Sprowston Heritage Wiki - User contributions [en]

Cycling

2016-01-15T19:09:22Z

Ken: update the physical side of life cycling

==Cycling==
Introduction to article by Mick Gambling.
Mick who is now 80, offered to write a short article for Sprowston Heritage, originally destined for “Bev’s Blog”. Bev Woolner (Vice Chairman-Sprowston Heritage) however realised it was truly a record in its own right so we are publishing it in full. Despite advancing years Mick still rides, although not in competitions but still takes a keen interest knowing he and his wife’s cycling exploits offer inspiration to up and coming riders.

===Sprowston Wheelers===
A personal memoir, remembering a local cycling club, (66 years ago) by Mick Gambling (Sprowstonian).
There is a cycling boom now but just after the 2nd World War, there was an even bigger one. Cars were very expensive, production low and petrol rationed.
Along the coastline, the explosive mines clearance was completed by 1949, and thousands of cyclists invaded the beaches. They rode bikes ranging from rusty utility heavyweights, to proper racing machines with derailleur gears.
Every Sunday the Acle Straight was clogged with a continuous convoy of excited youngsters and their elders, anticipating the first sight of sand and sea. The 20 miles return to Norwich was a tired and wobbly retreat, completed with exhaustion, satisfaction and exaggeration, in equal parts.
Gleaming new "racers" appeared in the cycle rack at school and I was invited by their proud owners to join them for a ride to Hemsby.
At the Blofield Globe rendezvous was a girl, Cynthia Cary, awaiting school friends Gwenda Davis and Maureen Marris. They still keep in touch. Gwenda recalls "There were no special cycling clothes then. I borrowed my brother's trousers until he found out and wanted them back. Then he was upset by gritty chain oil on the right leg. “Yes, a long wait for the invention of lycra”.
We had a splendid day, enjoying the sun and swimming, then riding home, about 20 of us.

They were Sprowston Wheelers, who did not care that I hailed from Drayton Road.

My Dad bought me a second-hand Dayton Roadmaster, with very thin tubing. Our weekly jaunts were extended, led by Dave Oxbury, because he was the only rider with a map and camera. We managed Blakeney and down the coast road to Hemsby, linking with our other members, half of whom were female. Later, we escorted them home, completing a round trip of 100 miles. I thought Poppy Langley was lovely but was too shy to say so. Expect it is too late now.
Also, we played table tennis at St. Cuthbert's Church Hall on Saturday evenings and Dave applied for entry into the Norwich Leagues, playing in a barn, behind the Denmark pub. Team regulars, all Sprowston cyclists, were Dave, Terry Eames, Mick Barnes, Brian Burgess, Freddie Page and me.

After a couple of years, I concentrated on cycle racing, my place inherited by Bob Taylor, a boxer. He now runs the team. Still has a good backhand and a powerful right hook!
Needing a race-affiliated club in 1953, we joined the East Anglian CC, in Norwich, which had kindred spirits to ourselves on club runs. With a well-planned tea place, a ride could absorb 12 hours.
Youth Hostel weekends and touring holidays were popular, still with a nucleus of the original Sprowston club.
Meanwhile, Cynthia went on to represent Great Britain, road racing at international level.
Now, when we meet, our memories are of good company and hilarious incidents, with recollections of the various characters.

Laughter and physical fitness, certainly.

Several of us old Sprowston Wheelers cycled to a Reepham café this summer and someone mentioned the demise of my early-days Dayton bike. In a 1954 race, riding with Freddie as my partner, the thin seat pillar broke and I sustained severe gashes inside both thighs. Wearing shorts in the café, there was a temptation to display the still-vivid scars, with a flourish. An elderly lady had to be revived by her friend.
Recently, I met a rider from the old days. "Mick," he said, "they were the best years of my life." His wife was nearby and gave him a fierce look, which meant big trouble when he got home.
The Sprowston Wheelers was a good springboard for the lifetime ahead. Perhaps this article will ring memory bells with some readers, from the golden era of cycling, even if they did not actually ride.
© Mick Gambling - September 2015.

<gallery widths=200px>
MG Cycle Image 1 (690x686).jpg|Taken at the Brickmakers PH 1951, “The Hard Men” 100 milers are ready - Left to Right. Dave Oxbury, Freddie Page, John Panks, Mick Barnes, Mick Gambling, Terry Eames and Peter Clarke.
MG Cycle Image 2 (899x681).jpg|Brickmakers PH 1952 Left to Right. Cynthia Cary, Terry Eames, Gwenda Davis, Brian Burgess, Unknown, Brian South, Maureen Marris, Unknown, Brenda Marris and Mick Gambling.
MG Cycle Image 3 (764x654).jpg|Filby Broad Left to Right. Top Row. Unknown, Unknown, Les Joyce. Mick Gambling. Brian South. Brian Burgess. Second Row. Unknown, Unkown, Brenda Marris, Maureen Marris, Terry Eames. Bottom Row. Gwenda Davis, Cynthia Cary and Mick Barnes.
MG Cycle Image 4 (507x668).jpg|Mick Gambling taking part in a time trial in 2005.
</gallery>
[[Category:The physical side of life]]

Cycling

2016-01-15T16:15:57Z

Ken: update cycling

Cycling

2015-12-30T09:53:40Z

Ken: The physical side of life cycling

File:MG Cycle Image 4 (507x668).jpg

2015-12-30T09:35:38Z

Ken:

File:MG Cycle Image 3 (764x654).jpg

2015-12-30T09:35:17Z

Ken:

File:MG Cycle Image 1 (690x686).jpg

2015-12-30T09:34:19Z

Ken:

File:MG Cycle Image 2 (899x681).jpg

2015-12-30T09:33:21Z

Ken:

File:JPEG3.jpg

2015-12-27T11:02:45Z

Ken:

File:JPEG1.jpg

2015-12-27T10:58:19Z

Ken:

File:JPEG2.jpg

2015-12-27T10:56:42Z

Ken:

Ice cream

2015-12-10T19:02:28Z

Ken:

==Ice cream in Sprowston==
When Sprowston Heritage started in 2000, we were looking for images and family stories to put on our archive.
We had a stall at Sprowston Fete that summer and many of our mature visitors on that day, mentioned their time at the school on School Lane, and also the schools on Recreation Ground Road (1910-1939).
One of their memories was coming out of the schools and buying an ice cream from the famous Italian ice cream makers.

By the 1850`s ice cream machines had been invented and Ice cream sellers roamed the streets of Norfolk. In most cases it was families that originally came from Italy that worked in this new market.

Initially they used their handcarts, which they then moved on to horse carts, then a commercial tricycle and finally to the motorised van version we see on our streets today. Icecream, cornets, wafers, blocks and fruit lollipops were available.
If you were lucky the cornets were sometimes sprinkled with or dipped into a tray of hundreds and thousands. Later came the choc-ices and 99`s (Cone, soft ice cream and a chocolate stick).

I was told that the school children bought the ice cream known as the “penny licks”.
A dab or scoop of ice cream was placed onto a small glass dish and this cost one half penny, the child then licked the ice cream until the dish was clean, the dish was returned, Of course sometimes the glass dish was dropped or the child would forget to return it!
Today this would be considered a health hazard and not the cleanest way to eat ice cream, but in 1902 the edible ice cream cup was invented, but it was still sometime before this came to Norfolk.

===Peruzzi Ice Cream===

In 1930, Mr Joseph Peruzzi, would go on his usual rounds with his ice cream cart. His family originated in Italy and had a lovely brown and white pony.
The ice creams were ½d (0.2np) for a cornet with the option of sarsaparilla on top.

The Peruzzi family were Ice cream makers and Sellers, eventually they
became successful Scrap Metal Merchants.

===Parravani Ice Cream===

The Parravani family has been making Italian ice cream in Norfolk and Suffolk since 1898. The business was started in 1898 by Giuseppe Parravani, who had come over from a small village near Naples in Italy as a teenager to find his older brother Domenico, who had set up an ice cream business in Ber Street in Norwich.
In 1909 he married an Italian girl, Caterina, who had come over from Florence and was living with an Italian family in Ipswich. They settled in Southend Road in Bungay, where their first two children were born.

Giuseppe bought two cows for the milk for ice cream, and a plot of land to keep them and the ponies on, and the business continued to grow. After about four years the family moved to Pirnhow Street in Ditchingham, where they had nine further children. As each child left school, they helped in the business, selling ice cream from beautifully painted ice cream carts – often being shown the rounds by an experienced pony! In those days an ice cream would cost ½d.
In 1931 the family arranged to move to Dulls Farm in Ellingham, but sadly a week before they moved Giuseppe died at the age of 47.
This left Caterina to bring up eleven children, the youngest of whom was a baby of six months, look after the farm and milk the cows.
The business carried on from Ellingham, run by Giuseppe's eldest son Augie Parravani, and just before the war the first ice cream van was put on the road.
It had been converted by the family from a car, with bigger windows, a higher roof and rear doors being added. It was used until production stopped in 1940 soon after the outbreak of war.

In 1946 manufacture of ice cream started again, and was continued by Augie and his brothers Peter and Domenico until Augie retired in 1985.

Many of these hardworking Italian families came to Norwich and opened businesses, Fish shops, Hairdressers, Cafes and Restaurants.

We would like to thank two ladies with Sprowston connections, Christine and Sarah for delving into their respective Peruzzi and Parravani family albums.

===White Owl Ice Cream===

Before they went out of business white owl ice cream was sold in the newsagents opposite the brickmakers it was originally the candy cabin and was owned by a Mr Reevie. Another shop selling the ice cream general stores in

Salhouse.
One Sprowston resident remembers being a member of the White Owl Club in the 1950`s and the call sign was “Twit Twoo”. The ice cream was sold from the ice cream van, this travelled around the estates, stopping at various places, a musical chime was played to attract the customers.

<gallery widths=200px>
Ice2.jpg|Ice Cream Cart
Ice3.jpg|J Peruzzi Horse and Cart
Ice4.jpg|J Peruzzi Ice Cream Van
Ice5.jpg|Parravini`s Standing near Ice Cream Van
Ice6.jpg|Parravini`s Ice Cream, Two young Boys getting ready to tuck into Twin Head Cone of Ice Cream
Ice7.jpg|Parravini`s Ice Cream Selection Still in Production Today
Ice8.jpg|White Owl Ice Cream Factory Sprowston Road
</gallery>
[[Category:Industry]]

Ice cream

2015-12-10T18:58:41Z

Ken:

==Ice cream in Sprowston==
When Sprowston Heritage started in 2000, we were looking for images and family stories to put on our archive.
We had a stall at Sprowston Fete that summer and many of our mature visitors on that day, mentioned their time at the school on School Lane, and also the schools on Recreation Ground Road (1910-1939).
One of their memories was coming out of the schools and buying an ice cream from the famous Italian ice cream makers.

By the 1850`s ice cream machines had been invented and Ice cream sellers roamed the streets of Norfolk. In most cases it was families that originally came from Italy that worked in this new market.

Initially they used their handcarts, which they then moved on to horse carts, then a commercial tricycle and finally to the motorised van version we see on our streets today. Icecream, cornets, wafers, blocks and fruit lollipops were available.
If you were lucky the cornets were sometimes sprinkled with or dipped into a tray of hundreds and thousands. Later came the choc-ices and 99`s (Cone, soft ice cream and a chocolate stick).

I was told that the school children bought the ice cream known as the “penny licks”.
A dab or scoop of ice cream was placed onto a small glass dish and this cost one half penny, the child then licked the ice cream until the dish was clean, the dish was returned, Of course sometimes the glass dish was dropped or the child would forget to return it!
Today this would be considered a health hazard and not the cleanest way to eat ice cream, but in 1902 the edible ice cream cup was invented, but it was still sometime before this came to Norfolk.

===Peruzzi Ice Cream===

In 1930, Mr Joseph Peruzzi, would go on his usual rounds with his ice cream cart. His family originated in Italy and had a lovely brown and white pony.
The ice creams were 1/2d (6np) for a cornet with the option of sarsaparilla on top.

The Peruzzi family were Ice cream makers and Sellers, eventually they
became successful Scrap Metal Merchants.

===Parravani Ice Cream===

The Parravani family has been making Italian ice cream in Norfolk and Suffolk since 1898. The business was started in 1898 by Giuseppe Parravani, who had come over from a small village near Naples in Italy as a teenager to find his older brother Domenico, who had set up an ice cream business in Ber Street in Norwich.
In 1909 he married an Italian girl, Caterina, who had come over from Florence and was living with an Italian family in Ipswich. They settled in Southend Road in Bungay, where their first two children were born.

Giuseppe bought two cows for the milk for ice cream, and a plot of land to keep them and the ponies on, and the business continued to grow. After about four years the family moved to Pirnhow Street in Ditchingham, where they had nine further children. As each child left school, they helped in the business, selling ice cream from beautifully painted ice cream carts – often being shown the rounds by an experienced pony! In those days an ice cream would cost ½d.
In 1931 the family arranged to move to Dulls Farm in Ellingham, but sadly a week before they moved Giuseppe died at the age of 47.
This left Caterina to bring up eleven children, the youngest of whom was a baby of six months, look after the farm and milk the cows.
The business carried on from Ellingham, run by Giuseppe's eldest son Augie Parravani, and just before the war the first ice cream van was put on the road.
It had been converted by the family from a car, with bigger windows, a higher roof and rear doors being added. It was used until production stopped in 1940 soon after the outbreak of war.

