LOWEWOOD MUSEUM High Street, , Herts. EN11 8BH

Dear Members,

Thank you for continuing to support the Friends through what is proving to be a very trying time. The ongoing efforts to re-open Lowewood Museum are very much alive and progress is being made with the setting up of the Museum Trust and putting funding in place for opening hopefully next year. We had hoped to have an exhibition in November at Lowewood but in view of the ongoing restrictions this has not been possible.

Hopefully we will be able to re-start the Friends talks at some point next year and as soon as this is possible we will go ahead with getting speakers.

I wish everyone a very happy Christmas, I know it will be difficult for many people but I look forward to next year and being able to welcome you to the re-opening of the Museum.

Best wishes

Pat Styles Chairman, Friends of Lowewood

-1- A CHRISTMAS STORY

Nature was ready for the winter, bright red berries on the holly trees and white berries on the mistletoe gave a sparkle to the trees which showed themselves off in the gloomiest time of the year. The children wrote endless lists while waiting for the expected visit of Father Christmas. Hoping all wishes would be granted.

The end of year Nativity play at the school loomed large and angels had their wings made while shepherds claimed the best tea towels for their headdresses. Teachers bowed under the pressure of who was going to be the donkey, Mary and Joseph and could they possibly have a real lamb on stage. The story of the Nativity was still special even though times had changed. Parents were spending time wrapping and hiding the expected presents as well as getting the “tree”. This item had to be exactly right in shape and decoration so baubles came down from the loft and tinsel appeared on everything.

Those of us who are older can remember when Christmas was not so commercial and perhaps a book or one toy was what was given. Grandma and Grandad came for dinner and after turkey and all trimmings along with a small sherry slept in the chairs with instructions not to be disturbed. Children got on with playing games and with the toys that had been received.

The real magic was if it snowed and everything was covered with soft white pillows of snow, clean and sparkling when it landed. At night with the stars shining and the still cold air peace and quiet settled around everything and the magic was complete for a short while. Pat Styles

-2- QUIZ by Sue Garside

1. Which famous author lived at Waltham House from 1859 to 1871?

2. Where is the Samaritan Woman statue?

3. What is the name of the admiral who lived at Theobalds Park?

4. A restored Grade II listed grinding wheel stands just off Station Road in Broxbourne. It was used by the firm of Pulhams. What did they manufacture?

5. Which Hoddesdon pub once reputedly displayed Henry VIII’s hunting saddle?

6. In which year was the Rye House Plot?

7. Which king stayed at Broxbournebury as he journeyed to London to be crowned?

8. In which church did a clandestine marriage take place in 1583 between Thomas Perrot and Dorothy Devereux, one of Queen Elizabeth’s ladies-in-waiting and sister of the Earl of Essex?

9. Which king was the husband of Queen Eleanor whose monument, The , is situated in ?

10. in Hoddesdon was built for and occupied by the Rawdon family in the 17th century. What forename was shared by several of its male members?

11. Where was Temple Bar, which stood in Theobalds Park for many years, re-erected in 2004?

12. Who proposed building the New River, and who took the scheme to completion?

13. Which mansion was commissioned by Abraham Hume in 1767 and completed in 1770?

14. Mr Clarke, whose nickname was ‘Tumbledown Dick’ lived in . What was his real name?

15. In which Hoddesdon pub were Tudor wall paintings discovered during restoration work in 2014?

16. Which king fell into the New River at Cheshunt?

17. What is the name of the author of many devotional poems and hymn, including ‘Our Blest Redeemer’, who lived in Broxbourne, and later Hoddesdon?

18. Which of the borough’s railway stations is Grade II listed?

19. A replica tank stands on a concrete plinth in Cedars Park. When and why was the original World War One tank, which had been displayed on the plinth, removed?

20. In which year did the Urban Districts of Cheshunt and Broxbourne join to become the Borough of Broxbourne?

-3- SKATING AT WORMLEY 1891 by David Dent

Wormley once had the reputation for being the coldest place between London and Cambridge. In the late 18th and early 19th centuries if a coach got stuck in snow it was often at Wormley. The likelihood of this happening was due to the fact that the original route of the main road through the village followed the line of what we now know as Queen’s Head Walk. It is difficult to imagine that this narrow pathway was once part of the main highway from London to Cambridge and although the old road would have been wider than the current path, it is unlikely that two horse drawn vehicles would have been able to pass one another. In 1816 despite the objections of Sir Abraham Hume, the Lord of the Manor, the present line of the High Road was constructed from Church Lane through to the Queen’s Head by the Cheshunt at a cost of £800.

This reputation for being cold was further enhanced when Henry Hull Warner of Wormley wrote to the National Skating Association on 5 February 1891 detailing his skating experiences on the lake at . Warner was the great grandson of John Warner of Hoddesdon. In the letter Henry described how he in the company of Mr. Henry Eugene Vandervell, Mr. H. Warner and Mr Wales had enjoyed most enjoyable figure skating at Wormley. He said “the ice was in perfect condition, though of course slightly damp on the surface.” By this he did not mean that water was standing on it, but that the slight dampness made it ideal for skating. He closed his letter by saying that he hoped he would pass his first-class figure test that season.

