Author: secretary

Christine Mahany came to Stamford in 1966 and carried out many excavations in the area. The most well-known was the site of Stamford Castle (below the ‘bus station), which took place between 1972 and 1976. Another was at St. Leonard’s Priory. Here, she is interviewed about saxon finds at a dig in Water Street.

“More traces of the Saxons found at Stamford

Although little more evidence of the lines of the old Saxon defences have come to light on the Water Street archaeological site at Stamford, the director of excavations (Miss C. M. Mahany) said this week that traces of saxon timber buildings were beginning to show.

Pottery finds

A fine example of a 14th century stone barrel-vaulted cess-pit has yielded a collection of pottery of that period.

One of the most interesting facts about the find, Miss Mahany said was that there was no Stamford ware among them.

This indicated that Stamford ware had died out by this time, probably around 1250.

The two main pots in the collection are a large cooking pot, thought to be from Bourne, and a polycrome jug imported from Western France.

Only six others

Miss Mahany explained that the jug could be dated so closely (1275 – 1300) because the French potteries where they were made had been excavated and no more pots were made after that date.

The jug has a matt surface decorated with boldly-painted birds

Only six similar pots have been found in England, and those mainly in costal areas.”

The Stamford Mercury, 1st March 1968.

A roast goose appeared on a Counsellor’s table with only one leg. His cook tried to cover up the what had really happened to the missing limb.

“-‘Bless my heart! why this goose has but one leg,’ exclaimed Counsellor Bethell, while carving the Michaelmas bird for a few choice friends; ‘call up the cook.’ Paddy Flinn, factotum general, and generally cook to the Counsellor, had been visited that day by his own sweet cousin german*, Judy Makirk, married a month, and of course in the way in which ‘Ladies wish to be who love their Lords.’ Now poor Paddy thought he saw Judy throw a longing eye on the dexter leg of the goose, so savoury and brown at the fire. Judy confessed her desires, and Paddy couldn’t resist the impulses of his good nature to gratify them; so off went the leg, and up went the dismembered goose. Paddy appeared to the call of ‘the quality,’ when the following curious dialogue took place :-Counsellor B.: ‘Ah! then, Paddy, where the devil’s the right leg of the goose?’ – Paddy : ‘Isn’t it sticking in your fork, your honour?’ – Counsellor B.: ‘My fork! I think that’s in the left leg, as the other appears to be gone away. Come, Sir, account for this impertinence.’ – Paddy : ‘O, Sir, that I can asy enough, your honour : a big Lawyer knows but little of geese. Why, Sir, devil a goose in Dublin has more than one leg at this minute, I’ll be bail, any how.’ – Counsellor B.: ‘What? – are you drunk, Sirrah; otr what do ye mean?’ – Paddy : ‘Och, be pleased to step out to the hen-house, and I’ll make your honour sensible in a minute.’ – Away they went, and Paddy pointed out the geese at roost; and, indeed, apparently with but one leg, as that bird generally tucks in the other while reposing. The Counsellor, who likes a joke, good humouredly exclaimed, ‘Pretty well, Paddy; but see how soon I’ll upset your logic by one word;’ and then clapping his hands, he cried, ‘Wshe!’ and the geese ‘to a man’ produced another leg. Paddy was still not at a perfect non plus; but scratching his head, he exclaimed with a leer, ‘Och, see that now! If your Honour had but the since to cry ‘Wshe!’ at dinner time, see how soon ye’d a seen the leg that wasn’t in it.'”

The Stamford Mercury, 31st October, 1823.

*i.e. a full or first cousin.

The bus driver is the first in a series of ‘Other People’s Jobs’ focussing on local people’s occupations. It ran weekly in The Stamford Mercury from 1934 to 1935.

“Friend of Kiddies and Older Folk.

And Messenger of all!

How would you like to be a bus driver? Leaving apart the purely technical side of driving, his knowledge of the engine and of what to do when things go wrong, or the arm-aching job of ‘swinging it’ on a cold morning, he has one of the most fascinating occupations of any of us.

A least, that’s how it seems after a run to Oundle and back, chosen haphazardly from the many services operating from Stamford by Mr. W. H. Patch’s Cream Buses.

