Hallaton the Story of the Village: the Pre-War Years
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Hallaton The Story of the Village: The Pre-War Years The Hallaton of 1913 was a village of around houses they lived in, the land they worked and the 550 people split almost equally between men and roads and paths they walked on. Throughout the women. It was like much of England at that time, a war years we will see both how local and national deeply divided society. There was a chasm between and international events wove themselves into the the working-class labourer and the gentrified land fabric of Hallaton society, examine how people owners. Whilst there was an ever growing and lived in the darkest of times and discover, once the aspirational middle class the rigid structure of society country and Hallaton had emerged on the other still remained solid and constant, even in a small side of the dark tunnel of war, whether the war had rural community like Hallaton where everyone changed the village forever. pretty much knew everyone else. If the differences A village is nothing without its buildings and in class remained wide the differences between the infrastructures and we will start our exploration of sexes was just as commanding. If the opportunities Hallaton with them. for the working-class man were limited, those for women were even more restrictive. Infrastructure and Buildings In the first years of the new century the country was starting to change, and as we shall see Hallaton In this section we will look at the roads and go was changing with it. Despite its fairly isolated underground to discuss the water supply and drains rural setting Hallaton was in no way a backwater, and sewers which Hallatonians used in the run- cut off from the rest the country and indeed the rest up to the first world war. We will also look at the of the world. It was, though, a traditional society. buildings in the village, assess their condition and One where the villagers were God-fearing, where ownership and look at how this affected the lives of the church and chapel played significant roles in the locals. the spiritual and physical well-being of the people It is apparent to the most casual observer that and set the tone for much of the social side of the road system of Hallaton is like the spokes village life. Hallaton was also not a village unused of a wheel, spreading out in all directions. The to war. Around 20 local men had gone off to fight implication is that these highways were created by in the Boer War and two had not returned. This the inhabitants of the town travelling out to other was dwarfed by the losses to come in the Great War, towns and villages. However, the reality is probably yet the people of the day were more used to death the very reverse. In the Iron-Age, Roman and early than we are today. It wasn’t hidden from them and Anglo-Saxon times Hallaton was an important many people died young. In some ways they were centre of pagan worship, with trackways leading prepared for what was to come. Brought up on the into it. In Anglo-Saxon times the great three field notion of King, country and empire, and watched system was established, and this can still partly be over by an approving God, was firmly reinforced seen in the extensive ridge and furrow in many of throughout schooling and beyond the classroom. the fields surrounding Hallaton. The open field The following pages will examine how Hallaton system respected the existing main roads into the was run and who ran it. They will assess how town, which flourished, and which the Normans Hallatonians lived and died, how they worked, how thought important enough to build a Motte and they played and where possible what they thought Bailey castle here. In 1284 King Edward I granted and believed. They will be placed in the physical a weekly market and two important three-day fairs; environment in which they lived, examining the with another one granted in 1304. The town of 961 Hallaton was the major market town for south-east narrow jitty, with all carriage traffic having to pass Leicestershire and the Welland Valley. up the High Street. The very names of the roads in Hallaton tell the The roads in Hallaton were maintainable by story of its past glory with the Market Cross (now Hallaton Rural District Council, including the shortened to The Cross); Horn Lane for the sale of scraping and cleaning of them, but the pavements, cattle; Hog Lane for the sale of sheep and pigs; the paths and street lights were the responsibility of Shambles for the butchery of the animals; Horse Hallaton Parish Council. The street lamps were Fair (now called North End) for the important run on oil and the Parish Council stipulated that horse fairs that took place next to Hacluit’s Pond; Tea Rose or Bear Creek oil must be used. Gordon Tenters Jitty, leading to the tenterhook field serving Hawke was the lamplighter and the lamps were to the weaving and skinning trade in the town. In be lit from 17th September to 17th April in 1913, 1384 there were at least nine Ale Houses in the except for the three nights before and one night after town and still six in 1753 a full moon. The streets were made of rolled gravel The very large parish church, with the flow of with slate or granite kerbs and cobbled gutters, and pilgrims into the town in the 13th to 16th centuries the pavements were slabbed and cobbled. Up until all attest to its past importance as a centre, served the 1950s the roads into Hallaton on the north side by a network of roads, converging on the central were all gated; this includes the Goadby Road, the hub of Hallaton town. The layout of the houses tells East Norton road at Moor Hill, the Allexton Road the same story, not scattered randomly as in many and the road to Horninghold. The only open roads villages, but each house abutting its neighbour and were those from Cranoe and Medbourne. fronting directly onto the street, with often a toft of The maintenance of the roads was a costly business, land behind and business conducted in the room and each year the Hallaton Rural District Council fronting the street. A self-sufficient town with all would ask for tenders from local stone companies the trades necessary for serving the community and to provide the granite with which the roads could the surrounding areas. be maintained. The tender for the immediate The main highways leading to Hallaton have Hallaton area was usually won by the Mountsorrel probably been in existence for some 2000 years Granite Company, and they delivered four different with only minor additions as the town grew or grades of granite to Hallaton Station, where it was trade necessitated. For example, Tupwell Lane (now kept and from where it was collected by the road Tugwell Lane) was created in 1771 by the Enclosure rolling company. There was constant discussion in Award to serve as a private road for the benefit of the Council’s meetings about asphalting the road Glebe Farm; before the 1950s there was no road from Medbourne to Ashley Station but the decision in front of the Bewicke Arms, only a footpath and to do so was always deferred. In 1913 the surveyor Hallaton High Street being steam rolled circa 1905. © F. C. Hawke. The man with his foot on the roller was John Gray, the district surveyor. Driving the roller was Robert Vials of Arthingworth and the man leaning on the spade was W. Green of Stoke Albany. Of the children, the middle one was Arthur Lount, and in the doorway Mrs Lount. 962 to the Hallaton Rural District Council reported that the stretch of road required tar painting. There was a long discussion resulting in the decision not to proceed with the work, the main reason being that those who opposed it felt that tar painting was dangerous for horse traffic on the road. The years of cars dominating the roads had not yet arrived! Some of the cost of maintaining the roads was met by the better off local people, who paid a sort of road tax. Road accidents were not uncommon; usually they involved cyclists, with the steep hill and sharp bend opposite the rectory being considered especially dangerous. TheMarket Harborough Advertiser of A typical rural road Tuesday 23rd September reported on an accident close to Hallaton the previous Friday: and Horninghold circa 1910. “Mrs Osborn, wife of Thomas Osborn, the stud groom at the Manor House met with a bad cycle of the few it is worth spending some time looking accident on Friday afternoon. She was coming at Hallaton’s houses and buildings — who owned down the hill just outside Hallaton on the road them, who lived in them and what they were like. to Medbourne when she apparently lost control Though, as we shall see, there have been many of her bicycle and dashed into the bridge at the changes over the last 100 years, the village still bottom. She was very severely injured and was contains a nucleus of buildings that would at least picked up in an unconscious condition and appear familiar to those Hallatonians of 1914. conveyed to her home.” Though Hallaton, unlike other villages of the The non-asphalted roads of the time saw fine dust time, was not dominated by one huge stately home kicked up in dry weather but when they were wet and estate, it did have its grander buildings.