But has Soul Caking a future?

Asked journalist David Yarwood 50 years ago exactly this month. This old school well-researched article was published in the Northwich Guardian on 9 November 1973. It is transcribed below and is certainly worth a read for the background, insights and local names.

Runcorn Guardian, Image © Reach PLC. Image created courtesy of THE BRITISH LIBRARY BOARD.

See here for a full transcription of the article, see here. Names from the 1970s include: Wilf Isherwood, Edward Isherwood, David Goulbourn, David Burne, Grey Hodnett, Adrian Peters, Jim Wright, Bernard Hurst, Jack Thompson and Cecil Bland.

What is Soul Caking?

For those unfamiliar with the term, Soul Caking is a custom that dates back centuries, and the Antrobus Soul Cakers are one of the very few surviving groups. The Antrobus gang perform every year in November around the pubs in Antrobus and the surrounding villages.

The play involves a number of unusual characters and features a sword fight between King George and the Black Prince, with the Black Prince being killed and then brought back to life by a doctor. The last characters to enter the play are the Wild Horse of Antrobus and his Driver. All the parts, played by men, are thought to represent the souls of the dead.

Antrobus Soul Cakers at the end of a performance taken around 1976. Photo credit: Simon Garbutt

The Wild Horse is a real horse’s skull, painted black and with its jaws wired so it can ‘snap’ its teeth at the audience. It mounted on a pole, held by a man bent double under a canvas cover. According to Wilfred Isherwood, a member of the gang in the 1970s, they acquired the horse’s head from the Hatton gang during the 1920s. It was a tradition that whenever groups passed each other they would try to pinch the other gang’s horse’s head:

The horse’s head. Photo credit: Antrobus Soul Cakers

The Antrobus Soul Cakers have a long and distinguished history. A local team is known to have performed up to the First World War, and the group was revived in the late 1920s at the instigation of Major A. W. Boyd. The Soul Cakers have been performing regularly ever since, and they are now one of the few mumming groups in Cheshire.

Wild Horse and Driver 1948 from AW Boyd’s A Country Parish. Photo credit Coulter Walker

Major Boyd’s home at Frandley House became the first stop on their Halloween round. The article above describes that Boyd requested in his will that the gang should perform their play one final time in the old mansion house:

“We did as he wished, and performed the play to an audience of two.
They were the people who were winding up the Major’s affairs at the house. I don’t think they really knew what was going on.”

David Goulburn, Antrobus Soul Caker 1973

The words to the play have been handed down over the years, and Boyd took note of the Comberbach version and wrote it down, together with their song:

Taken from AW Boyd’s “A County Parish”

Why the dates?

The precursor to modern ‘trick or treating’, souling marks the three days centred around All Hallows’ Day – November 1. Long ago, people believed that the walls between the living and dead were very thin at this time of year.

The Christian church adopted November 2 as All Souls Day and November 1 All Saints (Hallows) Day, making October 31 All Hallows Eve. The three days were celebrated by eating special cakes, called soulcakes. A tradition developed for children to go from house to house, singing and asking for soulcakes. Later in certain areas, especially Cheshire, this changed into the performance of mumming plays by groups called soul cakers.

What are Soul Cakes?

In a recent article by English Heritage: a Soul Cake, also known as a soulmass-cake, was a small round cake (although more like a biscuit), traditionally made using oats and may have been spiced with nutmeg, cinnamon and ginger, as well as raisins or currants. If you want to try to make some, the recipe is here.