In 1946 manufacture of ice cream started again, and was continued by Augie and his brothers Peter and Domenico until Augie retired in 1985.

Many of these hardworking Italian families came to Norwich and opened businesses, Fish shops, Hairdressers, Cafes and Restaurants.

We would like to thank two ladies with Sprowston connections, Christine and Sarah for delving into their respective Peruzzi and Parravani family albums.

===White Owl Ice Cream===

Before they went out of business white owl ice cream was sold in the newsagents opposite the brickmakers it was originally the candy cabin and was owned by a Mr Reevie. Another shop selling the ice cream general stores in

Salhouse.
One Sprowston resident remembers being a member of the White Owl Club in the 1950`s and the call sign was “Twit Twoo”. The ice cream was sold from the ice cream van, this travelled around the estates, stopping at various places, a musical chime was played to attract the customers.

<gallery widths=200px>
Ice2.jpg|Ice Cream Cart
Ice3.jpg|J Peruzzi Horse and Cart
Ice4.jpg|J Peruzzi Ice Cream Van
Ice5.jpg|Parravini`s Standing near Ice Cream Van
Ice6.jpg|Parravini`s Ice Cream, Two young Boys getting ready to tuck into Twin Head Cone of Ice Cream
Ice7.jpg|Parravini`s Ice Cream Selection Still in Production Today
Ice8.jpg|White Owl Ice Cream Factory Sprowston Road
</gallery>
[[Category:Industry]]

Ice cream

2015-12-05T10:56:38Z

Ken:

==Ice cream in Sprowston==
When Sprowston Heritage started in 2000, we were looking for images and family stories to put on our archive.
We had a stall at Sprowston Fete that summer and many of our mature visitors on that day, mentioned their time at the school on School Lane, and also the schools on Recreation Ground Road (1910-1939).
One of their memories was coming out of the schools and buying an ice cream from the famous Italian ice cream makers.

By the 1850`s ice cream machines had been invented and Ice cream sellers roamed the streets of Norfolk. In most cases it was families that originally came from Italy that worked in this new market.

Initially they used their handcarts, which they then moved on to horse carts, then a commercial tricycle and finally to the motorised van version we see on our streets today. Icecream, cornets, wafers, blocks and fruit lollipops were available.
If you were lucky the cornets were sometimes sprinkled with or dipped into a tray of hundreds and thousands. Later came the choc-ices and 99`s (Cone, soft ice cream and a chocolate stick).

I was told that the school children bought the ice cream known as the “penny licks”.
A dab or scoop of ice cream was placed onto a small glass dish and this cost one half penny, the child then licked the ice cream until the dish was clean, the dish was returned, Of course sometimes the glass dish was dropped or the child would forget to return it!
Today this would be considered a health hazard and not the cleanest way to eat ice cream, but in 1902 the edible ice cream cup was invented, but it was still sometime before this came to Norfolk.

===Peruzzi Ice Cream===

In 1930, Mr Joseph Peruzzi, would go on his usual rounds with his ice cream cart. His family originated in Italy and had a lovely brown and white pony.
The ice creams were 1/2d (6np) for a cornet with the option of sarsaparilla on top.

The Peruzzi family were Ice cream makers and Sellers, eventually they
became successful Scrap Metal Merchants.

===Parravani Ice Cream===

The Parravani family has been making Italian ice cream in Norfolk and Suffolk since 1898. The business was started in 1898 by Giuseppe Parravani, who had come over from a small village near Naples in Italy as a teenager to find his older brother Domenico, who had set up an ice cream business in Ber Street in Norwich.
In 1909 he married an Italian girl, Caterina, who had come over from Florence and was living with an Italian family in Ipswich. They settled in Southend Road in Bungay, where their first two children were born.

Giuseppe bought two cows for the milk for ice cream, and a plot of land to keep them and the ponies on, and the business continued to grow. After about four years the family moved to Pirnhow Street in Ditchingham, where they had nine further children. As each child left school, they helped in the business, selling ice cream from beautifully painted ice cream carts – often being shown the rounds by an experienced pony! In those days an ice cream would cost ½d.
In 1931 the family arranged to move to Dulls Farm in Ellingham, but sadly a week before they moved Giuseppe died at the age of 47.
This left Caterina to bring up eleven children, the youngest of whom was a baby of six months, look after the farm and milk the cows.
The business carried on from Ellingham, run by Giuseppe's eldest son Augie Parravani, and just before the war the first ice cream van was put on the road.
It had been converted by the family from a car, with bigger windows, a higher roof and rear doors being added. It was used until production stopped in 1940 soon after the outbreak of war.

In 1946 manufacture of ice cream started again, and was continued by Augie and his brothers Peter and Domenico until Augie retired in 1985.

Many of these hardworking Italian families came to Norwich and opened businesses, Fish shops, Hairdressers, Cafes and Restaurants.

Before they went out of business white owl ice cream was sold in the newsagents opposite the brickmakers it was originally the candy cabin and was owned by a mr Reevie. Another shop selling the ice cream general stores in Salhouse.

We would like to thank two ladies with Sprowston connections, Christine and Sarah for delving into their respective Peruzzi and Parravani family albums.

===White Owl Ice Cream Factory~ Mousehold Lane===

One Sprowston resident remembers being a member of the White Owl Club in the 1950`s and the call sign was “Twit Twoo”. The ice cream was sold from the ice cream van, this travelled around the estates, stopping at various places, a musical chime was played to attract the customers.

<gallery widths=200px>
Ice2.jpg|Ice Cream Cart
Ice3.jpg|J Peruzzi Horse and Cart
Ice4.jpg|J Peruzzi Ice Cream Van
Ice5.jpg|Parravini`s Standing near Ice Cream Van
Ice6.jpg|Parravini`s Ice Cream, Two young Boys getting ready to tuck into Twin Head Cone of Ice Cream
Ice7.jpg|Parravini`s Ice Cream Selection Still in Production Today
Ice8.jpg|White Owl Ice Cream Factory Sprowston Road
</gallery>
[[Category:Industry]]

Ice cream

2015-12-04T13:18:09Z

Ken:

==Ice cream in Sprowston==
When Sprowston Heritage started in 2000, we were looking for images and family stories to put on our archive.
We had a stall at Sprowston Fete that summer and many of our mature visitors on that day, mentioned their time at the school on School Lane, and also the schools on Recreation Ground Road (1910-1939).
One of their memories was coming out of the schools and buying an ice cream from the famous Italian ice cream makers.

By the 1850`s ice cream machines had been invented and Ice cream sellers roamed the streets of Norfolk. In most cases it was families that originally came from Italy that worked in this new market.

Initially they used their handcarts, which they then moved on to horse carts, then a commercial tricycle and finally to the motorised van version we see on our streets today. Icecream, cornets, wafers, blocks and fruit lollipops were available.
If you were lucky the cornets were sometimes sprinkled with or dipped into a tray of hundreds and thousands. Later came the choc-ices and 99`s (Cone, soft ice cream and a chocolate stick).

I was told that the school children bought the ice cream known as the “penny licks”.
A dab or scoop of ice cream was placed onto a small glass dish and this cost one half penny, the child then licked the ice cream until the dish was clean, the dish was returned to the ice. Of course sometimes the glass dish was dropped or the child would forget to return it!
Today this would be considered a health hazard and not the cleanest way to eat ice cream, but in 1902 the edible ice cream cup was invented, but it was still sometime before this came to Norfolk.

===Peruzzi Ice Cream===

In 1930, Mr Joseph Peruzzi, would go on his usual rounds with his ice cream cart. His family originated in Italy and had a lovely brown and white pony.
The ice creams were 1/2d (6np) for a cornet with the option of sarsaparilla on top.

The Peruzzi family were Ice cream makers and Sellers, eventually they
became successful Scrap Metal Merchants.

===Parravani Ice Cream===

The Parravani family has been making Italian ice cream in Norfolk and Suffolk since 1898. The business was started in 1898 by Giuseppe Parravani, who had come over from a small village near Naples in Italy as a teenager to find his older brother Domenico, who had set up an ice cream business in Ber Street in Norwich.
In 1909 he married an Italian girl, Caterina, who had come over from Florence and was living with an Italian family in Ipswich. They settled in Southend Road in Bungay, where their first two children were born.

Giuseppe bought two cows for the milk for ice cream, and a plot of land to keep them and the ponies on, and the business continued to grow. After about four years the family moved to Pirnhow Street in Ditchingham, where they had nine further children. As each child left school, they helped in the business, selling ice cream from beautifully painted ice cream carts – often being shown the rounds by an experienced pony! In those days an ice cream would cost ½d.
In 1931 the family arranged to move to Dulls Farm in Ellingham, but sadly a week before they moved Giuseppe died at the age of 47.
This left Caterina to bring up eleven children, the youngest of whom was a baby of six months, look after the farm and milk the cows.
The business carried on from Ellingham, run by Giuseppe's eldest son Augie Parravani, and just before the war the first ice cream van was put on the road.
It had been converted by the family from a car, with bigger windows, a higher roof and rear doors being added. It was used until production stopped in 1940 soon after the outbreak of war.

In 1946 manufacture of ice cream started again, and was continued by Augie and his brothers Peter and Domenico until Augie retired in 1985.

Many of these hardworking Italian families came to Norwich and opened businesses, Fish shops, Hairdressers, Cafes and Restaurants.

Before they went out of business white owl ice cream was sold in the newsagents opposite the brickmakers it was originally the candy cabin and was owned by a mr Reevie. Another shop selling the ice cream general stores in Salhouse.

We would like to thank two ladies with Sprowston connections, Christine and Sarah for delving into their respective Peruzzi and Parravani family albums.

===White Owl Ice Cream Factory~ Mousehold Lane===

One Sprowston resident remembers being a member of the White Owl Club in the 1950`s and the call sign was “Twit Twoo”. The ice cream was sold from the ice cream van, this travelled around the estates, stopping at various places, a musical chime was played to attract the customers.

<gallery widths=200px>
Ice2.jpg|Ice Cream Cart
Ice3.jpg|J Peruzzi Horse and Cart
Ice4.jpg|J Peruzzi Ice Cream Van
Ice5.jpg|Parravini`s Standing near Ice Cream Van
Ice6.jpg|Parravini`s Ice Cream, Two young Boys getting ready to tuck into Twin Head Cone of Ice Cream
Ice7.jpg|Parravini`s Ice Cream Selection Still in Production Today
Ice8.jpg|White Owl Ice Cream Factory Sprowston Road
</gallery>
[[Category:Industry]]

Ice cream

2015-12-03T20:05:03Z

Ken:

==Icecream in Sprowston==
When Sprowston Heritage started in 2000, we were looking for images and family stories to put on our archive.
We had a stall at Sprowston Fete that summer and many of our mature visitors on that day, mentioned their time at the school on School Lane, and also the schools on Recreation Ground Road (1910-1939).
One of their memories was coming out of the schools and buying an ice cream from the famous Italian ice cream makers.

By the 1850`s ice cream machines had been invented and Ice cream sellers roamed the streets of Norfolk. In most cases it was families that originally came from Italy that worked in this new market.

Initially they used their handcarts, which they then moved on to horse carts, then a commercial tricycle and finally to the motorised van version we see on our streets today. Icecream, cornets, wafers, blocks and fruit lollipops were available.
If you were lucky the cornets were sometimes sprinkled with or dipped into a tray of hundreds and thousands. Later came the choc-ices and 99`s (Cone, soft ice cream and a chocolate stick).

I was told that the school children bought the ice cream known as the “penny licks”.
A dab or scoop of ice cream was placed onto a small glass dish and this cost one half penny, the child then licked the ice cream until the dish was clean, the dish was returned to the ice. Of course sometimes the glass dish was dropped or the child would forget to return it!
Today this would be considered a health hazard and not the cleanest way to eat ice cream, but in 1902 the edible ice cream cup was invented, but it was still sometime before this came to Norfolk.

Peruzzi Ice Cream.

In 1930, Mr Joseph Peruzzi, would go on his usual rounds with his ice cream cart. His family originated in Italy and had a lovely brown and white pony.
The ice creams were 1/2d (6np) for a cornet with the option of sarsaparilla on top.

A Joe Peruzzi Van.

The Peruzzi family were Ice cream makers and Sellers, eventually they
became successful Scrap Metal Merchants.

Parravani Ice Cream.

The Parravani family has been making Italian ice cream in Norfolk and Suffolk since 1898. The business was started in 1898 by Giuseppe Parravani, who had come over from a small village near Naples in Italy as a teenager to find his older brother Domenico, who had set up an ice cream business in Ber Street in Norwich.
In 1909 he married an Italian girl, Caterina, who had come over from Florence and was living with an Italian family in Ipswich. They settled in Southend Road in Bungay, where their first two children were born.

Giuseppe bought two cows for the milk for ice cream, and a plot of land to keep them and the ponies on, and the business continued to grow. After about four years the family moved to Pirnhow Street in Ditchingham, where they had nine further children. As each child left school, they helped in the business, selling ice cream from beautifully painted ice cream carts – often being shown the rounds by an experienced pony! In those days an ice cream would cost ½d.
In 1931 the family arranged to move to Dulls Farm in Ellingham, but sadly a week before they moved Giuseppe died at the age of 47.
This left Caterina to bring up eleven children, the youngest of whom was a baby of six months, look after the farm and milk the cows.
The business carried on from Ellingham, run by Giuseppe's eldest son Augie Parravani, and just before the war the first ice cream van was put on the road.
It had been converted by the family from a car, with bigger windows, a higher roof and rear doors being added. It was used until production stopped in 1940 soon after the outbreak of war.

