Footpath
No. 8
Footpath
8 is a continuation of Church End, which used to be called Walnut Tree Lane, an
old road down the hill to Victoria and Gibraltar Farms. The Romans brought
walnuts from the Mediterranean when they settled in Britain but it is unknown
whether the walnut tree was a descendant. It was cut down when the builders
constructed the new houses on the corner of Well Elm during the 1960s. A young
chestnut tree stands in its place but the house on the corner behind it has
been appropriately named Walnut Tree House. Church Road is not much more than a
hundred metres and passes the earliest cottages in the village.
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They are wooden framed thatched cottages with
brick and stone foundations and cob walls dating from the 15th Century. Cob was
a mixture of stones, sand, straw, clay and cow dung. It was put on in layers whenever the materials were available, so
in many cases it took years to build a house. It explains why the walls are so
uneven. The inside walls were washed
with lime every year to brighten it up but also to fill in the cracks and
reduce the habitation for insects. When they were first built, blankets or
sheets used to be hung from the exposed rafters. This was to prevent spiders,
dead flies and other insects from dropping onto the bed or furniture in the
room. Later, lath and plaster provided a safer ceiling.
Just
as you begin to descend the slope there is a new kissing gate, replacing an old
stile (TL 202513). Older residents remember this route being called Victoria
Hill. It is a green lane running at an angle down the side of the ridge and was
probably one of the trackways to the residence at Story Moats. An indication of
its age is that it includes at least eight species of trees and shrubs
including oak, sycamore, horse chestnut, ash, elder, crab apple, maple and
dogwood. Just as you turn the corner, you can see a gas installation box on the
edge of an overgrown sand pit. The sand was worked until the 19th
century as a building material and as an addition to the heavy clay soils. This
field was marked on the 19th century Enclosure Map as the
‘Coneygeare’ – a rabbit warren.
On
the western side of the path, you can see some banks in a field of pasture, now
used for grazing horses. This and another larger one a little further down the
hill were worked for the clay in the 19th century (TL 202514). This
is the junction between the Lower Cambridgeshire Greensand and the blue-green
Jurassic Oxford (locally known as Ampthill) clays. A number of coarse grey
earthenware shards from Roman and Saxon times have been found in Everton
village. There were at least two kilns in operation. One has been unearthed
behind The Lawns, a 1960s housing estate just east of St Mary’s Church, and
another, just opposite the church on the site of Church Farm. Mrs Ball reported
her husband locating numerous Roman pot sherds in their garden opposite the
last thatched cottage at Church End. The Ampthill clay was worked in the 19th
century for brickmaking. Exactly when the works opened is uncertain but there
had been brickmaking centuries earlier as three fields at the bottom of the
hill are named on the 1802 Enclose Map as Further, Middle and Hither
Burntground.
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One
of the developments during the Industrial Revolution was improved technology in
the production of bricks, roof tiles and drainage pipes. There was considerable
demand for bricks for construction, farming and railways. Exactly when the
Everton brickworks opened is uncertain but it supplied the bricks for many new
building programmes in this area. The
clay was dug out in the winter and exposed on the surface, allowing it to
weather. In spring it was fed into what is called a pug mill to mix it with
other ingredients (such as chalk or sand). The bricks and tiles had to be
moulded between spring and autumn as an Act of Parliament only allowed this to
occur from March to October, as the quality of bricks made in winter was poor.
The clay needed to dry before being used.
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The
moulder, the person in charge of a team of about six men, could make maybe 1000
bricks per hour by hand, and these ‘green’ bricks were left out to dry for
several weeks before being fired in a kiln.
The
correct firing conditions was the key to success. The earliest firings were
done by heaping the bricks and charcoal together and covering with turf to stop
the oxygen igniting the fuel. Simple kilns followed - a single ‘clamp’ of a
brick arch covered with turf was one of the earliest, followed by round brick
kilns. These were not fast enough, however, and various other styles were
developed during the 19th century to give a continuous process.
Another innovation to speed up brickmaking was the development of machine
extrusion of the clay, which had only to be cut into brick-sized lengths.