And Antrobus Community Community Shop and Tea Room has also revived the making of the soulcakes:

Soul Cakes in Antrobus Tea Room – Photo credit: Sue Lawless and Antrobus Community Shop and Tea Room

Soul Caking over the last 80 years

From the transcripts of an academic study in the 1970s and from newspaper articles, it’s clear that keeping the tradition alive has been hard fought. Following the encouragement from Major Boyd in the 1920s, the gang was revived again during 1947/48 from Antrobus Youth Club. At that time there were gangs in Hatton, Stockton Heath, Budworth, Barnton and Comberbach. In the past, performances were usually in private houses with beer and cake, since the 1970s they’re now performed in pubs (see the poster below for 2023). The tradition that still continues to this day is that the gang don’t rehearse, and that sons often follow in their father’s footsteps.  During the 1950s/60s members of the Antrobus gang at that time talked about internal disputes as well as loss of members to other interests, compounded by newcomers to the village and an indifference of new local people to the custom. To keep the custom alive, during the 1960s the Antrobus Soul Cakers performed in a film for the English Folk Dance and Song Society. They performed in Liverpool, Manchester, Crewe, Frodsham, Warrington and Knutsford.

In this later article written in 1997, Edward Isherwood recounts his memories of 50 years of being a member of the Antrobus Soul Cakers. The image which is hard to see below is his grandfather Edward Plumb hanging onto a goat with other members of Antrobus Soul Cakers back in the 1930s.

Northwich Guardian 12 November 1997. Image © Reach PLC. Image created courtesy of THE BRITISH LIBRARY BOARD.

Fundraising

The Antrobus Soul Cakers have raised hundreds of pounds for charity over the years they’ve been performing.

November 1985 Manchester Evening News. Image © Reach PLC. Image created courtesy of THE BRITISH LIBRARY BOARD.

The Soul Cakers Today

The Antrobus Soul Cakers perform every year in November, starting on All Souls’ Eve (1st November) and continuing for the following two weekends. The Antrobus Arms is now the home of the gang, always starting and finishing there each year – here is the 2023 itinerary:

And the answer to the question posed at the top whether Soul Caking had a future – is, thanks to the Antrobus community, a most definite yes!

Your memories

If you have memories or photos that you’d like to share, feel free to comment below or get in touch directly

References and acknowledgements

With thanks and acknowledgement, and for further reading:

A Country Parish by AW Boyd

Centre for Contemporary Legend – a couple of great articles about the Soul Cakers, one of which is ‘On photographing a most unruly horse’ https://contemporarylegend.co.uk/page/2/

The University of Leeds Special Sound Collections – I’ve not accessed these but there are many interviews from the 1970s: https://explore.library.leeds.ac.uk/special-collections-explore/409982

Know Your Cheshire: Antrobus Soul Cakers – article by Antrobus resident, Susan Sinagola: https://www.so-counties.co.uk/know-your-cheshire-antrobus-soul-cakers/

This lovely article by Sophie Parkes with photos from 2019: https://www.sophieparkes.co.uk/post/soul-soul-for-a-soul-cake

Calendar Customs – which lists the wide variety of traditional and unusual events that take place each year in the UK and to help visitors take part in them:

Antrobus Soulcakers

William Beswick – Head Gardener

A few years ago, I received an e-mail from a researcher in Ireland who was putting together an exhibition about an Antrobus lad, William Beswick, who was Head Gardener at Fota House, Ireland. It’s taken some time to get the facts together, and a big thanks to those listed below who have helped to tell the story, so here it is:

William Beswick was born in Hollins Lane in 1856, grandson of his namesake, the blacksmith at Arley, and son to John who also followed in his father’s trade.

William however became a gardener and moved to the Ffynone Estate in Manordivy, Pembrokeshire in the late 1870s when he was in his early twenties. Before that, we believe he would have started his career under George White as a very junior gardener at Marbury Hall just down the road. More on that later. At Ffynone William met his future wife, Eliza Butcher, from London and they were married in November 1880. They lived at the Gardener’s House on the estate where William Beswick Jnr was born in 1883.  

Ffynone was purchased by Captain Stephen Colby in 1752 and John Nash was commissioned to build Ffynone which was completed in 1799. It passed down the Colby family to John Vaughan Colby, whose wife requested Inigo Thomas, garden designer and architect to remodel the house in 1902, completing it in 1907.