In 1946 manufacture of ice cream started again, and was continued by Augie and his brothers Peter and Domenico until Augie retired in 1985.

Two young boys getting ready to tuck into a twinhead cone of ice cream.
They still make ice cream today.

Many of these hardworking Italian families came to Norwich and opened businesses, Fish shops, Hairdressers, Cafes and Restaurants.

Before they went out of business white owl ice cream was sold in the newsagents opposite the brickmakers it was originally the candy cabin and was owned by a mr Reevie. Another shop selling the ice cream general stores in Salhouse.

We would like to thank two ladies with Sprowston connections, Christine and Sarah for delving into their respective Peruzzi and Parravani family albums.

White Owl Ice Cream Factory~ Mousehold Lane.

One Sprowston resident remembers being a member of the White Owl Club in the 1950`s and the call sign was “Twit Twoo”. The ice cream was sold from the ice cream van, this travelled around the estates, stopping at various places, a musical chime was played to attract the customers.
Image shows two ladies working in the factory.

<gallery widths=200px>
Ice2.jpg|Ice Cream Cart
Ice3.jpg|J Peruzzi Horse and Cart
Ice4.jpg|J Peruzzi Ice Cream Van
Ice5.jpg|Parravini`s Standing near Ice Cream Van
Ice6.jpg|Parravini`s Ice Cream, Two young Boys getting ready to tuck into Twin Head Cone of Ice Cream
Ice7.jpg|Parravini`s Ice Cream Selection Still in Production Today
Ice8.jpg|White Owl Ice Cream Factory Sprowston Road
</gallery>
[[Category:Industry]]

Ice cream

2015-12-03T20:01:36Z

Ken:

==Icecream in Sprowston==
When Sprowston Heritage started in 2000, we were looking for images and family stories to put on our archive.
We had a stall at Sprowston Fete that summer and many of our mature visitors on that day, mentioned their time at the school on School Lane, and also the schools on Recreation Ground Road (1910-1939).
One of their memories was coming out of the schools and buying an ice cream from the famous Italian ice cream makers.

By the 1850`s ice cream machines had been invented and Ice cream sellers roamed the streets of Norfolk. In most cases it was families that originally came from Italy that worked in this new market.

Initially they used their handcarts, which they then moved on to horse carts, then a commercial tricycle and finally to the motorised van version we see on our streets today. Icecream, cornets, wafers, blocks and fruit lollipops were available.
If you were lucky the cornets were sometimes sprinkled with or dipped into a tray of hundreds and thousands. Later came the choc-ices and 99`s (Cone, soft ice cream and a chocolate stick).

I was told that the school children bought the ice cream known as the “penny licks”.
A dab or scoop of ice cream was placed onto a small glass dish and this cost one half penny, the child then licked the ice cream until the dish was clean, the dish was returned to the ice. Of course sometimes the glass dish was dropped or the child would forget to return it!
Today this would be considered a health hazard and not the cleanest way to eat ice cream, but in 1902 the edible ice cream cup was invented, but it was still sometime before this came to Norfolk.

Peruzzi Ice Cream.

In 1930, Mr Joseph Peruzzi, would go on his usual rounds with his ice cream cart. His family originated in Italy and had a lovely brown and white pony.
The ice creams were 1/2d (6np) for a cornet with the option of sarsaparilla on top.

A Joe Peruzzi Van.

The Peruzzi family were Ice cream makers and Sellers, eventually they
became successful Scrap Metal Merchants.

Parravani Ice Cream.

The Parravani family has been making Italian ice cream in Norfolk and Suffolk since 1898. The business was started in 1898 by Giuseppe Parravani, who had come over from a small village near Naples in Italy as a teenager to find his older brother Domenico, who had set up an ice cream business in Ber Street in Norwich.
In 1909 he married an Italian girl, Caterina, who had come over from Florence and was living with an Italian family in Ipswich. They settled in Southend Road in Bungay, where their first two children were born.

Giuseppe bought two cows for the milk for ice cream, and a plot of land to keep them and the ponies on, and the business continued to grow. After about four years the family moved to Pirnhow Street in Ditchingham, where they had nine further children. As each child left school, they helped in the business, selling ice cream from beautifully painted ice cream carts – often being shown the rounds by an experienced pony! In those days an ice cream would cost ½d.
In 1931 the family arranged to move to Dulls Farm in Ellingham, but sadly a week before they moved Giuseppe died at the age of 47.
This left Caterina to bring up eleven children, the youngest of whom was a baby of six months, look after the farm and milk the cows.
The business carried on from Ellingham, run by Giuseppe's eldest son Augie Parravani, and just before the war the first ice cream van was put on the road.
It had been converted by the family from a car, with bigger windows, a higher roof and rear doors being added. It was used until production stopped in 1940 soon after the outbreak of war.

In 1946 manufacture of ice cream started again, and was continued by Augie and his brothers Peter and Domenico until Augie retired in 1985.

Two young boys getting ready to tuck into a twinhead cone of ice cream.
They still make ice cream today.

Many of these hardworking Italian families came to Norwich and opened businesses, Fish shops, Hairdressers, Cafes and Restaurants.

Before they went out of business white owl ice cream was sold in the newsagents opposite the brickmakers it was originally the candy cabin and was owned by a mr Reevie. Another shop selling the ice cream general stores in Salhouse.

We would like to thank two ladies with Sprowston connections, Christine and Sarah for delving into their respective Peruzzi and Parravani family albums.

White Owl Ice Cream Factory~ Mousehold Lane.

One Sprowston resident remembers being a member of the White Owl Club in the 1950`s and the call sign was “Twit Twoo”. The ice cream was sold from the ice cream van, this travelled around the estates, stopping at various places, a musical chime was played to attract the customers.
Image shows two ladies working in the factory.

<gallery widths=200px>
Ice2.jpg|Ice Cream Cart
Ice3.jpg|J Peruzzi Horse and Cart
Ice4.jpg|J Peruzzi Ice Cream Van
Ice5.jpg|Parravini`s Standing near Ice Cream Van
Ice6.jpg|Parravini`s Ice Cream, Two young Boys getting ready to tuck into Twin Head Cone of Ice Cream
Ice7.jpg|Parravini`s Ice Cream Selection Still in Production Today
Ice8.jpg|White Owl Ice Cream Factory Sprowston Road
</gallery>
[[Category Industry]]

Ice cream

2015-12-03T19:42:59Z

Ken: Industry New Page Ice Cream

==Icecream in Sprowston==
When Sprowston Heritage started in 2000, we were looking for images and family stories to put on our archive.
We had a stall at Sprowston Fete that summer and many of our mature visitors on that day, mentioned their time at the school on School Lane, and also the schools on Recreation Ground Road (1910-1939).
One of their memories was coming out of the schools and buying an ice cream from the famous Italian ice cream makers.

By the 1850`s ice cream machines had been invented and Ice cream sellers roamed the streets of Norfolk. In most cases it was families that originally came from Italy that worked in this new market.

Initially they used their handcarts, which they then moved on to horse carts, then a commercial tricycle and finally to the motorised van version we see on our streets today. Icecream, cornets, wafers, blocks and fruit lollipops were available.
If you were lucky the cornets were sometimes sprinkled with or dipped into a tray of hundreds and thousands. Later came the choc-ices and 99`s (Cone, soft ice cream and a chocolate stick).

I was told that the school children bought the ice cream known as the “penny licks”.
A dab or scoop of ice cream was placed onto a small glass dish and this cost one half penny, the child then licked the ice cream until the dish was clean, the dish was returned to the ice. Of course sometimes the glass dish was dropped or the child would forget to return it!
Today this would be considered a health hazard and not the cleanest way to eat ice cream, but in 1902 the edible ice cream cup was invented, but it was still sometime before this came to Norfolk.

Peruzzi Ice Cream.

In 1930, Mr Joseph Peruzzi, would go on his usual rounds with his ice cream cart. His family originated in Italy and had a lovely brown and white pony.
The ice creams were 1/2d (6np) for a cornet with the option of sarsaparilla on top.

A Joe Peruzzi Van.

The Peruzzi family were Ice cream makers and Sellers, eventually they
became successful Scrap Metal Merchants.

Parravani Ice Cream.

The Parravani family has been making Italian ice cream in Norfolk and Suffolk since 1898. The business was started in 1898 by Giuseppe Parravani, who had come over from a small village near Naples in Italy as a teenager to find his older brother Domenico, who had set up an ice cream business in Ber Street in Norwich.
In 1909 he married an Italian girl, Caterina, who had come over from Florence and was living with an Italian family in Ipswich. They settled in Southend Road in Bungay, where their first two children were born.

Giuseppe bought two cows for the milk for ice cream, and a plot of land to keep them and the ponies on, and the business continued to grow. After about four years the family moved to Pirnhow Street in Ditchingham, where they had nine further children. As each child left school, they helped in the business, selling ice cream from beautifully painted ice cream carts – often being shown the rounds by an experienced pony! In those days an ice cream would cost ½d.
In 1931 the family arranged to move to Dulls Farm in Ellingham, but sadly a week before they moved Giuseppe died at the age of 47.
This left Caterina to bring up eleven children, the youngest of whom was a baby of six months, look after the farm and milk the cows.
The business carried on from Ellingham, run by Giuseppe's eldest son Augie Parravani, and just before the war the first ice cream van was put on the road.
It had been converted by the family from a car, with bigger windows, a higher roof and rear doors being added. It was used until production stopped in 1940 soon after the outbreak of war.

In 1946 manufacture of ice cream started again, and was continued by Augie and his brothers Peter and Domenico until Augie retired in 1985.

Two young boys getting ready to tuck into a twinhead cone of ice cream.
They still make ice cream today.

Many of these hardworking Italian families came to Norwich and opened businesses, Fish shops, Hairdressers, Cafes and Restaurants.

Before they went out of business white owl ice cream was sold in the newsagents opposite the brickmakers it was originally the candy cabin and was owned by a mr Reevie. Another shop selling the ice cream general stores in Salhouse.

We would like to thank two ladies with Sprowston connections, Christine and Sarah for delving into their respective Peruzzi and Parravani family albums.

White Owl Ice Cream Factory~ Mousehold Lane.

One Sprowston resident remembers being a member of the White Owl Club in the 1950`s and the call sign was “Twit Twoo”. The ice cream was sold from the ice cream van, this travelled around the estates, stopping at various places, a musical chime was played to attract the customers.
Image shows two ladies working in the factory.

<gallery widths=200px>
Ice2.jpg|
Ice3.jpg|
Ice4.jpg|
Ice5.jpg|
Ice6.jpg|
Ice7.jpg|
Ice8.jpg|
</gallery>
[[Category Industry]]

Ice cream

2015-12-03T19:40:36Z

Ken: Industry New Page Ice Cream

==Icecream in Sprowston==
When Sprowston Heritage started in 2000, we were looking for images and family stories to put on our archive.
We had a stall at Sprowston Fete that summer and many of our mature visitors on that day, mentioned their time at the school on School Lane, and also the schools on Recreation Ground Road (1910-1939).
One of their memories was coming out of the schools and buying an ice cream from the famous Italian ice cream makers.

By the 1850`s ice cream machines had been invented and Ice cream sellers roamed the streets of Norfolk. In most cases it was families that originally came from Italy that worked in this new market.

Initially they used their handcarts, which they then moved on to horse carts, then a commercial tricycle and finally to the motorised van version we see on our streets today. Icecream, cornets, wafers, blocks and fruit lollipops were available.
If you were lucky the cornets were sometimes sprinkled with or dipped into a tray of hundreds and thousands. Later came the choc-ices and 99`s (Cone, soft ice cream and a chocolate stick).

I was told that the school children bought the ice cream known as the “penny licks”.
A dab or scoop of ice cream was placed onto a small glass dish and this cost one half penny, the child then licked the ice cream until the dish was clean, the dish was returned to the ice. Of course sometimes the glass dish was dropped or the child would forget to return it!
Today this would be considered a health hazard and not the cleanest way to eat ice cream, but in 1902 the edible ice cream cup was invented, but it was still sometime before this came to Norfolk.

Peruzzi Ice Cream.

In 1930, Mr Joseph Peruzzi, would go on his usual rounds with his ice cream cart. His family originated in Italy and had a lovely brown and white pony.
The ice creams were 1/2d (6np) for a cornet with the option of sarsaparilla on top.

A Joe Peruzzi Van.

The Peruzzi family were Ice cream makers and Sellers, eventually they
became successful Scrap Metal Merchants.

Parravani Ice Cream.

The Parravani family has been making Italian ice cream in Norfolk and Suffolk since 1898. The business was started in 1898 by Giuseppe Parravani, who had come over from a small village near Naples in Italy as a teenager to find his older brother Domenico, who had set up an ice cream business in Ber Street in Norwich.
In 1909 he married an Italian girl, Caterina, who had come over from Florence and was living with an Italian family in Ipswich. They settled in Southend Road in Bungay, where their first two children were born.

