lancashire village, where Frank spent is holidays, where Florence was born, as well as Nellie.
The first place we visited as Spring wood. A place where Florence used to go
to pick the bluebells & take them back to Manchester. Of course, that's illegal
now, so we just took photographs! Spring Wood was once owned by
the monks of Whalley Abbey and was originally called Oxheyewoode, which formed
part of a deer park. In the 1530’s the monasteries were dissolved and all the
possessions were seized by the Crown. On the 6th June 1553 nearly all the land
that belonged to the Abbey was sold by Edward VI to Richard Assheton, Esq. and
John Bradyll, Gentleman for the sum of £2,132 3s 9d. This included Oxheyewoode.
The woods location was described as 'one bow shot East of the Abbey'. Now it is
a lovely picnic area, full of nice walks, wild life & a waterfall and small
lake.
Then it was into Whalley, turn up Church lane to see Pool End ahead of us. The
first change was ... no where to park. Frank tried to show how the tiny village
school had been extended & added too, in all directions. This was where Florence
used to be the last in line when the school bell sounded, she just lived across
the road! Billy & Nellie lived in this grade II stone cottage opposite the Church
in Whalley. They had No. 2. The cottage was known about, in the mid 17th century
& was connected to Whalley’s Cistercian Abbey.
Originally,
it was one house and was made into three cottages. To the rear we could see a
door that had been sealed up generations ago. No one was home but we
managed to look around & see that it was all basically the same. The
outside toilets in the garden were looking the worse for wear & the Lilac tree
had been cut down. Later on I asked the owners of number one Poole End, they
said it was killed off by wrong pruning. How sad, that tree had last for so long
& given so much pleasure. Although it was covered with black sheeting, we could
see the tree was struggling to send up shoots around the edges. I wonder
if it will come back one day.
A walk around the church yard was very sad. The church was locked & the grave of Billy, Nellie & their son Billy had been vandalised, along with many other graves, at the bottom end of the graveyard. A sad indictment on a rich community. Amy saw, what she thought was a horse trough, which turned out to be a very ancient stone coffin.
The history of Whalley Abbey goes back a loooong way! The Cistercian Abbey of Stanlow, in Cheshire, moved to Whalley in 1296. The Church was built from 1330 to 1380, but the Abbot’s Lodging and Infirmary was not completed until c.1440. At the dissolution of the Monastery in 1537, the property passed into private hands, and Ralph Assheton adapted it to make an Elizabethan Manor House. It remained a private residence until 1923, when the Church of England acquired possession.
We drove down to the Abbey gatehouse by the railway arches. It was looking good, a fair state of repair. We both wondered how long it would take men in the 15th. century, to build this. It was, after all, the front door to the Abbey. We also wanted to stop in the village to look around the main street, but today, its so difficult to park. Amy got her picture on the bridge over the River Calder, where Florence had stood so long ago.
It was a trip worth taking, the people we saw had disappointed us, with their apparent standoffishness. It was sad to see the church as it is but it remains a beautiful place of very fond memories.