William Beswick Snr was an ambitious gardener and two years later he and Eliza and their eldest son, William, moved to Ireland, working on the Pike Family estate called Bessborough in Blackrock near the city of Cork. Their middle and youngest sons were born there in 1886 and 1888 respectively: Arthur and John Charles “Charlie”.

Bessborough, Cork 1880s

By the late 1890s, the family then returned to the Ffynone Estate in Pembrokeshire as the boys were enrolled in the local school patronised by Mrs Colby, the lady of the Manor but didn’t stay long. In April 1901, they were recorded in the census in Fulham, London where they were staying with Eliza’s sister, Jane (nee Butcher) and her husband, John Lawson.

By late 1901 the family had moved back again to Cork, this time to Fota House where William Snr was appointed Head Gardener. Fota House was owned by Lord Barrymore, whose main house was Marbury Hall, has recently been renovated by the Irish Heritage Trust and is open to the public.

James Hugh Smith Barry had the formal gardens at Fota House laid out, started an arboretum and had an orangery built. Around the same time that this work was being undertaken in Cork, he made the decision to carry out extensive changes to the buildings and parkland at Marbury. In the 1840s, using the services of Anthony Salvin as architect and James Nesfield as landscape gardener, the extended 18th century house was transformed in the style of a French chateau. Both Salvin and Nesfield were highly regarded nationally in their respective fields and were prolific in their work in England.

Could it be more than a coincidence that Lord Barrymore employed a man from near his estate in Cheshire? Perhaps even a former employee?

At this point it’s probably worth mentioning the high regard head gardeners were held, and were often head hunted by the landed gentry – reputation spreading by word of mouth. The previous head gardener at Foto had come from Heligan in Cornwall. To be a Head Gardener you needed to be a manager, ingenious horticulturist and human relations professional and generally a very flexible person. It’s no wonder that gardeners often trained for up to 14 years before they ‘qualified’.

The Fota Estate was a self-sufficient unit and the production of food for the Smith Barry family and their staff was very important and a lot of effort was put into this. This article from the Field in 1902 shows the scale and importance that the Smith Barry family place on their garden at Fota.

While William was in charge of supplying the house with produce he would not have got his hands dirty. He would have directed operations in the gardens; he would have hired and fired staff, managed the entire garden team, carried out all the administrative duties and orders for the garden.

By now (around 1901), William the eldest son was away at sea, Arthur was starting his marine apprenticeship in Liverpool and John Charles “Charlie” was going to school in Cork.

Charlie attended St Luke’s School, taking the train daily from Fota to Cork. When he left school, he began working as an apprentice gardener under his father at Fota House. In September 1912, he went to Kew Gardens in London to start his formal horticultural training, entering as a sub-foreman in the Temperate House. He was there for three years before enlisting in 1915, joining the Royal Army Medical Corps, then transferring to the Artists Rifles with whom he embarked for France. He was given his officer commission into the Royal Lancaster Regiment.

On April 19th, 1917, Lieutenant John Charles Beswick sat down to write a letter to his parents from the trenches on the Western Front.

He wrote, “Dear Father and Mother, am just about to go into action leading my platoon. With God’s help I shall return safely, then if not I shall do my duty to the best of my ability. If anything should happen please tell Willie and Arthur…that I thought of them and you all…”

Sadly, Charlie did not return safely. After his platoon’s action, he was injured while trying to help some of his wounded men. He was taken prisoner and brought to a German Field Hospital where he died from his wounds on April 21st. He was buried in the military cemetery at Cambrai in Norther France. He had only been a Lieutenant for four weeks. The average life expectancy for junior officers on the front was six weeks.