Giuseppe bought two cows for the milk for ice cream, and a plot of land to keep them and the ponies on, and the business continued to grow. After about four years the family moved to Pirnhow Street in Ditchingham, where they had nine further children. As each child left school, they helped in the business, selling ice cream from beautifully painted ice cream carts – often being shown the rounds by an experienced pony! In those days an ice cream would cost ½d.
In 1931 the family arranged to move to Dulls Farm in Ellingham, but sadly a week before they moved Giuseppe died at the age of 47.
This left Caterina to bring up eleven children, the youngest of whom was a baby of six months, look after the farm and milk the cows.
The business carried on from Ellingham, run by Giuseppe's eldest son Augie Parravani, and just before the war the first ice cream van was put on the road.
It had been converted by the family from a car, with bigger windows, a higher roof and rear doors being added. It was used until production stopped in 1940 soon after the outbreak of war.

In 1946 manufacture of ice cream started again, and was continued by Augie and his brothers Peter and Domenico until Augie retired in 1985.

Two young boys getting ready to tuck into a twinhead cone of ice cream.
They still make ice cream today.

Many of these hardworking Italian families came to Norwich and opened businesses, Fish shops, Hairdressers, Cafes and Restaurants.

Before they went out of business white owl ice cream was sold in the newsagents opposite the brickmakers it was originally the candy cabin and was owned by a mr Reevie. Another shop selling the ice cream general stores in Salhouse.

We would like to thank two ladies with Sprowston connections, Christine and Sarah for delving into their respective Peruzzi and Parravani family albums.

White Owl Ice Cream Factory~ Mousehold Lane.

One Sprowston resident remembers being a member of the White Owl Club in the 1950`s and the call sign was “Twit Twoo”. The ice cream was sold from the ice cream van, this travelled around the estates, stopping at various places, a musical chime was played to attract the customers.
Image shows two ladies working in the factory.

<gallery widths=200px>
Ice 2.jpg|
Ice 3.jpg|
Ice 4.jpg|
Ice 5.jpg|
Ice 6.jpg|
Ice 7.jpg|
Ice 8.jpg|
</gallery>
[[Category Industry]]

File:Ice7.jpg

2015-12-03T19:14:43Z

Ken:

File:Ice6.jpg

2015-12-03T19:14:30Z

Ken:

File:Ice5.jpg

2015-12-03T19:14:13Z

Ken:

File:Ice4.jpg

2015-12-03T19:13:59Z

Ken:

File:Ice3.jpg

2015-12-03T19:13:35Z

Ken:

File:Ice2.jpg

2015-12-03T19:13:14Z

Ken:

Sprowston Post Mill.

2015-11-17T14:17:55Z

Ken:

==Sprowston Mill==

Over the last one hundred years, Sprowston has seen many changes,
farming land turned to housing development, and industries have come and gone. Brickmaking, Aircraft Manufacturing by Boulton & Paul Ltd, the engineering skills of Barnards Ltd, who produced Wire netting, Trains, Ovens and many other items, [[Tom Smith Crackers]], Dixons Milk Bottling Plant and Dairy Farm ([[Stonehouse Farm]]), Start-rite and Florida Shoemakers, Icecream makers and Maclarens Handbags.

However the one thing the people of Sprowston are not able to enjoy is the glorious sight and sounds of Sprowston Post Mill, which unfortunately was destroyed by fire in 1933.

The Mill had been handed over to a Trust, by the Harrison family, and had been fully restored.

The Mill is not forgotten as it appears on our Parish Sign and is also on the school badge of the local Community High School. Also the mill shop on Sprowston Road is still there, so at least people can get an idea of where it used to be. I hope this article, will give you the reader, an insight to the family that owned and ran the Mill, and Sprowston Heritage is most grateful to the granddaughter of Horace Harrison, Judith A Howman for donating the family archive, this is now kept in the Norfolk Records, we have kept copies of these documents.

Sprowston Mill was a well-known subject for artists, situated as it was, on the edge of Mousehold, after the fire some reclamation took place.

The locally made bricks (Norfolk Reds) from the Round House, at the base of the Mill, were used to build garden walls, for properties off Wroxham Road, and the Oak timbers that were recovered were turned into small artefacts,

Sprowston Heritage has two of these items, an ashtray and a fruit dish, both have a small brass plaque engraved with a picture of the Mill.

The following comments come from Post Mill archive material donated to Sprowston Heritage by Judith Howman
(his Granddaughter).

Horace John Harrison
(the last miller) & Judith Howman.

===Memories of the Mill.===

I cannot remember the year 1891, the year I was born at Mill House, Sprowston, Norfolk, but I will give some idea of the changes that took place in Sprowston and Norwich, during my lifetime.
The Post Mill at Sprowston was in my family since 1780, and was built about 1702; it was burnt down on the 23rd March 1933.
The Post Mill was opposite the Shipfields site on Sprowston Road.

These mills were at one time imported from Holland, and were much smaller than the family mill, because years after they were imported; the British improved them and made them larger.
At the time of writing only one Post Mill remains in Norfolk, this is in Garboldisham, which is being restored to working order, at a cost of several thousand Pounds, the present owner is Mr. Adrian Colman, Isworth, Suffolk.

There are two books written by my late brother Herbert Clifford Harrison, “The Windmill”, and “The Mill House and Whereabouts”.
There is also a scale model in South Kensington Museum, London, of the mill, made by H. O. Clark, I helped him with measurements, nearly every Sunday morning for years, it is well worth a visit.

Note: The wheel cogs that were handmade by Millwrights, using Apple wood, Hornbeam, Boxwood and Pear wood.
I took over the Mill from my father, William Albert Harrison, in 1919, and what fun we boys had, while he was at the Norwich Corn Exchange, unbeknown to him of course, we would crawl out from a Wicket, (a very small opening with two doors) onto the sails, which was very unwise.

Then with one of us at the brake, the sails would turn, and let our weight carry us down to the bottom, near the ground.

Sometimes we would hoist one another up five floors, by the Sack Hoist, in those days we found our own fun, not knowing of the danger, but today many youths must be stealing or breaking something.

In the family there were four boys and two girls, and a maid to help with running the house, she lived in and had one Sunday a month off, she received £11.00 per year. She had her meals in the kitchen; she served in our dining room and had to wear print dresses in the mornings and black dresses after dinner. But with this experience, maids made good wives with few exceptions.
At the tender years I can remember the great March gale of 1895. March 29th, I would then have been 4 years old and can remember standing on the lawn of the Mill House, holding on to father’s trousers, otherwise I would have been blown over. The Mill had been put out of gear, leaving the sails free to turn; we were watching the Mill swaying from side to side. Father said to his Miller, a Walter Osborne, I’m not (and turned his back) going to see my Mill fall, but to his surprise the Mill withstood the Gale.
The gale also cleared a strip about 100 yards wide, through a plantation on Mousehold Lane, without leaving a tree standing; this is where the Royal Norfolk Regiment’s Memorial Cottages are now.
I can also remember several incidents at between 3 to 4 years old, (clearing snow), one`s brain must be wonderful to remember from such a young age.

Education, we boys and girls at the age of six went to a private school in a cottage front room, situated on Beaconsfield Road, Sprowston, run by two sisters, (Miss Vincents), and cannot remember the fee, but only a few pence weekly.

My father’s father had twin brothers living at Lingwood and the school fee, per boy, was 2 pence (old money) per week, so one went to school one week and the other the next, they could not afford 4 pence for each. After leaving the private school I went to the higher grade in Duke Street, boys on the ground floor, and girls below, both two separate schools, this was two miles from Mill House and there was no transport of any kind, so we walked.

The fee there was a few shillings per term, we took our own lunch, which we had in a classroom and for drinks we had tap water.
As a treat once a week we were given 4 pence (old money) to get a hot lunch at a workman’s Café (where the Electricity Offices are now, in Harmers/Hammers?), for that we had Roast Beef, Batter Pudding, two veg and a Sweet. Sometimes we went without the Sweet so had one penny to buy an ice. There were always four Italian Ice-cream Barrows outside the school. Ices were then 1/2 penny each and quite a battle these Italians had to fetch trade. They would give us a dab of ice on a piece of white paper and called it a Taster. Of course we had a Taster from each of them! (In Winter some Italians had Chestnuts Hot).

After getting home from school we had high tea, taken inside but if the weather was suitable, it was taken in the garden.
We worked in the Mill from 6am to 6pm each day, six days a week, and if the wind blew at nights the Miller and I took half the night each working and then worked the usual times next day, and no overtime pay for this. I got 10 shillings weekly, and the Miller 21 shillings and the cottage found. The Carter got 17 shillings per week.
After taking over and becoming the Miller, I bought from Bussey & Sabberton a Ford ---- Truck, for the sum of £145.00. All on, my father said, as a Miller I was setting a very poor example, as trucks did not eat Fodder! How things have changed.
Top meadow, was extensively used by the whole family and their animals, horses, goats, a donkey plus numerous dogs and cats. At about the turn of the century they made a tennis court and grassed it using turfs from the better parts of the meadow.
This became the centre of the many youngsters social life and saw many hours of fun and laughter. It was used all the year round. Eileen my mother spoke of sweeping away the snow for a game in the Christmas holidays. The children were completely free to roam here being adjacent to the Mill and the garden. They were also free to play in the granary, and the Mill too (as long as no real damage such as spilling the precious corn occurred). They all had a very strong sense of responsibility towards their Mill.
In 1927 the Mill was no longer financially viable and it closed down, the Mill was to have been formally handed over to the Norfolk Archaeological Trust for restoration as an Ancient building, but on the day before, 24th March 1933, a spark from a bonfire on Mousehold Heath set fire to the sails and the Mill was destroyed.
William A Harrison had always said he would not leave Mill House whilst his Mill was standing, but after the fire he felt he could no longer stay there. He celebrated his Golden Wedding there in 1934 and then moved to Lowestoft with his wife. Their Diamond Anniversary 11th December 1944 was spent there, aged 88 and 84 years. William A Harrison died in the winter aged 89 years, and his wife Rachel soon after.

Horace (John) Harrison moved across the road and became Publican of the newly refurbished Brickmakers Arms in 1927, he subsequently bought 215 Wroxham Road, Sprowston, as his family home and that remained in the family until November 1956, his first grandchildren Judith and Michael were born there in 1949 and 1951.
Where the Mill and the Mill House once stood has now been developed for housing and it is said that the ghost of the Miller still walk’s the ground, no doubt looking for the famous Post Mill.
The mill had been erected in the early part of the 18th century, it was one of five mills that was situated on Mousehold adjacent to Sprowston Road. One of those, was the mill that a Mr. Colman owned when he started making
Mustard Powder, but that as we say, is another story.

<gallery widths=200px>
PM 1.jpg| Model of the Postmill by Mr. H. O. Clarke.
PM 2.jpg|Model of the Postmill by Mr. H. O. Clarke. A= Crown Tree, B= Side Girt, C= Wheat Bin, D= Wheatmill Bin, E= Flour Reel, F= Meal Chute, G= Meal Bin, H = Millstones.
PM 3.jpg|Fitting the new Stock.
PM 5.jpg|The Pyramid Structure. A = Piers, B = Cross Trees, C = Quarter Bars, D = Post, E = Ball Race, F = Sheer Beams,G = Tail Pole.
PM 6.jpg|Lay-Out of Stone Floor.A = Wallower, B = Millstones, C = Flour-Dresser, D = Compound Pulley, E = Grain Crusher.
PM 7.jpg|The Head Wheel (or Brake Wheel) A= Head Wheel, B= Wind Shaft, C= Brake, D= Sack Hoist, E= Friction Clutch, F = Wheat Bins, G = Belt Drive to compound pulley.
PM 8.jpg|Mill Stone Layout.
PM 9.jpg|Mechanism of the Millstones. A = Wallower, B = Nether Stone, C = Runner Stone, D = Spindle, E = Bridge, F = Mace, G = Damsel, H = Sweeper (or Paddle), J = Shoe, K = Hopper, L = Horse, M = Damper, N = Wheat Chutes, P = Bell, Q = Shaker Arm, R = Vat.
PM 11.jpg|Millstone Drive and Governor Gear.
PM 12.jpg|Dressing the Millstones.
PM 13.jpg|The Flour Reel. A = Reel, B = Beaters, C = Silk, or Bolter Cloth, D = Leather reinforcement, E = Hoppers, F = Belt Drive.
PM 14.jpg|The Fly and Steps. A = Fly, B = Tail Pole, C = Track Wheels, D = Crank Handle, E = Muff, F = Pivot Bolt.
PM 15.jpg|The Sack Hoist.
PM 16.jpg|Painting the Mill.
Image: MA 300u3.jpg|Postmill.
Image: MA 300u6.jpg|Postmill.
Image: MA 300u7.jpg|Postmill.
Image: MA 300u2.jpg|Postmill.
Image: MA 300u8.jpg|Postmill Map Sprowston Road.
Image: MA 300yt.jpg|Drawing of Postmill by Renee Bower.
Image: MA 3003h.jpg|Postmill.
Image: MA 3009b.jpg|Postmill.
Image: MA 18.jpg|Mill Shop on Sprowston Road.
Image: MA 19.jpg|Mill Shop on Sprowston Road in 2004.
Image: MA 21.jpg|Ashtray made from the timber reclaimed after the fire.
Image: MA 20.JPG|Fruit Bowl made from the timber reclaimed after the fire.
Image: MA 22.jpg|Postmill on fire. 1933.
Image: MA 30088’jpg|Postmill burnt down 1933.