All along the route the Cream bus is a familiar thing, and the driver a man respected. It may be Tom Helstrip one day, or Joe Colston another, but either is a well-known figure behind the wheel – the friend of kiddies and older folk and messenger of all!

These fellows have some queer jobs commissioned from, say, either Wittering, Wansford, Yarwell, Nassington, Fotheringhay or Tansor, through which they pass four times a day on their journeys to and from Oundle. When they set out from opposite the George Hotel, Stamford, they never know what they may be asked to do during the day or who they may be carrying.

Of course, they do know that each week-day morning of the year there is a parcel for Wansford, and a morning paper for Thornhaugh. There they have found that, by driving the bus near the cabin – simply by leaning out, unlatching a window, and passing the paper through to a table!

QUEER CARGO

Sometimes, their passengers a people who enjoy a remarkably pretty run who like to learn of Mary Queen of Scots at Fotheringhay, or of the old church at Tansor, with its original pews from Fotheringhay church. Then your driver becomes a historian.

At other times, an anxious parent entrusts an inrfant to their care – ‘and be sure he gets off at so and so!’

Sometimes there are jolly fishing or picnic parties aboard, or passengers to the Burghley gold course, sightseers to Wittering aerodrome, visitors to the Wansford riding school, or schoolboys for Stamford.

But it is in dealing with messages and parcels that these drivers excel. Often they are asked to fetch cigarettes, and accumulators from the charging depot. In the summer-time they bring as many as 70 or 80 cream cheeses from Thornhaugh to Stamford, and, frequently, for a Wansford hostelry, they get requests to fetch a barrel of beer from an Oundle brewery.

It is quite a common thing, too, for housewives to ask them to bring their groceries, to order the Sunday joint, to visit the doctor’s surgery for a bottle of medicine or to call at the veterinary surgeon’s for something to cure an animal.

And all the time they have between entering and leaving Oundle in which to undertake these tasks is 15 minutes! Here, at least, is one of those ‘other people’s jobs’ nicely spiced with the spirit of adventure.”

The Stamford Mercury, 7th December, 1934.

When children were evacuated from our major cities during the second world war, that was not the end of it. They needed to be provided for in terms of clothing and schooling. And it was not known for how long this assistance would be required. Various charitable bodies joined forces to help.

“EVACUEES FROM THE CITIES

INFLUENTIAL APPEAL

Evacuation of mothers and children from the danger zones of our cities has brought out, in a forcible manner, the urgent need for clothing of all kinds for many of the evacuees owing to changed conditions of life and for comforts for mothers in the emergency maternity hospitals. Unless this need can be supplied, the advent of wintry weather will exact a heavy toll.

There are, of course, others in the poorer districts of town and country who require assistance in a like manner, and who would, so far as is possible, be helped.

The matter is one of close concern to Lincolnshire and Rutland, where temporary homes have been found for many women and children evacated from the poorer quarters of various populous centres.

The national Council for Maternity and Child Welfare, representing the more important national societies concenred with mothers and children, is issuing an appeal on behalf of expectant mothers and children under five. The Council is receiving many applications for help and advice, and it is known that a vast amount of voluntary aid is at present unused because, while many people are anxious to give service in making garments, they are held back by lack of money with which to purchase materials. This is particularly the case with many women’s organisations and working parties throughout the country.

EQUITABLE DISTRIBUTION

Money received will be expended in obtaining materials at as low a cost as possible with the co-operation of the Personal Service League and the distribtuion of garments will be made in consultation with local maternity and child welfare authorities or responsible local organisations. This will ensure a just distribution and secure that garments will reach only those in genuine need, for whom they are intended, and not families who should be able to provide for their own requirements.

Their Majesties the Queen and Queen Mother have graciously contributed to the fund. Its needs are very urgent, and contributions of any amount marked ‘Material Fund,’ will be welcomed by the honorary treasurer of the National Council for Maternity and Child Welfare, Carnegie House, 117, Piccadilly, London, W.1.

The appeal is issued over the signatures of Sir Bruce Bruce-Porter, chairman of the Clothing Appeak Committee; Dame, A. Louise McIlroy and Lady Cynthia Colville, of the National Council for Maternity and Child Welfare; Mr. Reginald R. Garratt, hon. treasurer of the National Council for Maternity and Child Welfare; the Right Hon. Margaret G. Bondfield, of the Women’s Group on Problems arising from Evacuation; and the Hon. Mrs. Sydney Marsham, of the Personal Service League.”