It would have bee a very difficult time for the family as Charlie’s brothers continue to serve during WWI. William and Arthur, who survived the war, had been drafted into the Royal Navy. William was based in Cobh, where he served on the mysterious, submarine-hunting Q- Ships. After Charlie’s death, William wrote to his brother Arthur “I am afraid it has hurt the old people [parents] more than we can imagine although Dad is really proud of him and writes to me very bravely…I have thought more of Charlie than I ever did before the war and I had built all sorts of castles in the air of what we would do after and how we would all join and bring honour to our parents, all the delightful holidays we would take together but all that is gone now…The last time I saw him was at Euston Station when I was going back to Queenstown…I cannot realise it yet that I will never see him again…”

Charlie Beswick is remembered on the War Memorial at Kew Gardens, the cenotaph in Bath and on the newly unveiled WWI memorial in Middleton, Co. Cork.

Around this time William and Eliza moved back to England and the 1921 census shows them living in The Ripples, Colerne, Wiltshire with William Jnr. Eliza died around 1940 and William Beswick around 1947. William Jnr, a Captain in the Royal Naval Reserve, died in 1959. Arthur died in a nursing home in Bath in 1977.

References and acknowledgements

Many thanks to Catherine Coakley, researcher at Fota whose initial contact and research has made the connection to Antrobus. More photos and information about the family is on Foto’s Facebook page.

I also came across this moving blog post by Mark Norris, World War Zoo Gardens project,  Newquay Zoo from where I have taken the photos of Charlie and the war memorial. Definitely worth a read.

The Imperial War Museum holds some of Charlie Beswick’s WW1 papers  http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/1030010733

And more too on the story of Bessborough House, including the photo

Census Day

Today is the date by which we need to complete the 2021 census. It’s something on our list of things to do, along with possibly the weekly shop and maybe the first cut of the year for the lawns. However the census is only ever undertaken once every ten years so that makes it bit more special. It’s a snapshot in time – of life in Britain on 21 March 2021. Just as it was on 6 June 1841; 30 March 1851; 7 March 1861 and so on. As everyone knows, the personal information is kept secure for a hundred years and then released. This means that we’ll get to see what our parents/grandparents/great grandparents wrote in 1921 in January 2022.

This census is the first on-line. Previously an enumerator walked about the village taking down the details of each household and then collating into handwritten forms.

To bring this more to life here are the census returns from the place that today we call The Pole, although in 1841 it was called the New Pole – and if you want to know why, this page can explain more.

The 1841 census only asked for the name of the residents, their age to the nearest five years, occupation and whether or not they were born in the same county:

1841 Census – New Pole

Here we can just about see George and Catherine Eaton, along with five servants; one male whose occupation is down as MS (male servant) and four female servants. There is no information about the relationship between the other occupants, just the occupation. For George Eaton, he was listed as ‘Independent’, meaning in practice his income was mainly from property rentals.

By 1851 we can see more information such as relationship and place of birth:

1851 Census – New Pole Mansion

The writing is quite faint so this is a transcript (you’ll need to scroll over to see all the info):

No.	House Name	Given Name	Surname	Relationship	Condition	Gender	Age	Gender	Occupation	Birth Place
29	New Pole Mansion	George	Eaton	Head	unmarried	M	44	Male	Landed proprietor	Antrobus, Cheshire
29	New Pole Mansion	Catherine	Eaton	Sister	unmarried	F	39	Female		Antrobus, Cheshire
29	New Pole Mansion	Maria	Geddes	Visitor	unmarried	F	35	Female		Leith, Scotland
29	New Pole Mansion	Richd	Coppock	Servant	unmarried	M	20	Male	Butler	Macclesfield, Cheshire
29	New Pole Mansion	Hannah	Embury	Servant	unmarried	F	40	Female	Cook	Thellaston, Shropshire
29	New Pole Mansion	Mary	Bentley	Servant	unmarried	F	26	Female	House maid	Marton, Cheshire
29	New Pole Mansion	Kate	Gill	Servant	unmarried	F	19	Female	Kitchen maid	Nantwich, Cheshire
29	New Pole Mansion	Ellen	Millington	Servant	unmarried	F	14	Female	sevant	Antrobus, Cheshire
29	New Pole Mansion	Martha	Taylor	Servant	unmarried	F	52	Female	char woman	Coppenhall, Cheshire

Transcript of 1851 Census – The Pole

Ten years in 1861 later the data collected was more or less the same, so we’ll skip forward twenty years to 1871, and see that George and his sister Catherine are still at the Pole with their house servants, and the data collected hasn’t changed much either.