</gallery>

[[Category:Industry]]

Harrisons Meadow

2015-11-05T19:53:25Z

Ken: Add Category

[[File:Harrisons-cottage-front-elevation.jpg|200px|thumb|right|Front elevation of Harrison's Cottage]]

This property is situated on a plot of land on Harrison’s Meadow, Blue Boar Lane. The earliest map reference we have is from a Blackwell family estate map of 1770, which shows two properties on this plot. The site is also shown on a map that dates from after 1785, when the Morse family had the Manor. It is also shown on the Enclosure Act-Tithe map dated 1801.
Part of this Estate, which includes this plot, was once part of Mousehold Heath when it extended as far as Plumstead.

== The Plot ==

The plot of land is not far from one of the ancient cart tracks “Horning Ferry Way” that went across Mousehold from Norwich to Horning Ferry.

It also has a stream running through the plot, which originates from a spring in the garden centre car park on Blue Boar Lane. (See Morse map). It is one of five that go onto the estate.

<gallery>
File:Harrisons-cottage-blackwell-map.jpg|Detail of Blackwell Map 1770
File:Harrisons-cottage-morse-map.jpg|Detail of Morse Map 1785
File:Harrisons-cottage-enclosure-map.jpg|Detail of enclosure map 1801
File:Harrisons-cottage-floorplan.jpg|Floor plan detail A
</gallery>

An iron-age quern stone was found on the plot surrounding Harrison's cottage. Further information can be viewed on the [[Earliest settlement]] page, along with other finds from the Sprowston area.

[[File:Quern-stone-diagram.jpg|200px|thumb|right|Quern stone found on the plot]]

== Alterations ==

This property has been altered over the centuries, which can be seen by the brickwork (Norfolk Reds), some bricks, which are irregular in size, 18th century or possible earlier, than the later regular sized ones, 19th century. The majority of the bricks used on the walls are handmade, excluding those that have been used on 20th century alterations.

It is possible that this part of the dwelling could be the oldest part, as there seems to be an internal wall that is the same thickness as the external walls, approx 400mm thick. This may be interpreted that the original dwelling was half the size than it is now, and may also have had thatched roof. Note: A Wattle and Daub property that was on Wilks Farm that was demolished in the 1960`s would have been on a similar scale.

[[File:Harrisons-cottage-style-example.jpg|200px|thumb|right|Farmhouse styling of the local area]]

The height of the property (No.17) appears to have been increased at a later date, possibly in the mid 19th century with the arrival of the Gurney family, who erected some farm cottages on the Estate land in the 1880`s. Also the chimney on the right hand side (looking at the front elevation) is much older than the chimney on the left hand side.

Harrison's Meadow and surrounding fields will be taken up with a future Housing Development. In June 2008 we Filmed the area for future Reference for Sprowston Heritage.

[[Category:Agriculture]]

Category:Education

2015-11-05T19:49:54Z

Ken: Add Images

==Schools==
In 1833, the government awarded grants of money to schools. Not everyone who was in charge was able to read themselves, so the standard of education was not very good.
In 1844, Parliament passed a law requiring children working in factories, be given six-half-days schooling every week. 'Ragged Schools' were set up to provide free basic education for orphans and very poor children.
One of the first “Ragged Schools” was started by a Sprowston Shoemaker John Ellis; he sold up to fund the Saltley Reformatory in 1853.
In 1870, Parliament passed the Forster`s Education Act, requiring all parts of Britain to provide schools to children between the ages of 5 and 12. Not all schools were free and many families could not afford the “School`s pence” which had to be paid each week.
Schools were not free until 1891.
Queen Victoria`s reign brought many improvements to the education of children, especially for the poorer families.

===Kingston Fowler memories. (born 1902)===

School at the “Switchback” on Wroxham Road.
There used to be an Infants School at the corner of Sprowston Park, about 1860`s, part of the foundations are still there, also flowers from the old School garden still appear every year.
According to Kingston Fowler`s mother, the first school existed near the dip on the right looking towards Wroxham, and was known as “Hillsens Hole”, near Home Farm, and nearly opposite the Blue Boar PH, on land owned by the Gurney family of Sprowston Hall; parents had to pay to send their children to this Infants School.
My mother and father in Law attended the School, it was not compulsory, and they made a charge of one penny per week.
In about the year 1910, my grandfather William Graver, agricultural engineer and blacksmith, owned a four seater Benz car with cushion tyres. On one occasion he took some of his grandchildren for a ride in this car, which he called “Old Ben”.
On approaching the hill in the Sprowston “switchback” he said “I don`t know if Old Ben will get to the top, if not you will have to get out when I stop”. Fortunately this was not necessary as Old Ben got there all right.
I cannot remember that part of the road getting flooded in my young days, I don’t suppose a school would have been built there if it were so.
My Father in Law didn't go many times; found it was more profitable to go Crow scaring I expect. He never could read or write until the day he died, he however produced six lovely daughters and four sons, that’s how he learnt to count I think.
When I went to school I could name everybody who lived on the Wroxham Road, not many houses then, I could count on one hand the number of people who owned cars in Sprowston.

My classmates at the school in School Lane, were –

Alfred Whiting, Maurice Coleman, Levi Blake, Arthur Burgess, Percy Howes, Billy Lee, Clemmy King, Reginald Quantrill, Jimmy Gale, Reginald Wrench,
Gimp Gardman, A. Garman, Violet Walker, Mabel Dawson, Maude Land, ……. ? Woods, Bertha Patteson, Gladys Codling, May Dark, Ethel Carter
and Susan Quantrill.

The boys would play football going to school and the girls would have skipping ropes, during our school dinner time, we would go to the Brickfields, and watch the men make bricks, they used to stamp in the clay with bare feet, and the bricks were all made by hand.
You can see some of the houses built by the bricks, opposite the new church of St. Cuthbert’s on Wroxham Road.

Before the 1st World War, the rear of the girls` toilets was approached from the boys` playground and on occasion’s boys used to get stinging nettles and sting the girl’s bottoms!
One day the Headmistress was the victim of this escapade; she reported the matter to the Headmaster Mr. Tom Delves. He came to the class where the suspected culprits were and enquired who the boys were, who took part in the incident, but no boy owned up.
So he had all the boys in the class out in front and gave each “Six of the best”.
I bet Mr. Delves had a laugh when he told the story to his pals in the Blue Boar, over a glass of whisky.

There was a temporary Headmaster for the latter part of the War. Mr. Martin was called up; Miss Jessie Miller was a teacher with Miss Simpson in the tin hut.
Tom Smith was the Scout Master and caretaker of the Lazar House, Sprowston Road, which was used as the Scout headquarters, also for the Sprowston Black Minstrels, run by the church choir, and for school concerts.
Lazar house later became a library, given by Sir Eustace Gurney.
Mr. Tom Delves was a tyrant of a schoolmaster. He always seemed to have a cane up the sleeve of his jacket. His pet thing was to come into the classroom about 15 minutes before we were due to go home and put a sum on the blackboard and say we must get it correct before we go home.
George Martin, the schoolteacher, could not resist playing football with the boys at playtime, although all we had to play with was an old tennis ball. If the ball got “Mumped” over the school wall, into a neighbour’s garden, George would disappear until the ball was retrieved.

===Elementary School, School Lane.===

The School on School Lane was built IN 1860 [[File:Elem. School. Rampley 1.jpg.JPG|200px|thumb|right|Probable date of this photos is early 1900]]to accommodate the children from the Victorian housing built near Sprowston Road, extra classrooms were built.
It was extended in 1873.

<gallery widths=200px>
Image: Elem. School. 300sh.jpg.JPG |‎(Miss Read Music teacher with the girls choir in the late 1950s)
Image: Elem. School. 300jn 1929.jpg |‎(A class of four- to- five year olds, Elementary School, School Lane. Date 1929 Standing on the left is the Headmistress Miss Jones; standing far right is teacher Miss Pleasants. Front Row sitting- the girl in the dark dress is Winifred Tyrell. Second...)
Image: Elem. School. 300hc 1930.jpg |‎(Children at Elementary School. Empire Day – 1930. They were all dressed in clothes red, white and blue.)
Image: Elem. School. 300hd 1932. jpg.JPG | ‎(These eight children dressed for the St. Cuthberts Church Fete at the Elementary School ? Date 1932. 3rd from right Lorna Hayward)
</gallery>

Once again the increase in the housing sector in the 1920`s and 1930`s resulted in another school being built on Recreation Ground Road.

===Recreation Ground Schools.===
Children 4 years to 7 years went to School Lane, children 8 to 11 went to Recreation Ground Road Junior School and 11 to 15 went to the [[Secondary Modern School]] also on Recreation Ground Road.

===Schools on Cannerby Lane, Falcon Road West & Fairstead Road===
Increased housing created the need for much larger school, and in the 1960`s the Schools on Cannerby Lane and Falcon Road were built. There was also a building used for the young children (Infants) on Fairstead Road.
There is no doubt that with more housing being planned for Sprowston, there will be the need for more schools!

[[Category:Education]]

Category:Religion

2015-10-29T20:08:45Z

Ken:

===St. Mary and St. Margaret ~ Church of England.===
Church Lane, Sprowston
Vicar Revd. Canon Simon Stokes. (2015)

Although there is very little evidence, it is possible that our lovely Parish Church most likely replaced a Saxon dwelling, possibly a “Grub House” (Grubenhauser).
<gallery widths=200px>
Image:saxon grubhouse.2.jpg| “Grub House” (Grubenhauser)
Image:Parish Church 1.JPG|Church in the fields of gold
</gallery>
We know that there has been a Parish Church since 1119, as the church gave some land to build the Leper Hospital (Lazar House) on Sprowston Road.
It was known as the “Church in the fields of gold”, as it was surrounded by fields and a few dwellings.

At his coronation, William the Conqueror promised to uphold existing laws and customs. The Anglo-Saxon shire courts and 'hundred' courts (which administered defence and tax, as well as justice matters) remained intact, as did regional variations and private Anglo-Saxon jurisdictions.

To strengthen Royal justice, William relied on Sheriffs (previously smaller landowners, but replaced by influential nobles) to supervise the administration of justice in existing county courts, and sent members of his own court to conduct important trials. However, the introduction of Church courts, the mix of Norman/Roman law and the differing customs led to a continuing complex legal framework.
During the 13th and 14th centuries the old religious and social certainties began to give way. A strong pressure toward church reform began to develop and the church and the state (whose nucleus was the royal court) came to be at odds.
The Kings court also came into conflict with the rest of the aristocracy, i.e. the nobility, and there was a good deal of talking and sometimes fighting for power between them. Serfdom was on its way out as peasants were in a better bargaining position with landowners because of the labour shortage created by the (Black Death) plague.
Because of the Black Death nearly a third of the population of this Parish died. This meant that the Parish Church and the services it provided would be affected, because of a shortage of monks/ priests.
However two trustees of the Parish Church, Sir William de Wychingham and Robert de Yelverton of Rackheath helped.
They ensured a future supply of Clerks to perform the divine service by giving the Parish Church to the Prior and Convent of Norwich.
This was on condition that they find two monks from the Convent to study at a University and two Chaplains to perform divine service in the Parish Church daily - forever. A sum of 40 Marks was paid to the Prior and Convent.

John de Bawdeswell was Rector of Sprowston Church in 1336; did he survive the onslaught of the Plague?
One has certain sympathy for those two monks who had to trek over Mousehold to our Parish Church and return in all sorts of weather.
People in Sprowston today have mentioned seeing the ghosts of monks walking to Sprowston Church or on their way to St. Benet`s Abbey!

In a lot of cases the parish churches were influenced by the Lords of the manor and I suspect that our Parish Church also came under the lord`s influence.
Henry VIII`s is known for his role in the separation of the Church of England from the Roman Catholic Church. His disagreements with the Pope led to his separation of the Church of England from papal authority, with himself, as King, as the Supreme Head of the Church of England and to the Dissolution of the Monasteries.
Because his principal dispute was with papal authority, rather than with doctrinal matters, he remained a believer in core Catholic theological teachings despite his excommunication from the Roman Catholic Church.

The Civil War between the Royalists and Roundheads (Parliamentarians) which started in 1642, had some impact on parish churches like ours, some of the tomb artefacts were damaged during this period. Unfortunately after the War some churches became derelict and the parish church of Beeston St. Andrew (dedicated to St Andrew) was in ruins in the 17th century and the parish is ecclesiastically united
with St. Mary and St. Margaret Parish of Sprowston..

The Parish Church has been altered many times; most notably the round (Saxon?) tower became derelict (60 year period) in the mid-17th century, as a new square tower was erected in the early part of the 18th century.

===St. Cuthberts. Church of England.===
Wroxham Road.

Because the increase of industry in the City of Norwich, there were more dwellings built, and in order to serve the rapidly growing population of Sprowston, it was felt that another church would be required. The church and the adjacent vicarage were paid for by the Gurney family, who lived at Sprowston Manor and the church was built in 1886.

