Rural economics

Prior to the 1870’s, all grain was ground to flour between mill-stones. A new method based on an iron roller mill enabled the germ and bran to be separated. Although much goodness was lost, the flour kept for longer periods in storage and bakers found it easier to work the dough. From then on, farmers would no longer need to store their cereal in the ear and on the straw in ricks beneath a thatch - the only way they knew to keep cereal for long periods. The method was risky and wasteful with grain lost on the ground and sometimes ruined through penetration of the rain from above and rats from below. Sparrows proliferated! They had become pests that were quite adept in burrowing under any rough thatch and most villages employed the services of sparrow-catchers or set up a sparrow club, funded by farmers, which paid halfpenny a head - or 2d/dozen for the eggs at nesting time. The method for catching sparrows was to set large nets upon poles and, at dusk, rest them against barns or houses or around tree trunks, anywhere covered in ivy. Whacking the nets with sticks caused the birds to be agitated and entangled in the nets. Just their breasts would be used in a sparrow pie for a lucky family.

For reason of economy, the diets for most tended to be far lighter in protein than now. The practice actually continued in Blisworth until the depression years but, by then, the sparrows would be fed to ferrets or a pig. I am relieved to not be able to pass on a use for any rats that were caught! But at times when nothing reasonable was wasted, it was common for farmers’ wives to collect the tails from a lambs-tail docking session in the Spring, scald them to ease the removal of wool and skin, cut them into short lengths and layer them with sliced boiled eggs into a pie. The tails could also be fried. These treats were a great delicacy according to George’s mother Eliza, recalling her childhood in Clipston in the 1870’s.

 In terms of place names, there is evidence of medieval rabbit farming in the village - as there is in many villages. An enclosure would be created in which mounds of soft soil were pushed up into ‘pillow’ mounds to encourage the critters to burrow in places that would otherwise be too rocky. There is a 1705 survey of Squire Plowman’s domain around Blisworth House carried out after its re-entitlement to the Duke of Grafton. The survey included a place called The Coneygree - meaning a ‘rabbit graze’. By the Victorian era the field was called ‘The Warren’. We know it better as the 10-acre plot set aside in the 1830’s for villagers' allotment field beside the Stoke Road - see aerial image 01-04.  Some of our gardeners would agree the rabbits still seem attached to it! The old name survives in the village as Connegar Leys, the name originally of the field adjacent to the warren where grass and herbage was grown to feed the rabbits.  Subsequently, George Freeston recommended that the second tranche of council houses built 1957-8 should have the street name Connegar Leys.

The same 1705 survey refers to fishing rights and a large pond, in addition to the millpond, called “Young’s Pool”. Maybe the field known as Fisher Close, adjacent to Fisher Brook, was extensively flooded in olden times. It is to be hoped that fish and rabbits were made available to villagers without the need for too much risky poaching.

R&A article   May 05