1871 Census – The Pole

Things stayed the same for data collection for the next 30 years, however that wasn’t the case with the Eaton family. George Eaton died in 1877, his brother followed but he passed away in 1891 and the house was sold. In the 1901 census it was recorded as being unoccupied:

1901 Census – The Pole unoccupied

By 1911 each house now had their own form to complete. Other than the details of the marriage and number of children, the details are pretty much the same:    

1911 Census – The Pole

The comparison with the rest of the village in 1911 is quite a shock – wealthy stockbroker, Charles Leonard Agnew employed a governess, waitress, kitchen maid, cook, two housemaids and a children’s maid.

This is as far as we can go at the moment with the raw data, we’ll have to wait to see what the 1921 census forms reveal in about nine months’ time. By transcribing the entries, and then collating into spreadsheets then we start to get a picture of all of the village, and that’s when it starts to give a real picture of life over the past century in Antrobus.

If you want to see all the census returns for the village, please look at the Records page.

Any one know what this is…and its connection with Antrobus?

It’s called a Flying Shuttle and transformed the weaving industry worldwide; it was invented by John Kay.

John Kay (1704 – 1780)

John Kay was born in Bury in Lancashire in 1704, the son of a woollen manufacturer. He became manager of one of his father’s mills and soon developed skills as a machinist and engineer, modifying machines as necessary. In 1733 he patented the ‘New engine for opening and dressing wool’, this machine included the now famous ‘flying shuttle’.

It had an enormous impact on the woollen industry. The owners loved it because it sped up the process and they could reduce the number of people they employed. However, John Kay was the subject of many personal attacks as he struggled for financial survival. Things got worse as manufacturers refused to pay him royalties on his invention and so he took his looms to France.

John Kay hardly ever returned to England after 1756 and died in France in 1779, still fighting for the money he was owed by manufacturers and governments alike.

However the town of Bury remembered him and a satue to his name was erected in 1908

Kay Memorial, Bury

His eldest son, Robert Kay (1728 – 1802) joined his father and two brothers in France in 1752, By this time Robert was already married, and in 1758 his daughter Dorothy Kay was born.

This is where the connection to Antrobus comes in…for on 12 January 1797, Dorothy married John Barlow of Rostherne. It’s not clear why or how the couple had met – a sadler from Cheshire and the daughter of an inventor from Bury. However the couple moved from Mere to Pump House in Antrobus in 1812 with their son, Robert.

Dorothy died in 1834, and Robert six months before his father in July 1847. Given that John had no direct descendants it was his will that opened the door to this interesting and surprising connection.

Antrobus History Group 2021

Over the last few years the History group have put together some fascinating exhibitions:

History of Antrobus in Ten Objects in 2017

In memory of John Wilkinson, Dambuster May 2018

The Remembrance Exhibition November 2018

A Country Parish September 2019

The work began in the millennium year when a wonderful book on Antrobus was produced.

We are keen as a group to continue researching, so our latest topic is looking at the commercial life in the village, inspired by the way that having the village shop has become especially important this year.

So we’re investigating any shops that were here in the past, who brought services into the village – such as who delivered the milk or the coal? We’re looking at what was produced here and where were the markets that the goods such as potatoes were taken to.

So if anyone has any ideas or information, we would be very grateful .

Being Antrobus, we’ve already been given a wealth of stories! We’ve heard that during the winter of 1945 heavy snowfall meant that the milk couldn’t be collected as normal, so farmers in the village got together, somehow acquired the necessary rennet and made cheese so that the milk wouldn’t be wasted.