The Stamford Mercury, 19th January, 1940.

Sir Isaac Pitman was a lifelong advocate of reforming the spelling of the English language. From this came the creation of phonetic writing. This ‘shorthand’ was published in a pamphlet in 1837.

“On Tuesday evening last, an interesting lecture and explanations were given at the Temperance Library, by Masters Wm. Green and Holland Brown, of the Phonographic Corresponding Society, Phonography, a new art of improved writing, invented by Mr. Isaac Pitman, of Bath. The redundancy and deficiency of the common English alphabet, and the absurdity of the method of writing and spelling usually adopted by the British nation, were clearly exhibited, and the completeness and adequacy of the phonetic alphabet distinctly proved. Several diagrams of the phonographic character were explained, and specimens of the facility of writing and deciphering it were given, the speakers reading it quite as fast as the long English. After the lecture, a very spirited conversation took place, and questions put by the company were satisfactorily answered by the two youths. We think this science is likely to be more available than any similar one yet invented, it having distinct marks for every sound uttered by the human voice; and if generally introduced in lieu of the common alphabet, would be a valuable boon to all classes of society, and innumerable benefits might accrue from its acquisition. We would heartily recommend and encourage youth to practise this art, on account of its great simplicity, and its being so very legible when written, unlike the old tedious forms of shorthand hitherto used. We hear that the subject is to be resumed next Tuesday evening, when more practical specimens are to be given on the spot, of the applicability of this new way of ‘talking on paper’ in all the languages of our babbling earth.”

The Stamford Mercury, 7th February, 1845.

This is the last sentence of the article in Pitman’s shorthand. With many thanks to Elaine Allwood from Carlby for transforming it.

The Peterborough to Syston railway (which came through Stamford) was opened in May 1848. Thank goodness the plans reported here were changed or we should have had the railway line going right across the town meadows and two bridges across the river Welland! The station was to be in Wharf Road, which was to be blocked. A temporary station was built in September, 1846 and the cutting under High Street, St. Martin’s then commenced. The building of Station Road was started in July 1849.

“The Syston Railway – On referring to the plans left with the Parish Clerks, we find that the line, after passing through Uffington meadow, proceeds about 10 chains* south of Hudd’s-mills, crosses the Welland, and proceeds through the bottom part of Earl Brownlow’s gardens, close at the back of the gas-works, to the Station in Wharf Road, (which road will be stopped up,) and thence along the site of the houses now occupied by Messrs. George, Bunning, Pinney and Eayrs; then again crosses the Welland and passes through the centre of the path between the Lammas and George bridges, and thence along the Broad meadow to Breadcroft, in the parish of Tinwell, Tinwell meadow, to Ketton, &c.”

The Stamford Mercury, 3rd January, 1845.

*10 chains = 220 yards (approx. 201 meters)

Following on from our recent piece about the joy of reading old newsapapers, this book carries a stark warning of what can be lost when technology (in this case in the form of microfiche) takes over. Luckily, at the archive we have a virtually complete run of The Stamford Mercury from the middle of the eighteenth century (complete from the 1780s). We still have the microfilm, too, and use it to avoid handling the newspapers too much.

“Libraries need to move with the times, but too confident a step in the wrong direction can lead to calamity. A famous, notorious example was the decision of lending libraries to first film, then jettison, their collections of historic newspapers. The advantage was obvious, as newspapers take up an enormous space and tend to degrade; but the chosen rescue technology, microfiche, proved equally transitional. Within a few decades the microfiches were functionally unusable, and the newspapers long gone. Eventually the microfiche readers were themselves removed from the reading rooms, tomorrow’s technology now redundant.”

From The Library: A Fragile History Andrew Pettegree and Arthur der Weduwen.

Quite how mermaids could be taught to spin, having no feet to work the pedals of a spinning machine?! However, we have seen mermaids in wonderful films over the years, so they must exist.