The frost had been quite severe and beginning on 26 November 1890 and lasting until 20 January 1891, when the ice was fifteen inches thick. On the day that they skated at Wormleybury in February 1891 the ice was still three inches thick, in spite of 14 days of thaw.

Henry Warner’s companion Henry Vandervell was a very well-known skater and in 1880 he was described as the “father of the present English school of skating.” In 1869 he’d published a book entitled “A system of figure skating,” which he had written in conjunction with T. M. Witham a fellow member of the London Skating Club. In the book he gave advice on the types and thickness of ice on which it was safe to skate. It is apparently safer to skate on what is known as black ice, which is clear rather than snow ice which can be treacherous. During the 1880’s Vandervell was also President of the National Skating Association and when he skated at Wormleybury in 1891 he was 65 years old.

By 1892 Henry Hull Warner was married and no longer living at Smallwells, the Warner family home, on the High Road at Wormley. However, in January of that year he wrote to Henry Jeffries Bushby of Wormleybury to inform him that the lake had been mentioned on page 50 of the Badminton book of skating. In the book it noted that in the last severe frost of 1890-91 skating was carried on at Wormleybury for ten days after everyone had left the ice of the London Parks. Henry closed the letter “yours gratefully for all the pleasure your ice afforded us.” It is interesting to speculate whether Henry availed himself of the chance to skate on the lake again and it is possibly something he did during the very cold winter of !894-95, often regarded as the last winter of the “Little Ice Age.”

-4- There were about twelve weeks of frost and this was particularly severe from 9 to 17 of February when night time temperatures fell to between -8C to -10C.

The 1901 census records that Henry, his wife and their two children were living back in Wormley at 7 Villas on the east side of the High Road between Macers Lane and Slipe Lane. One wonders if he did pass his first-class figure test and whether he got the opportunity to take his two children on the ice of Wormleybury’s lake.

Skating on Wormleybury Lake during 1930’s

Henry Eugene Vandervell

ANSWERS TO QUIZ 14 Richard Cromwell, son of Oliver Cromwell. After 1 Anthony Trollope Oliver Cromwell’s death he became Lord Protector in 2 Next to Lowewood Museum, Hoddesdon 1658. He resigned in May 1659, having ruled for only 3 Admiral Hedworth Meux 265 days. He eventually settled in Cheshunt, where he 4 Artificial stone and ornamental garden died in 1712 features 15 The Star. It reverted to its original name at this 5 The Golden Lion time, having been The Star, The Black Lion and then 6 1683 The Salisbury Arms 7 James I, in 1603 16 James I. When he was staying at Theobalds in 8 St Augustine’s, Broxbourne. The marriage December 1622, he was riding in the park when his was secret because the couple knew they would horse stumbled and he fell in head first not have gained the Queen’s consent if they had 17 Harriet Auber, who is buried in the graveyard of St. asked for her approval as they should have done Catherine and St Paul’s, Hoddesdon 9 Edward I 18 Broxbourne Station 10 Marmaduke 19 The World War One tank had been presented to 11 Paternoster Square, London Cheshunt Council in 1921. It remained in Cedars Park 12 Edmund Colthurst and Hugh Myddleton until 1940, when it was sent for scrap to help the 13 Wormleybury Second World War effort. 20 1974

-5- Christmas Carol Singing over a Hundred Years Ago

Abstracted from Edwin Paddick’s ‘Hoddesdon – Tales of a Town’

Edwin Paddick, librarian and local historian, grew up in Admirals Walk, Hoddesdon, in the early years of the 20th century, and had vivid memories of the Christmas festivities of his boyhood, in particular those connected with St. Augustine’s Church, Broxbourne, where he was a choirboy.

Apart from taking part in services, the boys went around the district every evening in the week before Christmas to sing carols. Each boy would try to bring a light. The favourites were candle lamps, as these were considered more atmospheric than oily paraffin lamps. Since the boys were well known at most of the houses where they sang, they were usually invited in for cakes, oranges, apples and ginger beer or a hot drink, while the men were offered something stronger. If the house had a piano, that was played for their carols, but mostly they sang unaccompanied.

Edwin Paddick Broxbournebury

The climax of the week was on Christmas Eve, when the last call of the evening was at Broxbournebury, where they sang to the squire, Major Smith-Bosanquet and his family and guests. In anticipation of a feast after their performance here they declined any refreshments at their earlier ports of call. When they reached Broxbournebury, they were met by the butler and taken to the drawing room, where they performed to the company (on his first visit as a choirboy, Edwin Paddick recalled being quite shocked at the amount of bare flesh exposed by the ladies’ low cut evening dresses, and was surprised that they didn’t all catch bad colds!)

