Leek Wootton
History Group News
The
Leek Wootton History Group was established in 1999 by a group of
residents in order to write a history of the Parish of Leek Wootton
& Guy's Cliffe for the Millennium. Leek Wootton
and its Hamlets was published in October 2001 and was very successful.
Since
2001 the History Group has continued to pursue interests in the
history of the local area on a casual basis, including continued
promotion of its publications, assisting local and family historians
and, most recently, a mutually advantageous involvement with Warwickshire
County Record Office's Outside
the Box project.
In
2009 the History Group published 'Mary
Wise's Recipe Book' in partnership with Outside
the Box, with grant support from The
Heart of England Community Foundation. In order to secure the
grant funding, the History Group was required to adopt a constitution
and formalise its existence. A copy of the History Group's constitution
is available to view here.
In
May 2010 the History Group will hold its first Annual Meeting, at
which it will formally decide its future direction and project possibilities.
2001
Leek Wootton & Guy's Cliffe Website Rings Some Bells
The
Webmaster was delighted to receive an email recently from a former resident
of the village who now lives in Melbourne, Australia. Tony Foster and
his brother Stuart were evacuated from their family home in Ilford,
Essex, in September 1939 and after some time in Aldeburgh, Suffolk,
were placed with the Hobbins family and then the Clarke family in Leek
Wootton.
Readers
of the village history book may be familiar with these two families.
John Hobbins Snr was the Wagonner at Woodcote
and Sexton and Verger at All Saints' Church for fifty years.
The Clarkes were a mature, childless couple who lived at the cottage
across Woodcote Lane from The Anchor Inn (now named Ivy Cottage)
and Joe was a gardener at Woodcote and the village molecatcher.
Tony
and Stuart
Foster with their mother, Dorothea,
on leaving Aldeburgh, Suffolk
"Arriving
after an air raid on Coventry I remember seeing the injured being
carried through the village on stretchers across the seats of Midland
Red buses.
"Our
first stay was with Mr and Mrs Hobbins and their son John who lived
in the houses opposite the school, I think the next door neighbours
were the Court family.
Mrs Hobbins with her son, John, and the father of
the boys, Len Foster
with Stuart and Tony and their baby sister, Carole
"After
a short stay we moved to Mr and Mrs Clarke, who lived in the thatched
cottage on the corner of the lane opposite the Anchor Inn. The cottage
consisted of one room and larder downstairs, and two bedrooms upstairs,
the front one being ours; memories of a feather mattress and an
eiderdown quilt. Across the yard was the washouse with its copper
and fire underneath.
"The
Clarke's where very good to us, so much so that I cannot say we
missed our parents. I still recall a bath on Saturday night in a
tin bath in front of the fire, warming the bed with hot coals in
a warming pan, and hot bricks wrapped in a towel, better than any
hot waterbottle; also Clematis growing on the front of the cottage,
and the shutters closed every night."
For
Tony's full accounts click here
for the Website Feedback page
The
Leek Wootton History Group has been delighted to receive Tony's
unsolicited reminiscences. "After all of the hard work through
2000/01 to get the book printed and launched the reactions of many residents,
past and present, has been overwhelming.
"It
is intended to keep these stories in a village archive to serve as a
resource to the community, and already it is hoped that the school will
appreciate this first hand account of the experiences of an evacuee
as Year 4 studies the 'War Years' this term.
"The
website has proved a valuable instrument in the quest for such stories
as it is doubtful that many of the people who have emailed would ever
have heard about the History Group or the book. So anyone who is
reading this now and has anything to share, no matter how small it may
seem to them, please contact us."
Click
Here to go to the History Group's pages