We’ve heard about the grocery shop at Frandley, the sweet shop in Hollins Lane and one at Mount Pleasant near the Methodist Chapel. We’re looking into the history of the Post Office seen above in an old photograph currently in the Antrobus Arms and which only closed in 2018.

There’s obviously a great deal to discover and we’d like to delve back as far as we can. If you have any ideas, or stories to share or would like to join in with the research, please do get in touch or leave a comment below – we’d love to hear from you!

Where are you reading this?

A quick look at the stats reports on the website shows the reach of Antrobus. Over the past six months or so, there have been over 2,200 views of this website to countries across the world. The top four are as follows UK; USA, Canada and Australia, with the UK far ahead of the others. However excluding the UK, things are a little more interesting:

We know that there is an interest in the Eatons from Great Budworth and Antrobus who emigrated to America in the 1700s, but what about the others?

Albert Percival of Grandsires moved to Ontario, Canada in 1925

Tom Painter of Reed house View (Hunter’s Moon) moved to Ottawa 

Henry Norcott of Daisy Bank Cottages emigrated to Canada in 1899

Henry Sanderson of Field Farm, Seven Oaks emigrated to California in 1891

Ivy Wright (Millington) moved from Wheatsheaf Lane to Australia in the late 1970s

So if you are reading this from overseas, please do leave a comment below. We’d love to hear from you and your connection to Antrobus.

Solving a mystery

Crowley Lodge 1847

I can’t really recall how I came across this on Ebay – in fact, I’m not sure I was even on Ebay at the time when a small framed poem and drawing of Crowley Lodge caught my eye. The frame was pretty worn and it wasn’t a thing of beauty, but the description by the seller made me want to learn more.

The verse was a sad reminiscence of happier times when the author’s grandmother lived at Crowley Lodge:

Was on one summers morning bight, I took my way with heart so light To view old Crowley Lodge once more, and visit scenes of days of yore
But as I approached the lofty pile, of bygone days I thought the while
When greeted with affections cheer, by Grandmama so kind and dear.
When uncles, aunts all gathered round, the glad welcome did truly sound
Affection shone in every eye, to make me happy each did vie.
But ah how changed was now the scene, none there but strangers now I ween,
Inhabitating that home of peace, of happiness and perfect bliss.
No more shall I with childish glee, skip o’er your meads and sunny lea
Now resting in some cozey nook, to hear the caw of distant rooks,
No more shall I with pleasure glide down the steep dingles mossy side
Or climb the oak with wicked zest or rob some poor songsters nest
No more shall I in the shady lane, perch on that rural bridge again
To watch the sparking waters ride o’er crags and stones in sullen pride
What would I give to be again, as young and blythe as I was then
Laughing at the cares of busy life, far far away from worldly strife
Farewell old Crowley Lodge, farewell.
My heart looks back with heaving swell on those who once made thee their home

The other clues were the initials GHS and date of 1847.

From previous research we knew that in 1838 the Crowley Lodge was put up for for auction. Crowley Lodge was described as a mansion house being ‘commodious, and possesses every convenience for the residence of a respectable family.’ 

We also knew that Edward Steflox’s widow Sarah, and their son William, managed the farm from then on, however William also died at the age of 37 in July 1846 without leaving a will. And in 1852 Crowley Lodge was sold to the Arley Estate.

However no Stelfox with the initials GHS was included in the extensive family tree of the Antrobus, Whitley and Stretton (North Cheshire Tree on Ancestry). Following a search on a database of births, marriages and deaths, a marriage certificate of a George Henry Stelfox looked like I’d found my man. He was born in 1829 and living in Audenshaw at the time of his marriage in 1854. More interestingly his father, James Stelfox, was described as a gentleman, and the son of Edward and Sarah Stelfox.