“The appearances of mermaids to human sight have been, ‘like angels’ visits, few and far between;’ indeed some savans have doubted than any such creature ever existed, except in the regions of fancy or the gull-traps of fraud. No doubt here, as in weightier matters, craft and credulity have acted sp as tp ,ale ,amy think the whole race of mermen and maidens fabulous. In the few accounts on record of the capture of various specimens of these animals, there is much of the marvellous intermixed; for instance, we are told that one which was caught in Holland in 1430 was taught to spin by some young girls, and derived from them some notions of the Deity, and made its reveremnces very devoutly whenever it saw a crucifix.’ An extraordinary mermaid that, and ‘very like a whale,’ as the saying goes. But there is now exhibiting in Regent-street a mermaid, which, though it pretended to no notions of a deity itself, was regarded as one by some natives of South America, who caught it in the Rio de la Plata, and prepared it after a rude manner for presevation. From them it was puchased, the exhibiter states, by two travellers, for the British Museum, the authorities of which have given him special permission to show it for a time. The same authority gives the following description of this ‘mermaid, or siren of the sea,’ as it is designated:- ‘The features are both pleasing and interesting; its teeth are of a snowy whiteness, without any grinders, with cartilaginous gums, tongue, and roof to the mouth. The two arms, which are short, terminate with short webben fingers, each having the appearance of a nail at the end. The bust is perfectly that of a woman. the back is nearly covered with fins, placed in opposite directions, in front of the body. An inspection will certainly confirm this statment; and as naturalists have not condescended to define what a mermaid is under its proper class – mammalia – we may venture perhaps to pronounce this to be as good a one as ever was seen. After being submitted to the view of the Queen and Prince Albert, this ‘siren of the sea’ is to be present at Birmingham during the approaching music festival, a fearful rival to each biped songstress there, who in competition with this fish-woman or woman-fish, will find herself vox et preterea nihil.*

The Stamford Mercury, 15th September, 1843.

*voice and nothing more/sound without substance

This short paragraph epitomises exactly what all the wonderful volunteers here at the Stamford Mercuy Archive believe. We have over three centuries of newspapers carefully stored in acid-free boxes on roller-racking shelving.

“Many people take newspapers, but few preserve them; yet the most interesting reading imaginable is a file of old newspapers. It brings up the very age, with all its bustle and every day affairs, and marks its spirit and its genius more than the most laboured description of the historian. Who can take a paper dated half a century ago, without the thoguht that almost every name there printed is not cut upon a tombstone at the head of an epitaph?”

The Stamford Mercury, 3rd November, 1843.

You may not know, but members of the public are welcome to visit the archive by appointment to make a search of the Stamford Mercury via our microfilm. Use of the archive is free for personal research; but we do make a small charge for images (scans or photographs; A4/A3 which cost £1 each).  Our opening hours are Tuesdays 10.30 am – 1 pm, Thursdays 9.30 – 11.30 am and Fridays 1.30 – 4.00 pm. As the archive is not completely indexed it will be helpful to you if you have an idea of the dates you want to search.

Please visit the contact page of our website for details on how to contact us at the Stamford Mercury Archive, and the Using the archive page for more details on enquiries.

Two friends were involved in a misunderstanding, which lead to one being brutally beaten by the other who had failed to recognise him. It is doubtful they remained friends. . .

“Last Tuesday evening, Mr. Feakins of Easondine, intending to pay a visit to a female acquaintance at Tollthorpe in the county of Rutland, went to the place of her residence, but not finding her at home, imagined she was gone to Mr. Goodwin’s, a miller, at the same place; he therefore went to learn whether she was there or not. – Unfortunately for Mr. Feakins, he was perceived by one of the servants, who informed Mr. Goodwin that a person had been looking in at the window. – Some villains having a short time before attempted to break into his house, he immediately order’d his gun, and followed Mr. Feakins, fired at him, shattered his hand in a most miserable manner, and then struck him a violent blow on the wounded arm with the butt end of his piece, before he knew his person. – Mr. Feakins is in a very dangerous state, a mortification being apprehended; and his arm is necessarily order’d to be cut off. – What renders this misfortune the more distressing to the parties, Mr. Feakins and Mr. Goodwin were intimate acquaintance, and very good friends.”

The Stamford Mercury, 22nd December, 1774.