According
to Mrs Brooker of Everton, Mr John Richardson, her great grandfather, was sent
by Mr Plowman of Maulden in Bedfordshire to test the clay. He did this by
digging down to the blue clay, washing it, then putting it in his mouth and
chewing it to find out how much salt was in it. He used to say Everton bricks were much better than Sandy bricks
as Sandy clay contained a lot of salt and would always be damp. He was quite right as houses at Everton
built with Sandy bricks are always damp in winter, and when they dry out in the
summer a white film of salt can be seen on them. He made all the bricks by hand and his two sons, Samuel and Amos,
and other labourers dug out the clay. There was a report that the works had a
railway engine and tramway, with tip trucks to carry the clay to the kiln. The
bricks were put into wooden moulds which were first coated with sand from the
sandpit at the other end of the field.
The kiln was in the field on the left hand side of the lane at the
bottom of the hill and it was still there in the 1930s. Some of the brick tiles
were used for the floors of local stables and barns.
Mr Richardson lived for a time in one of the three thatched
cottages which stood on what was then called Walnut Tree Lane. The three 19th
century cottages opposite Victoria Farm at the bottom of the hill were built to
house the brickyard workers. According to Mrs Brooker
“When my great
grandfather first came to start the brickyard he lodged in the village, going
home to Maulden every few weeks to take his wages to his wife. He was a local
Methodist preacher so always walked home in his Sunday best clothes ready to
take the service at the chapel next day.
One Saturday evening he was walking across a field path when he saw two
ruffians standing near the stile he had to climb. He had his Bible with him so he opened it and in a loud voice
started to recite a psalm. As he neared
the ruffians he called out ”God be with you my friends”. One of the men stepped forward as if to
intercept him but the other one said ”Let him go, he‘s only an old Bible
puncher”, so he went on his way with several weeks‘ wages in his pocket.
My grandmother‘s father
used to pitch the hymn tunes in Everton church before they had any sort of
musical instrument. He had a tuning
fork and used to sing the first line of the hymn solo. All the family were musical and although
they could not read music they used to sing in harmony very like the barbershop
singing of today.
John Richardson and his
sons were very proud of the bridge at Shefford which used to carry the railway
over the A507 road as this was built of Everton bricks. It took one thousand bricks.
John used to sleep in a
shed at the brickyard when the kiln was burning and sometimes my father kept
him company. He made the fires up at
midnight and he knew the time by the wind which always whistled through the
trees at that time.
He grew red poppies in
his garden and when he had a feverish cold he used to shake the seeds from a
dried poppy head into a saucepan of boiling water, boil for a time, then drink
the poppy seed tea when he retired for the night. This made him ”sweat it out” and the next day he used to wear two
sets of clothing to keep out the cold.”
(Notes written by Hilda Brooker to accompany her
paintings of the village during Everton Church Flower Festival July 1984)
When
the works ceased operations is not known but today they can be identified as
water-filled pits on the western side of the track. (TL 202514) It continues at
an angle down the side of the ridge to reduce the steepness. This indicates it
was used by horse and carts. It was also one of the many sunken tracks up the
ridge caused by cattle droves. Herds of cattle would have been a common sight a
century ago. Before refrigerated lorries, the livestock had to be walked to the
market and fed on the way on the commons and heaths. Some were brought down
from Wales, Scotland and Northern England to be sold at the larger towns. Large
droves of cattle often came through Everton on their way to the markets at St
Neots and St Ives. There were usually
three men with them; one went in front to wave to people to keep out them out
of the way and to stand at road junctions to guide the cattle on their way,
while the other two men walked behind and closed any gates left open.
Hilda
Brooker told the story of "Tacky" Gilbert, one such drover, who lived
in Everton. He had been a cattle drover
all his life and when he grew old he could not stay indoors but was always
roaming around the fields. He wore a
straw hat summer and winter, but one night he did not come home, so the men of
the village went down the hill in search of him. They found him dead under a hedge, in the open countryside he had
loved all his life.
When the brickworks closed down, the labourers’ cottages were
inhabited by some interesting local characters. In one there used to live a
witch - or so the locals called her. She used to stop anyone going along the
lane and ask for alms. If they refused, she used to put a curse on them and
people were terrified of her. Hilda
Brooker reported that the witch had told a relation of her grandmother's that
he must run up and down his garden path from dusk until dawn because he had
displeased her. He did and nearly died
of exhaustion in the morning!