The church was built on the land called Fairstead Field, which for many centuries was used by Sprowston Fair, from the 13th century till the year 1828, when the fair was stopped by the Council.
The main local industry was brick-making and the pub on the opposite side of the Wroxham Road roundabout is built on the former site of the brickworks hence the name “The Brickmakers”. It is not surprising therefore that the church is built entirely of brick, made in and known locally as the “Sprowston Reds”, as are the terraced cottages situated on the opposite side of Wroxham Road.

===St. Georges. Catholic Church.===
Rev Sean Connolly - Parish Priest.
Sprowston Road, Norwich.

Built in 1960`s the church is conventional in design, a hall church with the altar at the east.
I understand that it is considered to be one of the largest Catholic Churches in Norfolk.

===Methodist Church. Wroxham Road.===

Primitive Methodism began to flourish in Sprowston by the mid-19th century.
A few brave and stout-hearted people, who used to meet in a small house on Sidney Row, off Sprowston Road, now City of Norwich, saw the great need for missioning Sprowston, and, despite much local opposition, progress was made.

Among the leaders of this movement were Mr. G. Want and his father, and Mr Noah Rudd who later went to Old Catton Society. The group then moved to a lean-to room, attached to a row of cottages near the present chapel (on Sprowston Road?).
One of the earliest houses used for meeting was in Sidney Row and then a lean-to room belonging to a family called Holborn on Sprowston Road. After some years, part of a large orchard on the corner of Sprowston Road and Shipfield was bought for £40 and a chapel built. The foundation stones were laid on the 16th April 1875, one of them on behalf of the Norwich philanthropist and mustard manufacturer,
J.J. Colman, M.P. and the new chapel was opened on 29th July 1875 with a sermon by Robert Key.
The society had 37 members and an average Sunday congregation of 170.
The plain brick chapel had a neat look with round-headed windows and doorway.
Its cost was £417.8.5 1 /2 d of which £250 was borrowed at 5%.
It seated 200 people and the whole was surrounded by a low wall topped by iron palisading.

Sunday School treats were great events and were held in Moore`s Field, far up the Sprowston Road. Then, on one memorable occasion, a local contractor (William Graver) volunteered to take the School to Beeston Park, with a Traction engine pulling two large farm wagons, laden with children, teachers, food, etc.
Perhaps the event would not have been so well remembered if it had not been for the performance of “stoking up” on the way. This occurred twice, with the result that the unfortunates in the first wagon arrived at Beeston covered in soot!

The leaders of the School also took an active part in the activities of the Chapel. There were the week night services alternating with the Prayer Meetings, while another regular feature was the open air services, with an annual camp meeting when the Society marched down the Sprowston Road towards the City, singing hymns, stopping near Humphrey Lusher’s Timber Yard, near Hoopers Lane, to hold meetings there morning and afternoon.
We leave the early days of the Church remembering such names as those of Want, Pointer, Rudd, Patterson, Drake, Holborn, Lusher, Lovett, Ribbons, Watson, Marsh and many others.

On July 14th 1949, a ceremony took place which marked another milestone in the Chapel`s history. This was the handing over to the Trust of the Deeds of a parcel of land, 1.3 acres in extent, situated in the Parish of Sprowston, as a site for a new church.

===Gage Road Chapel.===

Gage Road Chapel began as a church plant from Oak Grove Chapel when the number of Christians in the area began to grow in the 1970`s
A process of Christian Growth through personal witness meant that several families
began coming to church and there was a need to begin a Sunday School in the area which, initially, was held in Sparhawk Avenue School.
Later there was the opportunity to build a church on land that was originally intended for a superstore.
The plot was bought and the building was opened on June 26th 1982. Since then the Church has grown, developed and changed.
In March 2006 Michael Graves was appointed Pastor, bringing to the position a wide variety of experiences in several skills, including management in Civil Service, teaching at the City College and involvement with several churches/church groups through connections with Evangelical Alliance.

===Chinese Cantonese Speaking Methodist Church.===

The Chinese community of Norwich and Norfolk needed a place of worship and they were offered the use of the Methodist Church as a meeting place. This they did do for many years, until recently, when we believe they have moved to new premises.

Sprowston Heritage was very fortunate to be given the opportunity to film the group at the Methodist Church; we were able to make a short film “East meets East”.

File:Saxon grubhouse.2.jpg

2015-10-29T20:03:11Z

Ken:

File:SSMS TG Mems-3.jpg

2015-10-29T19:45:04Z

Ken: School Site Plan during www2.

School Site Plan during www2.

File:SSMS TG Mems-2.jpg

2015-10-29T19:43:46Z

Ken: Aerial view of Recreation grounds and Schools 2008.

Aerial view of Recreation grounds and Schools 2008.

File:SSMS TG Mems-1.jpg

2015-10-29T19:40:08Z

Ken: School in 2004.

School in 2004.

Secondary Modern School

2015-10-29T19:38:30Z

Ken: New Page Sec Mod School

==Memories of Sprowston Secondary Modern School
(Sprowston Central School)==
By
Thelma Gladwell. (July 2014)

Recently Sprowston Heritage mentioned some memories of the above school that brought lovely memories back to me.
I remember Mr Gage, Headmaster strutting round the corridor which curved on the outside of our classroom, until he had arthritis, he kept us in order.
We had two evacuees from London in our class – Anita Green was one whose name I remember, but I cannot think of the other girl`s name, it’s come to me now Yvonne Frith.
We had a dance once a month with a Band of Newfoundland Soldiers, who were stationed at the Marriot Hotel (Rackheath Hall Sprowston Hall) and Golf Club. Very good they were. Mr Gage always insisted our parents met us from this.
Mr Alward, our class teacher, always gave us a crossword to do each day, saying “it`s very good way to learn. After I met him accidently in the City, he took me to Lyons Café, which was on the Walk and bought me a coffee. I was expecting my first son who is now 62. When my son was born, I had a nice letter from his wife. Mr Alward had died on my son`s birthday, Christmas Eve.

Another thing Mr Gage did was, if those that had school dinners cleared up in time, he would let them play table tennis or records in the Hall.
I also remember Mrs Elphinstone doing school dinners with a helper.
A lot of the class has passed on, but I still see lots of the girls and remember all the boys, my brother in law Carl Gladwell, Frank Shorten, Derek Terrington, Ivy Shorten and Erica Russen, all passed on now.

Aerial view of Recreation Ground Road (part), School top left.

We had `Air Raid` shelters on the Recreation Ground, and as it was a long way from the classroom, we were machine-gunned one time. We always sang in the shelters “There`s a long, long trail a winding”.

School site in 1940.
We could not learn to cook much as everything was rationed. Could not sew much, had to have coupons for material Etc. I was 13-14 and left school the Easter, I was 14 ½. But all in all it was a happy school.

I also remember another teacher we had in 1A – Mrs Riches, she had a very young daughter and her husband was a `Prisoner of War`, we always knew when she had a letter from him, as she was so sad.
Also I think it was Mrs Watson for singing class, lastly I remember we had Griffith Jones, Welshman, who was a well-known singer on the radio, sing for us at the dances.

We are most grateful to Mrs Gladwell, for contacting us.

<gallery widths=200px>
Image:SSMS TG Mems-1.jpg|The old Sprowston Secondary Modern School in Recreation Ground Road. Now in use as a Junior School.
Image:SSMS TG Mems-2.jpg |Aerial view with the Recreation Ground in the foreground – the 1950 built infant school with the 1937 built secondary modern behind.
Image:SSMS TG Mems-3.jpg|Second World War layout of the secondary modern school with air raid shelters in the playground.
</gallery>
[[Category:Education]]

Category:Education

2015-10-29T19:19:16Z

Ken:

==Schools==
In 1833, the government awarded grants of money to schools. Not everyone who was in charge was able to read themselves, so the standard of education was not very good.
In 1844, Parliament passed a law requiring children working in factories, be given six-half-days schooling every week. 'Ragged Schools' were set up to provide free basic education for orphans and very poor children.
One of the first “Ragged Schools” was started by a Sprowston Shoemaker John Ellis; he sold up to fund the Saltley Reformatory in 1853.
In 1870, Parliament passed the Forster`s Education Act, requiring all parts of Britain to provide schools to children between the ages of 5 and 12. Not all schools were free and many families could not afford the “School`s pence” which had to be paid each week.
Schools were not free until 1891.
Queen Victoria`s reign brought many improvements to the education of children, especially for the poorer families.

===Kingston Fowler memories. (born 1902)===

School at the “Switchback” on Wroxham Road.
There used to be an Infants School at the corner of Sprowston Park, about 1860`s, part of the foundations are still there, also flowers from the old School garden still appear every year.
According to Kingston Fowler`s mother, the first school existed near the dip on the right looking towards Wroxham, and was known as “Hillsens Hole”, near Home Farm, and nearly opposite the Blue Boar PH, on land owned by the Gurney family of Sprowston Hall; parents had to pay to send their children to this Infants School.
My mother and father in Law attended the School, it was not compulsory, and they made a charge of one penny per week.
In about the year 1910, my grandfather William Graver, agricultural engineer and blacksmith, owned a four seater Benz car with cushion tyres. On one occasion he took some of his grandchildren for a ride in this car, which he called “Old Ben”.
On approaching the hill in the Sprowston “switchback” he said “I don`t know if Old Ben will get to the top, if not you will have to get out when I stop”. Fortunately this was not necessary as Old Ben got there all right.
I cannot remember that part of the road getting flooded in my young days, I don’t suppose a school would have been built there if it were so.
My Father in Law didn't go many times; found it was more profitable to go Crow scaring I expect. He never could read or write until the day he died, he however produced six lovely daughters and four sons, that’s how he learnt to count I think.
When I went to school I could name everybody who lived on the Wroxham Road, not many houses then, I could count on one hand the number of people who owned cars in Sprowston.

My classmates at the school in School Lane, were –

Alfred Whiting, Maurice Coleman, Levi Blake, Arthur Burgess, Percy Howes, Billy Lee, Clemmy King, Reginald Quantrill, Jimmy Gale, Reginald Wrench,
Gimp Gardman, A. Garman, Violet Walker, Mabel Dawson, Maude Land, ……. ? Woods, Bertha Patteson, Gladys Codling, May Dark, Ethel Carter
and Susan Quantrill.

The boys would play football going to school and the girls would have skipping ropes, during our school dinner time, we would go to the Brickfields, and watch the men make bricks, they used to stamp in the clay with bare feet, and the bricks were all made by hand.
You can see some of the houses built by the bricks, opposite the new church of St. Cuthbert’s on Wroxham Road.

Before the 1st World War, the rear of the girls` toilets was approached from the boys` playground and on occasion’s boys used to get stinging nettles and sting the girl’s bottoms!
One day the Headmistress was the victim of this escapade; she reported the matter to the Headmaster Mr. Tom Delves. He came to the class where the suspected culprits were and enquired who the boys were, who took part in the incident, but no boy owned up.
So he had all the boys in the class out in front and gave each “Six of the best”.
I bet Mr. Delves had a laugh when he told the story to his pals in the Blue Boar, over a glass of whisky.

There was a temporary Headmaster for the latter part of the War. Mr. Martin was called up; Miss Jessie Miller was a teacher with Miss Simpson in the tin hut.
Tom Smith was the Scout Master and caretaker of the Lazar House, Sprowston Road, which was used as the Scout headquarters, also for the Sprowston Black Minstrels, run by the church choir, and for school concerts.
Lazar house later became a library, given by Sir Eustace Gurney.
Mr. Tom Delves was a tyrant of a schoolmaster. He always seemed to have a cane up the sleeve of his jacket. His pet thing was to come into the classroom about 15 minutes before we were due to go home and put a sum on the blackboard and say we must get it correct before we go home.
George Martin, the schoolteacher, could not resist playing football with the boys at playtime, although all we had to play with was an old tennis ball. If the ball got “Mumped” over the school wall, into a neighbour’s garden, George would disappear until the ball was retrieved.

===Elementary School, School Lane.===

The School on School Lane was built IN 1860 to accommodate the children from the Victorian housing built near Sprowston Road, extra classrooms were built.
It was extended in 1873.
Once again the increase in the housing sector in the 1920`s and 1930`s resulted in another school being built on Recreation Ground Road.

===Recreation Ground Schools.===
Children 4 years to 7 years went to School Lane, children 8 to 11 went to Recreation Ground Road Junior School and 11 to 15 went to the [[Secondary Modern School]] also on Recreation Ground Road.

===Schools on Cannerby Lane, Falcon Road West & Fairstead Road===
Increased housing created the need for much larger school, and in the 1960`s the Schools on Cannerby Lane and Falcon Road were built. There was also a building used for the young children (Infants) on Fairstead Road.
There is no doubt that with more housing being planned for Sprowston, there will be the need for more schools!

[[Category:Education]]

Catherine Gurney

2015-10-22T18:37:39Z

Ken: Add Text to Page

==MEMORIES OF LIFE AT SPROWSTON HALL BY MISS CATHERINE GURNEY==

As life begins to fade one looks back on its many years and wonders why things happened as they did. One is apt to think that one rules ones life, but circumstances are different and one finds that one has had to do what one had to, and not what one wanted, In fact one could imagine that some supreme power had all the time dictated what was to happen.

My Grandmother said “ The way will open” and one just waited for the opening and tried to have the will to seize at the time it came, of course one made a hundred mistakes from lack of force or energy but sometimes just from weakness of the flesh.

After all very few people, in this enormous world are distinguished. To have force of character, brains, real beauty of person or personal charm the rest of humanity gets by with mediocre lives often humdrum and undistinguished, yet here and there, there is a glint of something worth while and something better.