George Henry would have been 18 when he wrote those lines, and living with his parents in Audenshaw. He became a land surveyor and following his marriage had moved to Levenshume where he gave his occupation as architect and surveyor. George and his wife Sarah Anne had three sons and two daughters. Today, only relatives of middle son William Stelfox survive – he and his wife only had one child, the superbly named Marmaduke Stelfox. He was a flour miller and lived on the Wirral. It is hope that the descendants of Marmaduke might be interested in knowing what their great, great grandfather wrote over 150 years ago.

A post script, for a budding architect, the drawing of Crowley Lodge is very detailed and accurate – with one exception. The drawing shows it as having three stories but today is has just two.

And a further post script, I’ve no knowledge of the seller or want to buy the print. The fun has been solving the mystery and letting George Henry’s descents know of the opportunity to find out more about their ancestor.

Evacuees at Arley School

Library photo: London evacuees with gas masks (in cardboard parcels) and luggage all set for evacuation from the capital. Credit: Royal Voluntary Society/PA

If you are reading this in a few months or years time, yesterday was VE Day. Despite the cancellation of the activities in the Village Hall due to Covid 19 and the social distancing measures were are currently under, it didn’t prevent appropriate commemorations taking place throughout the village.

So it was by chance that I had come across the school register for Arley School just a few days ago and thought it would be a good time to share some initial findings. The ones that caught my eye were between 1939 and 1945, and concerned the entries for a number of evacuees.

It is difficult to find information on evacuees. Data isn’t held centrally and it all happened very quickly. The government had planned to evacuate about 3,500,000 people, although only 1,500,000 actually made use of the official scheme. Almost all had been evacuated to the reception areas by the evening of 3 September, just a few hours after the official declaration of war. The ‘Government Evacuation Scheme’ designated places as evacuation areas, from which young children and vulnerable people were to be removed to safer locations. In most cases this meant removals from the most densely-populated areas, not the whole district  which is interesting considering that Runcorn Rural District (in which Antrobus was then located) was one of those areas at risk.

Arley School was just over the border in the then Bucklow Rural District, although many of the children from Whitley Reed and Crowley attended (more to follow in future posts).  The first wave of evacuees arrived at Arley School in September 1939 aged between 5 and 12. These included the Jones siblings from North Shields who stayed six months at Garland Hall, Crowley with John and Anita Whitlow. There were three others from Runcorn, Salford and Widnes who all stayed less than four months. One lasted just four days.

We know that within a few weeks of the outbreak of war – the “Phoney War” period – many mothers and children had left the countryside and returned to their extended families after the widely anticipated bombing campaign had failed to materialise, and this appears to be true here. By early 1940, it was estimated that around 80% had returned home. But that summer, another wave of evacuations took place after Hitler invaded France and the launch of the Blitz.

The following year brother and sister (Leonard and Barbara Hawkes) arrived from Southmead Bristol they stayed two weeks and then returned in January 41 where they stayed a month. Also arriving were a family of three brothers and sisters of the Goodier family from Euxton Lancashire

In March 1941 six evacuees from Salford entered the school. Three were all billeted in Aston by Budworth with Mrs Newport, two with Mrs Hall and one with Mrs Howarth. Those living with Mrs Hall stayed the longest: May Taunton for over two years and her eldest sister for 17 months who had to leave school once she had reached 14. It’s not clear from these records whether she stayed in Aston by Budworth or returned home to Salford.

The saddest arrivals of all took place in the late summer of 1942.

Extract from Arley School Register 1943

The Arscott siblings arrived from Bootle and were billeted at Aesop’s Cottage, Arley. The notes in the register said

“bombed twice at Coventry and Bootle.”

Then the very young Noakes brothers lodged with Mrs Eynes at Land’s End Farm, Aston by Budworth. The eldest brother, had attended Victoria Road School in Northwich, but the youngest was just 5 at the time. The notes in the register simply said:

Left London 13 Nov 1940. Lost all.