After they had finished singing in the drawing room, the squire told them that if they went to the servants’ hall and sang to the staff, the housekeeper would have some refreshments for them. These refreshments were a real treat. There were mince pies, tarts, and either sandwiches filled with beef, ham and chicken, or plates of the meats with home-made bread and pickles. The boys were offered lemonade, ginger beer or cocoa, and the men had a choice of port or whisky. The lanterns would then be re-lit, and the singers would make their way down the long drive and set off for their homes. One by one their group got smaller as men and boys left as they reached their cottages, with Edwin Paddick and his Admirals Walk friends usually alone at the end, as they had the longest walk. And so ended another year’s carol singing, and despite their late night feast, they were all able to do justice to their Christmas dinner the next day. Sue Garside

-6- THE GREAT WORKHOUSE CHRISTMAS BEER CONTROVERSY OF 1896

Abstracted from an article by Peter Rooke in his ‘Cheshunt Life in Victorian and Edwardian Days’

For many years Cheshunt had its own workhouse, but after 1834 larger workhouses were established to serve groups of neighbouring parishes. Cheshunt was included in the Edmonton Union. (Opened in 1842, the Edmonton Union Workhouse eventually became North Middlesex Hospital in 1948 as the NHS era got under way)

Once the Edmonton Union Workhouse was established, the poor and destitute of Cheshunt were sent to there, and there were Cheshunt men on the Board of Guardians. In 1895, one of these Cheshunt representatives, Mr Tydeman, had given a pint of ale or porter on Christmas day to any inmate who wanted it, despite the disapproval of the Board in general. Mr Tydeman repeated his offer in 1896, but the Board countered by passing a resolution ‘forbidding any such present being received by the inmates’.

The controversy spread with a leader column in the Daily Telegraph complaining that the anti-beer Guardians were ‘trying to forbid any one treating these forlorn old merrymakers to a drop of beer’ and hoping that, if they felt so strongly about it, that they would also abstain at Christmas. The paupers themselves weighed in with a letter to the Board in favour of receiving their pint, and they were supported by quite a few Board members. The Board was split between those who, like Mr Tydeman considered the refusal to allow the Christmas pint an act of tyranny, and the rest of the Board who felt they provided the inmates ‘with all the law allowed them to give except intoxicants’ and that drink would not add to their enjoyment.

Tempers got heated, with the pro-beer lobby, some of whom were themselves teetotallers, calling the others bigoted and telling them they were making themselves a laughing stock, while the anti-beer group claimed that ‘an abominable pint of beer’ might revive in the inmates a craving for drink, claiming that for most it had been the cause of their downfall in the first place.

A vote was eventually taken and Mr Tydeman and his allies were defeated by 15 votes to 12. The inmates of the Edmonton Union Workhouse did not get a pint of beer to cheer their Christmas in 1896, and the series of press cuttings from which Peter Rooke traced the story ends at this point, so we don’t know if Mr Tydeman renewed his efforts in subsequent years, or whether the Workhouse remained ‘dry’ at Christmas. Sue Garside

The gateway of the Edmonton Union Workhouse, which became the North Middlesex Hospital -7-

THE HODDESDON CHRISTMAS GHOST

The article below first appeared in our December 2003 Newsletter but thought it would be nice to repeat it. Those of you who belong to Broxbourne U3A might well see it in their Christmas Newsletter as I was asked for a seasonal story to perhaps be included.

Several old copies of the ‘Hertfordshire Countryside’ magazine were donated to The Friends of Lowewood Museum by one of the members. I had the opportunity of looking through them and one article particularly caught my eye in a January 1968 edition. It was the story of the ‘Hoddesdon Christmas Ghost’ – an old Hertfordshire tale of coaching days – submitted by Doris W. Baker.

In brief, the story concerns the sightings during freezing winter nights about the year 1800 by Ben Godfrey, the town watchman, of a white ghost walking along the top of the great beam from which hung the inn sign for the Bull Inn in High Street, Hoddesdon – (now the site of Peacock’s). The figure walked high up along the top of the beam from the Bull towards the roof of the half-timbered Market House close by, and back again.

Ben told Mr. Fairfax, the landlord what he had seen but the landlord didn’t believe him. However, for a bit of amusement, he struck a wager with the town watchman that he’d reward him with five shillings if he could prove the ghost’s existence. News of the ghost and the wager soon became widespread and people flocked to the Bull in the hope of seeing it.

For a long time nothing happened and people lost interest and several folk doubted Ben’s story. Then, during the early hours of a freezing Christmas Day morning in 1800 the town watchman taking shelter in a shop doorway from the wind-driven snow, but in full view of the sign beam, again saw the mysterious white figure walking slowly along the top of the beam from the inn towards the Market House roof. He roused the landlord who rushed up to an attic room which was level with the beam. As he opened the door he saw the figure come in through the window, close it and get into bed. This was the little room where the women servants of the inn slept.

Thus the mystery of the ‘ghost’ was solved and Ben was rewarded with his five shillings by the landlord. It is hoped steps were taken to prevent further hazardous sleepwalking trips along the sign beam high up between the Bull Inn and the roof of the Market House (pictured below circa 1826) close by.

Diana Weston

© 1991.872 Lowewood Museum Collection

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