I can’t see there is anything distinguished or better in mine but I have been lucky in some periods with a chance to do a few things and see a few places. Sometimes I have jumped when the way has opened and sometimes I have rebelled at no opening and just the burden of the every day living and now as the flesh weakens and maybe senile dementia drives to the depths of despair I will note one or two facts to amuse myself rather than entertain my relations.

We were a family of seven children all born between 1905 and 1916, spaced with two to two and a half years between most of us. John, the eldest was a charming baby with deep violet eyes and brown rather than fair hair. Boys were very much favoured in the family, girls taking a very secondary place so when I arrived only thirteen months later no one pleased.

My mother at having a second child so quickly and then a girl who was extremely healthy, plain and with nothing to charm or recommend her. John proved delicate and constant nursing, so Catherine could be pushed to one side and fought for her rights as she got older with some determination. Rosamund the third came gracefully, a pretty baby with long limbs, blue eyes and fair hair, followed by two boys and then two more girls, but by the time the youngest arrived I was ten years old and put in the position of setting an example, giving way to the eldest and helping the younger ones.

<gallery widths=200px>
Image:CG (2).jpg|Sprowston Hall 1900
Image:CG.jpg|Catherine Gurney second left? at Sprowston Hall
</gallery>

==Childhood Memories==
I developed rickets early on although my legs were rubbed in Tidmans Sea Salt they never became completely straight and I had no strength in my ankles. This I resented and have never succeeded in walking as far and as fast as the others. With that and no sense of rhythm or music and continuing to be plain all through life one has felt that one had handicaps that were so easily overcome in the rest of the family. I am sure that I was a very tiresome child and when my Nanny complained to my Mother that “Catherine is the ring leader of all evil” from scriptural training I knew that I must be the devil and decided not to try for any worldly goodness for indeed if the devil I would be unable to achieve it.

One can look back really to a very happy childhood, the lovely sunny nurseries at Sprowston Hall just outside Norwich.

The splendid gardens almost a world on their own for short legs to explore and the kitchen gardens to be pillaged for windfalls, and masses of soft fruit in their season. Nanny was particularly fond of gooseberries and we would fill our little baskets for the eleven o'clock feasts in the garden. Usually by the swing, that hung from the large variegated sycamore tree and was shady and cool, on some summer days.
One’s memory is always of brilliant sunshine and heat. Our other special place in the garden was by the aviaries. They had fallen into disrepair since my father and uncle had grown up but used to house cockatoos. There was a small pond and bamboo’s growing and the rest rather unattractive and wild.
A large hedge divided the aviary from the kitchen garden and along this hedge we had our little gardens and there we could dig to our hearts content and grow exactly what we liked. We were very happy there each with our own plot, and, I suppose we produced the odd radish but I don’t recollect any very great triumphs. The other end of the aviary we had our sand pit, this was a place full of amusement as we could get water from the animals drinking trough, the other side of the fence or down to the earth below the sandpit. It was entirely our own bit of garden. I remember my father coming up one day to tell us that we had a baby brother.

This was the fifth child Samuel Edmund, we did not know what to say and did not really believe him, and having told us he went away rather quickly so we probably said the wrong things.

Nanny had her own garden in the far corner of the kitchen garden where the bee hives used to stand. We all helped her work there and it was full of London pride and Ariba’s and we thought very beautiful. The bee hives had long since gone but shelves were there to hold the straw skeps as this was the days before wooden hives and the dreadful part was that the bees were burned out to get at the honey. Near nanny’s garden was the rhubarb bed and if we were not discovered it was delightful to bang the leaves with a stick and make holes. They were so lovely and large and green.

Down the path Rosamund had run at me with a four tine fork but only got me with one tine in the hand, it bled profusely but we washed it in the greenhouse water butt, that was full of nice little wriggley things and somehow I managed to conceal the fact from grownups, although I carried a scar for a good many years, it probably served me right for teasing.

One of the most interesting parts of the gardens was just outside the wall with the tool houses and potting sheds, the pig sty’s, the hot beds for the frames of early flowers , and the rubbish heaps for lawn mowing’s in summer and fallen leaves in the autumn. One would stroll along here in our first morning run, and according to the time of year we broke the ice on the water butts, looked in at the potting shed and perhaps found Twisty legs,

Mr Hoare who was the under gardener and much beloved.

There was a little fire place at the end of the shed where the men had their dinners, and then there was the shed for forcing of rhubarb and endive. Further on the pig styes that produced manure for the garden, somewhere along there we kept our bantams, coming back to the house we had to pass through the stable yard with its large quince tree and huge horse chestnut in the centre, then under an archway to the courtyard of the house. We had our own door, passed the stoke hole and the cellar steps into a vestibule where prams were kept and then up comfortable shallow stairs to the first floor where nurseries and schoolroom, and the only bathroom were situated, so we need have no contact with parents or guests.

The servant’s bedrooms were above in the attics, and as a treat we would go and see Elizabeth the head housemaid in her room, she was a dear, and the mother to all the younger maids, but she was firm with us and we got told off for miss-demeaners.

I once went to bed in my moccasins as my feet were so cold but I never did it again! The nursery, as time went on, overflowed with children and John was moved to a bedroom over the front porch.

We thought it a great honour for the eldest, but apparently he resented it and was terrified and lonely, later I had a bedroom the other side, it wasn't’ a particularly attractive room as no one gave way to children to make it special for them. Maybe I was older and just took it in my stride, perhaps I was older for John and I used to come down for dinner in the evening and I had to change.

One day I was late as John and I had been to the laundry where there was a carpenters shop as John was making a wireless set, I rushed through my changing, but the gong went, and then oh! Horrors the footman arrived at the bedroom door, and put down a bowl of soup. I was not to come down, John got away with it but then he did not have to change.
Nanny said it was most unfair and she and I shared the soup and a rather delicious pudding so I felt a bit better.
We certainly had to tow the line but there were many suprisingly understanding things that my mother let us get away with. I read a book called the wide, wide world about a little girl who was sent to an aunt in Canada as her parents had died, a tough life but she learnt to do lots of things. All the neighbours gathered together to do apple peeling. The apples were cut into rings and threaded on strings, fixed across a frame, when the frames were filled the whole outfit was put into a slow oven and the apples dried.

The apple rings were then stored in tins and could be soaked and used through to the next apple crop. I told my mother it would be a good plan if we did likewise and she let the carpenter make a frame and we peeled and dried and stored the windfalls, they took very little space in an old biscuit tin and it was great satisfaction to me. Did the cook ever dane to use the dried apple rings?

Another time I went to my mother and said I would organise a garden fete to make money for the soldiers in hospital, I must have been about ten at the time and we had a wonderful holiday as busy as bees, drawing posters, making things, touring the local village schools in the donkey cart and asking children to come, we borrowed a switch back from the cousins, got the land agent to run a concert party. Everyone in the house helped and lots from further away, It was a great success and daddy counted the money and we had made £22, there must have been a lot of background help behind the scenes, my mother wanted us to be independent and there were always enough of us to make our own plays, provided we came in, in time for meals, (the big bell sounded five minutes before lunch) we could do as we liked and off we went to the woods to build stockades or wigwams, or rode the donkey bare back down the lane, or delivered magazines, what I particularly disliked was being told to do the church flowers, it was quite a walk by oneself carrying the basket to the church, then getting the key and going in through the vestry.

The pews gave strange and frightening creek and I would rush to the sanctuary and clutch the altar for safety, seize a vase and rush to the vestry which was also safe, the vases were brass with narrow necks and I am sure the arrangements were lopsided for my mother’s only comment would be that they did not match very well. Luckily the bogey man, if there was one, never got me but it put me off church flowers for life.

Best of all were outings with my father, he would come into the schoolroom at the end of tea and ask if anyone wanted to go shooting, Rosamund never cared to, so off we went at dusk walking alongside the small covers seeing an owl or a door beetle flying, and perhaps come back with a pheasant or two for the pot.

We might go of a morning to the woods to do a bit of cutting, later we might go for a whole day to his house and laboratory on the broads, getting a boat at Wayford Bridge and him doing the long row to Longmore point, of course there was always the Sunday walk round the farm and through the woods home, but then the bailiff was there and lots of leaning on gates and farming talk.

==Childhood Health.==
Like all children we had our colds and coughs and more serious illnesses, Dr Long, a children’s doctor from Norwich came out to see us when it was necessary, he would look out of the window and say “ is that a blackbird or a thrush singing” you made a wild answer as you did not know but immediately felt better, “ well nurse “ he would say “I think she might get up and go for a good sharp walk and then back to bed“.

He believed in outdoor air at any price, the remedies seemed to be a steam kettle with friars balsam to relieve the chest and a horrible smell it was, or we were rubbed with camphorated oil, our tonsils painted or perhaps a dose of epipectuana but I can’t remember what that was for, we had our doses of syrup of figs or milk of magnesia and in the spring a good tonic malt and treacle or an iron tonic.

The operating theatre was the spare room, number 3, and there Samuel had his mastoid operation and others had adenoids and tonsils removed, not very antiseptic and I don’t suppose the doctor, did more than remove his coat, there seemed to be no side effects, no after effects and no particular treatment.

A cousin at Walsingham was to have her appendix removed, she got the carpenter to make a long narrow table, the surgeon came in his carriage from Norwich 27 miles, Violet came from the upper story in her dressing gown, the butler was horrified that she should walk down, and insisted on carrying her.
The doctor removed his top hat rolled back his cuffs, I presume the local doctor gave an anaesthetic (was it Dr. Sturdee?) and that was that, there must have been a nurse somewhere about, well she lived to nearly 90.

I saw the table that was used at her house at Wimborne in the potting shed! Rosamund had an operation for glands in the neck, she was very ill indeed but the treatment was to live in a tent in the garden, she must have been about 12 at the time.

==Electricity and Preserving things.==
It is difficult to understand or indeed remember what life was like without the amenities that we think of our necessities, around 1911 electricity was installed at Sprowston Hall, an engine with enormous fly wheels was put in a shed and rows of huge batteries alongside for storage, one could hear the engine chug chugging and it must have been quite a major work to start it up. The house was wired while we were away on holiday at the seaside and the parents doing a tour of Canada.

There were lights in the house but the engine could not produce enough power for any thing else, although I think nanny had an electric kettle in the nursery but it must only be used occasionally and with great care, electric fires were unheard of and we still used the flat iron heated on the fire. The nursery had a coal fire but I think in the drawing room, wood was burned and certainly in my father’s billiard room where he sat, there was a huge coal stove, in the kitchen and somewhere a boiler for heating the water, refrigerators had not been invented, and so there was a large larder with slate shelves to keep food cool.
Under the shelves were crocks to hold the eggs, which were stored in water glass, eggs were cheap and plentiful.

In the spring so they were stored for winter use, other crocks contained runner beans pickled in salt, sugar came in sacks of I cwt, soap for the household came also by the cwt in long yellow bars that had to be cut into squares, and put on the kitchen mantlepiece to dry out, really dried they would be stored away and would last ant time. Nothing was paper packeted as, now, and for a big house had to be bought in quantity, the shops were always pleased to deliver and I expect in those days they came in vans drawn by horses. A small boy carried heavy cans of milk the half mile or so from the farm, it was good milk straight from the cow, never cooled or sterilised but good and creamy, butter too was made at the farm, fruit and vegetables came from the garden, the only fruit bought might be oranges or tangerines at Christmas or the occasional pineapple for dinner parties.

There was no means of freezing fruit so everything was eaten in its season, I’m not sure that bottling had come in, in those early days, but around 1930 when I house-kept for my brother I learned to bottle, churn butter and make Gervais cream cheeses, and we sold what we could at rediculously cheap prices.

==Laundry for the Hall.==
Those early days before the 1918 war we were all very young, the ways of life changed so rapidly that what is here today is gone tomorrow, one thinks one is up to date and finds one is ten years at least behind the times, I click away on my old typewriter and find it is a thing of the past, many more and easier ways of writing, but my mind turned to washing and the sun is shining and the washing, swings in the breeze, but that would be out, although we country folk still think a good dry in the wind is preferable to all other methods.
How long ago when every house had a copper, true it was the only means of heating water, but it took the place of the washing machine which incidentally must be more expensive to run, In the old days at Sprowston Hall the laundry was about a mile from the house and at least two or three people worked there, I think I the head was Mrs Golden at the time, but there must have been changes. The washing was packed in large wicker hampers and taken in the cart to the laundry, as the household numbered about fourteen people there was a considerable amount of washing besides the bed linen, so many aprons and starched caps, so many cotton dresses, all the numerous nursery stuff, the white starched table cloths and napkins, and menswear with starched collars, starched shirts for dinner parties.

It was not to go to the laundry and see the great tubs of rainwater, the large coppers for boiling, the long tables for ironing and the stove in the middle of the room, with its rack round the chimney to hold the irons as they heated, there was always a clatter of work at the beginning of the week, boiling the linen, hanging it out to dry or putting it through the mangle, a lot depended on weather condition and drying. Later the endless ironing and so many more frisland embroideries and even the ladies might have starched collars to their blouses, at the end of the week the hampers were filled and taken back to the Hall.

