Some of my Early Memories of Blisworth

by Sir Hereward Wake

I recall my Nanny in the 1920's driving me and my brothers and sisters fearlessly in the pony trap along the roadway to Blisworth - no cars and the narrow road was made up of grey stone - I remember a man with a hammer breaking the stones and mending the road. No tar in those days. In dry weather the pony kicked up much grey dust. Years ago there used to be a Toll Gate on the corner where this road meets the A508 main road to Northampton, a Turn Pike road.  Of course the express trains in the Railway cutting were our chief excitement and standing up in the pony trap we could see over the high sides of the bridge down to the deep cutting below.

Often there were chickens, sometimes pigs, lying in the middle of the road at Blisworth Lodge Farm. No fear of them being run over but horses and ponies fear pigs and Nanny would make use the long pony whip.  I remember riding along this road at Christmas time in the first winter of the war when it was blocked with deep snow. After the war the Kelcher family were our farm tenants; and how well they farmed. It was sad when they departed - how astonished they would be today to see offices in their farm buildings which once housed their fine beef cattle.

The Grand Junction Canal from London to Birmingham enabled goods to be carried quickly and cheaply from the Thames to Liverpool thereby helping trade between the Continent and America.  The two wharfs each end were busy before the tunnel was completed and afterwards. There is a written record of the 9th Baronet at Courteenhall in about 1800 collecting coal which came from the north and even venison from Whittlebury at Blisworth Wharf.  When I was a boy my father arranged to have us taken in a barge through the dark canal Tunnel propelled by a noisy and smelly steam engine which belched smoke, blackening the ceiling of the tunnel. How apprehensive and frightened we were. In the old Duke of Grafton's days the Stone Quarry was opened up on Blisworth Lodge Farm. The stone mason's house and yard were near the entrance to the tunnel. I was sad when that fine and distinctive Monkey Puzzle tree (from South America) in the garden of the house was felled.

After the war my sister and I rode one summer morning to Stoke Bruerne along the canal tow path to lunch at Cosgrove. The hedges beside the tow path had naturally been neglected during the war. Half way to Cosgrove they were so overgrown they blocked the tow path to the water's edge. Access became increasingly impossible. When we could ride no further what were we to do? There was no room to turn around and in trying to do so my sister's young horse plunged into the deep water. Luckily she kept hold of the reins and reached the bank. It took some time to get her horse to scramble up the vertical bank facing in the right direction and we sadly rode home wet and hungry.

The Railway from Euston to Rugby and Birmingham was opened in around 1840 and, apart from the disruption to fox hunting, the Roade Cutting being a major engineering feat was deepened when the cutting had to accommodate the loop line to Northampton and this caused some ditches and ponds on the estate to dry up.  Luckily, in a way, in my grandfather's day a part of the cutting fell in and the lines were blocked to the all important traffic. The Railway Company begged him to allow soil to be excavated and dumped on his adjoining fields. He readily agreed on condition they put right the loss of water of decades earlier and supplied water free of charge to be pumped up by a ram to maintain two new reservoirs at West Lodge and Woodley Farms and a large one on the highest ground just West of Sharman's Barn which supplied the Hall, Home Farm and eventually Courteenhall Village - all beautifully built by the Railway Company. Much of our water today continues to be free of charge.  Remarkable to think of it today but I remember when a boy travelling home with my father on an express train from Euston, He arranged for the guard to make an unscheduled stop at Roade Station and he quickly let us out. Blisworth Station excited us as children. There was a Nestle's chocolate machine there and for one penny in the slot behold a small slab of milk chocolate appeared wrapped in red and silver paper. From the ticket office near the entrance we descended into what seemed a long tunnel, to climb up to the platform and see and hear the mighty steam engines roaring through with their long, dark red London Midland & Scottish coaches.

Four years ago an ugly Telephone Mast suddenly appeared on the railway embankment beside Courteenhall bridge. I tried in vain to stop what I called the "industrialisation of the countryside" (wouldn't it be better placed on the edge of Northampton or Roade village?) but I was told by the County Council that Blisworth Parish Council had raised no objection to this construction and that planning permission had been granted. Courteenhall Parish had not been consulted because the planners wrongly thought it was in the Parish of Blisworth.  It has now grown even taller - what next?

George Freeston told me that when he was a boy attending Blisworth School (c.1916), occasionally they heard a pony and trap clip-clopping on the road outside. Whereupon the headmaster would make them all stand up and say 'Good Morning, Sir' . They wondered to whom they were giving their good wishes because they were all too small to see out of the window. But it was undoubtedly the Reverend Archibald Wake, Rector of Courteenhall on his way to the Tiffield Reformatory School for Boys, of which he was a Founder. He died in 1928 when I was 12 years old.  He was my great uncle and much loved by all and he was Rector of Courteenhall for 40 years. His elder brother the 12th Baronet would never allow his younger brother to drive his dog cart across the park; so, to get to the Rectory he always had to go round by the Courteenhall Washbrook Lane.  In 1678 Courteenhall Grammar School was built and endowed, which for about 220 years provided a free education for local boys many of whom came over from Blisworth and received a fine education -including Latin and Greek.

I first got to know George Freeston after the war when he often taxied my Aunt, Miss Joan Wake, who founded the Northamptonshire Record Society.  No doubt she encouraged him, and me, to take an interest in local history. He was a keen and active member of this Society and frequently made use of our archives at the County Record Office at Delapre Abbey and now at Wootton Hall Park. Joan was my father's youngest sister - a learned, eminent historian, a Fellow of Oxford University and a Commander of the British Empire.  She died in 1974. There are countless stories about her: I remember her complaining that her eyesight was deteriorating. No wonder; she powdered her face with her spectacles on!
In addition to his remarkable knowledge of local and county history I enjoyed George's enthusiasm and interest particularly in people and in Natural History.