No evacuees enrolled in 1943; the last group all arrived in September 1944 from London. However their stay wasn’t prolonged. Some left after 2 or 3 days, others two weeks – just one stayed nine months.

All in all, across the four years, the coming and goings of evacuees would have had a big impact in a rural country school: out of the 61 entries between 11 September 1939 and November 1944, 32 were evacuees, 26 were locals and for the three remaining it is not clear whether the entire family had moved as a result of the war or for work.

And against a backdrop of the coronavirus and the tea parties and bunting, until this week, an undiscovered and sobering reminder of the sudden upheaval to lives of the war in Cheshire.

Have you ever wondered who lived in your house? Part 2

Chris’ table first thing Saturday morning

Antrobus has some amazing old farmhouses steeped with history, and we’re very lucky to have access to the documentation. But what if your house is less than 80 years old? Is it still possible to find any records and find out who owned and lived in your house? The answer is definitely YES, as Chris from Wheatsheaf Lane has proved. And here is the story:

Early on Saturday morning Chris messaged to say he had seen a recent post about this website on the village group chat and, like his father, was interested in local history. Anyway, it got him thinking and he decided to wade through the deeds to their house to see if he could can add anything to this website.

First question he asked was what we knew about the land, lane and the original occupants. This was a great start – so we headed straight to the Tithe Map of 1846:

Cheshire Tithe Maps

This shows that the land was owned by Peter Jackson of Cogshall Hall and farmed  from Frandley Farm by tenant farmer, Peter Massey. At the time, the six acre field was called Big Meadow. This was interesting, but not particularly helpful for Chris given it was nearly a hundred years too early.

However we knew from the design of the buildings that they were built in the 1930s, so Chris turned to the deeds of his house. He settled down with a cup of tea and started reading – this provided the skeleton of the narrative; dates and names, albeit couched in legal text.

It turns out that the land was sold by the Bolshaw siblings (Richard and Maria) in 1919, and later to a Mr. Ryder of Sutton Weaver for £99 in 1939. Who was he? Who sold it to the Bolshaws and why were the houses built at different times to two different design? Chris turned detective to match the words of the deeds with the owners of the land.

So what about the residents of Wheatsheaf Lane? Chris was interested to know who had lived in the houses.

We next turned to the 1939 Register which showed who was living in Wheatsheaf Lane on 29 September 1939.  As you can see from the image below many of the names are blanked out – for privacy purposes, anyone who is still alive is not included:

This started to add some colour – and raised as many questions as it answered. For example, why was a captain on a tug living in Antrobus? Thankfully we were able to delve into research that has been compiled over many years into the family histories of the residents of the village. This is held on the Ancestry website so please do get in touch if you want to find out more about your family.

As you can see from the exert below, tug captain on the Manchester Ship Canal, Arthur Steel, did have connections with Antrobus through his sister Nora.

From then on, it was a case of using the more recent electoral registers, as well as the baptism, marriage and burial records to pull together the stories about one of the cottages along Wheatsheaf Lane.  With lots of messages between us and using the information gleaned from the deeds, Chris has pulled together a lovely summary of his research.

Always mindful of privacy, the story really stops for us here in 1971 unless we know that the residents have passed away. In which case, please do share your memories for everyone can enjoy.

So, this is the story of how over the space of a few hours on a Saturday in May, it is possible to harness your inner Poirot and find out the backstory to who lived in your house.

Have you ever wondered who lived in your house?

Whether you are interested in knowing more about your own house or are simply interested in knowing more about your ancestors who lived in Antrobus, the newly updated Records page on the website is just the place to dive into. On the way you might want to stop off and look at the Places Index to see if the history of your house has been researched. Or you may want to go via the Family History page  – new transcribed wills and links to external websites have been added.

As always, there is far more available than on the website, so please email clare.olver@gmail.com with feedback, requests and your discoveries. All of these are invaluable, and always try to incorporate your suggestions.