A Miss Masterson lived in one of the cottages and was often
teased by some of the young lads in the village. Ted Smith recalls her always
wearing a pill-box hat and much enjoyed one day letting her eight goats loose
and running away. She must have recognised him as she called Sergeant
Whitehorn, the local policeman, who duly reprimanded the culprit. Locals called
her the “Hungarian“ as she swore in a foreign language.
The designated footpath does not actually begin until just
past the pond (TL202514). The field gate at the top of the hill gives local
landowners, farmers and horse-owners access to the top fields. Once at the
bottom of the ridge there is a 90o bend in the track with two large
oak trees. At one time it would have continued north-eastwards to the medieval
settlement complex around Story Moats. Instead the track turns northwest and
passes alongside the southern side of Victoria Spinney. It was on this site
that the 19th century Victoria Farm was found (TL 201518) and behind
which were three fields formerly used for brickmaking, Hither Burntground,
Middle Burntground and Higher Burntground,. The farm buildings, the cottages on
the south side of the track, as well as many other farms and agricultural buildings
on the clay beneath the Greensand Ridge, were demolished in 1942 during the
Second World War. It was part of Jasper Maskelyne’s deception plan. He was a
well-known magician engaged during the war to deceive the enemy. His aim was to
produce, what appeared from the air, to be a disused airfield. This track to
Gibraltar Farm, and others across what was to become Tempsford Airfield, had to
be closed to ordinary traffic and a special government act had to be applied
for.
High hedges and deep drainage ditches on both sides of the
path give one the impression this was once an old road and you would not be
wrong. However, deep tractor-wheel ruts and horse-hoof prints in the soft,
often water-logged clay can make this path particularly difficult after heavy rain.
Sturdy boots with ankle supports are recommended. In places the vegetation
encroaches the path so be prepared to bend it back or break it off. Beware of
the brambles though. Plants found along it include blackberry, thistle, dock,
teasel, burr, gunnera, cow parsley, rosebay willow herb, plantain and vetch,
The hedge includes hawthorn, wild roses, sloe and rowan. The sound of running
water can be mistaken for a flowing stream. In fact it is water from the field
drains emptying into the ditch.
The path continues for a
further 1200 metres over rough ground, alongside Waterloo Copse, past the
south-western edge of Happy’s Plantation (TL 196523) and ‘The Butts’, marked on
the map in the middle of the field opposite Gibraltar Farm (TL 195525) until it
reaches the Roman Road (TL 193525).
Judy Knight, the Bedfordshire botanist, commented on the natural history of
this walk.
After
leaving the path from the church you begin the walk along an ancient green lane
where the intense blue flowers of Green (or Evergreen) Alkanet border the path.
You may also find Cuckoo-pint (otherwise known as Lords and Ladies or Wild
Arum) with its arrow-shaped leaves and curious, rather sinister, brown spike in
a protective sheath. In high summer this spike – actually the clustered flowers
- becomes a mass of scarlet berries. There are also two mature apple trees on
your right.
As
the path opens up there is plenty of bird song to listen out for. In spring
warblers abound; the Whitethroat sings its scratchy song or emits its cross-sounding
call from the bushes, Blackcaps flute and Garden Warblers bubble their frantic
speedy notes.
Soon
on your right you pass woodland, and in late April and early May the
unmistakable scent of Bluebells arises. Bluebells are an indication that there
has been woodland here for a very long time. Pause briefly to look underfoot
and you should soon see the silvery feathery leaves of Silverweed, and perhaps
its bright yellow 5-petalled flowers.
Listen
out here for the close relative of the Whitethroat, the Lesser Whitethroat, a
small warbler with a grey “mask” which utters a rattling song that always
sounds unfinished.
Teasels abound at the side of the grassy
path; in their first year they form a rosette of pointed leaves and it is not
until their second year that the purplish flower heads appear, developing in
autumn into the familiar spiny seed heads, much beloved of Goldfinches.