With careful unpacking and sorting and checking the lists, In one house there was an upstairs floor to the laundry and there an immense roller was cranked back and forth to iron the sheets laid out on long tables, this must have saved the hardest part of ironing, but it all must have been hard work in the hot steamy atmosphere. Later probably much later the home laundries were given up and the washing went to the laundries, the laundry van would come round and by this time there was far less washing to send, for the fashion in clothing began to change and thicker clothes went to the cleaners.
The next phase was the big laundries doing industrial washing for hotels factories, or now along the coast for oilrigs, meanwhile we again wash at home and all made easy with electric washing machines that will do most of the jobs needed, and materials are so much easier to handle.

Never again to light the copper, never again to turn the mangle, the iron will heat itself and keep hot, and you can watch telly while you work, its all splendid progress but I think our grandmothers or great grandmothers would be surprised?.

==Aeroplanes at Sprowston.==
Air travel is so easy nowadays and gets quicker and quicker, just nip across Siberia from Tokyo without a stop and you have arrived in London, executives dash across the world for conferences and only see the inside of the boardroom, this is still a new of life and a rather exhausting one without the excitement and romance and effort, how quickly life as changed.

The turn of the century when cars had only just started, the 1st world war when horses were still in use and airfields had only just come into existence, Sprowston was still a rural community; Mousehold remained a wide open space of fields, not a house in sight.

I saw my first aeroplane in 1911 and we drove up in the wagon and stood on the road to look over the hedge and see the aeroplane being got ready for the flight, double wings held together with bamboo struts and someone turned the propeller by hand to start the motor, and the engine sprang into life, and the staff rushed for safety and the plane slowly rose and sailed away disappearing into the distance, a miracle of science, later in 1914 the wide flat fields were turned into an aerodrome and the young pilots were trained.

There were many accidents and some amusing encounters, my Father saw a plane, as he thought in trouble and ran across a field or two, where the big Sprowston housing estates now stand, to his amusement the plane was alright and a lovely young lady descended putting up her parasol and walking away, a young man was taking his fiancee up for a joyride, another time a plane landed upside down and he was full of admiration for the pilot who sat nonchalantly on the wing smoking a cigarette with not a shake in his hand, later they got to France and I think it was more dog fights than the bombing, we think of nowadays.

Silver zeppelins along the coast, they looked like giant cigars and I can remember looking out of a window to see one, my father was outside and a great shout from him to draw the curtains and shut windows.

It may have been that a bomb was dropped on Thorpe and we drove up in the pony cart to see the crater, it was on the edge of a wood and had done no damage, there was a nice big hole and we were at that age that longed for souvenirs, we searched for something to take home in triumph and at last whoever was with us suggested we put shrivelled worms into a matchbox which was all we could find. This may seem simple and amusing and just the little things that are remembered by a child of eight and so long ago but there was the other side over in France when the flower of young manhood was laying down its life in the trenches, it was a war to end a war or so we were told but now alas we know a bit better.

==Surgery at home – the operation!==
Lately I was in hospital after a stupid accident to my leg and everything is in a state of hygiene, order and cleanliness, which for some reason put me in mind of a cousin who once told me of her appendix operation that took place in the early part of the century, my cousin has been dead these thirty years or more and appendix operations must have been in their earliest days, Violet lived at Walsingham in a big house and I suppose the local doctor diagnosed the appendix and the surgeon was duly called for.

At any rate Violet had time to get the local carpenter to make a long narrow table for her to lie on, the surgeon had to come from Norwich in his carriage and it must have taken him two hours or more, imagine him in a long coat and top hat, meanwhile a room was prepared for the operation with the table conveniently placed in the best light, presumably the local doctor was the anaesthetist, Violet came down the stairs from her bedroom at the top of the house and the manservant seeing her said you can’t walk to an operation and picked her up and carried her, supposedly the surgeon took of his overcoat and rolled up his sleeves. Oxygen was administered through a mask and the operation was entirely successful, was a nurse in attendance alas I never heard any further details but Violet lived to a ripe old age, determined and active and the kindest of friends and what is more she showed me the operation table which then resided in her potting shed.

==Bicycles – my first one!==
What a huge number of different types of bicycles there are now, they all go faster and faster with less effort and are built for sport rather than a means of necessary transport, one is full of praise for the marvellous endurance tests they achieve, at the turn of the century it was another thing, so few cars and not everyone could afford a cart or carriage for transport, so the penny farthing came in but I don’t think I ever heard of a woman attempting to get on with her long and sweeping skirts, eventually the good old push bike was invented and became the poor man’s transport for many years.

I was not given a bicycle until I was nearly eleven and then it was my pride and joy, my mother more or less taught me to ride, along the garden path, then got bored with holding me up and gave me a big push and told me to get on with it. By the end of the afternoon I could manage rather inelegantly.

There was a lovely hollow in the road by the footpath to the church and if you went down it fast enough you could free wheel to the other side, it was good to have freedom and to be able to go off on ones own, almost better to be out of an evening with father.
Things seemed to happen near the Blue Boar Plantation, a lady coming the opposite way suddenly swerved across his path, nearly knocking him off, I was behind and ran into his back, and he said “Damn” in a loud voice, I was really shocked that he could know such bad words, for although we said it in the schoolroom and were told not to, I had thought it a bit private to us, perhaps we were very innocent.
One kept one’s precious steed cleaned and polished and looked with envy at our governesses who had an acetylene lamp that smelled awful when it was lit but gave a very good light, it must have been before the days of torches, I think her bike was very elegant with a skirt guard so that the long skirt did not get caught in the chain and wheels, we did not need those luxuries, but my brother and I used to go to Norwich together and had the terror of riding down Magdalen Street and avoiding getting stuck in the tramlines. I had to contend with two fears, the one of loosing him if I did not go fast enough and the second of falling in the tram lines, thinking back I am sure he would have come to my rescue!

It was quite safe to leave your bike anywhere, not like nowadays when it would probably be stolen, if not securely chained up, I can’t remember what we did in Norwich, perhaps we just wandered about for we seldom had more than a few pennies in our purses, but of course everything was so much cheaper and there were only three prices in Woolworth’s, a penny, threepence or sixpence , for sixpence you could get a string of pearls and the story was that if you looked carefully you might find a string of real ones and somebody had!

Most of the delightful shops of those days have gone now. We had a long cycle home after our outing and woe betide us if we were back late for lunch.

== St Mary’s Church and going to church.==
We went to the exhibition in St Mary’s Church Sprowston, but sadly arrived just after it had been closed, but it put me in mind of the familiar church of so many years ago, there was something friendly and perhaps almost cosy about the church in those days, was that feeling engendered by the walk up the aisle and over the grating that covered the pit in which was the central heating, heat rose up and warmed your legs almost to the waist, someone had lit the boiler the day before so the church was really warm, we sat in the front pew on the right hand side and just underneath the pulpit, we were allowed to draw when the sermon started and sometimes my Father forgot the paper and so let us draw on the end flyleaf of a hymn book.

I gained really bad marks one Sunday by attempting to draw a picture of the vicar, never must you draw a clergyman in his pulpit, all my life I have remembered this, and I have never tried again. To the right in the side aisle was a wonderful and very bright stained glass window, perhaps in memory of a Stracey, perhaps it is there still, we knew all the people who sat in the middle aisle, the Coleman`s, who walked from Oak Lodge, the Gowing`s from White House Farm who filled a pew, and then the Cozens Hardy`s, from the Coltishall Road, who had a huge monkey puzzle in front of their house, he was Editor of the Eastern Daily Press and miss Cozens Hardy always sat very straight holding her elbows so I tried to do that to.

My Father read the lessons so we had to pay attention and although someone had given me a prayer book the pictures in it were dreadfully dull and rather few.

At Christmas we all made decorations and holly wreaths, and sometimes when I was a good deal older I was sent by myself to do the altar flowers, my mother had forgotten it was her turn. The walk to the church did not worry me but getting from the vestry to the altar scared me stiff, the vestry was safe and inside the altar rails but in, between was beset with peril and sometimes the woodwork seemed to give out a sound, or was it a ghost? No wonder the two brass vases did not always match.

The walk from church was pleasant, a nice path along the side of a field, and we looked for all the wild flowers we could find, then onto the road where there was a big “dip” now all flattened away, across the road and into the park where the horses would be standing under the chestnut trees for their Sunday rest head to tail and snubbing each other. A metal gate into the garden and so home, why does one remember those days as full of sunlight and bright flowers, I don’t think anyone drove to church, cars were hardly on the market and you did not take the horses out on a Sunday except for special purposes so there was always time to meet friends outside the church and no rush to get home to cook the dinner.

Now the pleasant country road and rural church is surrounded with a housing estate, and a field side path swept away, and although there are so many people living around, the congregation is probably less, and it is certain that the church is less well heard.

A small girl and her mother came to see me, her form at school was putting up an exhibition of antiques and could I help, at first I thought they wanted me as a real antiques, for the show!

Then it transpired I was what is now called bygones, in fact things not in use any longer, but how little remains, the copper that stood in the back kitchen is now a small pond in the garden. Who would be lumbered up with a mangle? And then I remembered the iron that still resides under the stairs and I got down and pulled it out together with the shoe, what was the shoe for they asked, to keep the iron clean as we probably heated it on the kitchen fire and the shoe protected the white linen, then I found a tiny lamp, bought at Woolworth's.
When everything there was a penny, threepence or sixpence, this little lamp could stand on the stairs and just give enough light to get up them in the dark, there was no electricity except in larger houses and they usually had an engine and made their own and then you had to be careful and not to use it to freely as it might run out, we had an electric kettle but this had to be used with care, otherwise it was only for lighting.

However I found a candlestick and remembered how the candlesticks were all put out in the hall by a table with their matches ready to be lit when you went up to bed, in the bedrooms there were tall candlesticks on the dressing table and perhaps on the mantlepiece, a jug of hot water was on the wash-hand-stand, now that was a real antique, and somewhere I have a jug and basin, and how pretty some of those china jugs, a cold night and a stone hot water bottle was put in our bed, but perhaps fifty years earlier a warming pan would have been brought up filled with hot coals.

These are now so antique and you may see them adorning the walls of pubs with horse brasses and other rarities, I searched the house for an ink bottle, can anyone remember dipping their pen in the ink? We used to do it at school and I am afraid might be caught making tiny blotting paper balls dipped in ink to throw at friends or enemies, then in the garden one always dug up the remains of clay pipes, somewhere I still have a box full, but mostly the shafts, I expect a clay pipe with shag made a pretty good smoke, was it a killer in those old days or just a bit of comfort as you dug and double dug the garden.

Progress such a wonderful and pleasant thing, and I hope my little girl will giggle with her little friends about the strange ways of the past, with her microwave food, let electricity do everything for her, and in time she will laugh at all the new inventions, that are sure to change the way of life of the next generation!

==Market Day in Norwich.==
Saturday was market day in Norwich and from early morning cattle were driven along the road, we loved to go and watch them, but deplored the small boys who rushed around shouting and beating them with sticks. They may have come from many miles away, starting well before dawn, we used to take our little buckets and spades to collect the droppings for our small gardens, it was easy to scrape up as the roads had been given a new surface called “Tarmacadam” and we were told the tar came from a lake in the West Indies.

It was a great improvement on the dusty surface of all the bye-roads, cars were just beginning to appear and as some could go fast as thirty miles an hour they could blow up a lot of dust and there were no windscreens in those days, we used to try and persuade someone to take us to the top of the drive after dark to see the lights of the cars coming along the main road but they could not have been very bright as they had to be lit with a match.

The road to Norwich was full of interest and sometimes, we would walk as far as the mill and go to the shop near by to get 3d worth of bran for our rabbits, that shop is still there and sells bread, it was a long walk for short legs, but always full of interest.

We crossed the park which is now a golf course and came out on the road where there was a deep dip that is now flattened out, then we came to the Home Farm where the herd of red poll cattle were kept, crossing Blue Boar Lane there were two houses called “ Belle View “ which still exist, and then the Blacksmiths shop, we might see a horse being shod if we were lucky and the other side of the road, a wheel might be having a new metal tyre fixed.

Petrol was sold there at 1/6d a gallon, further on we passed the Monkey Puzzle Tree growing outside the carpenters flint cottage, and then the Wood Farm came up, but no time to stop there, and there were open fields, on that side, for the rest of the way until we came to St. Cuthbert’s Church.

The other side were several villa’s “ Egbert” and “ Osbert “ were two with names, if school had finished children would be playing in the road, hopscotch, hoops, whip tops or skipping ropes, it all depended, on the time of year and the road was a good safe place to play!

We had no time to climb up to the mill, but it was a famous landmark. With luck who ever was with us might buy 2d worth of sweets to help us on our return journey and hurry us along as dusk was beginning to fall, we clutched our bag of bran and looked out for our father who might go past on tall bicycle and wave to us. All that is more than 70 years ago.

==Father becomes Lord Mayor of Norwich.==

In 1911 things and events stick tenaciously in one’s mind the picture is implanted and never lost, that year my father became the first elected Lord Mayor of Norwich, some merchant in the city presented my mother with a coach and this of course, she finally gave to the City of Norwich and I expect it is hidden away to this day, we as children were allowed to drive with our parents in the coach from Sprowston to St Andrews Hall to receive the King who then went onto the Royal Norfolk Show at Carrow.

The coachman Orris was dressed in knee breeches and cocked hat, and the groom and footman also splendidly attired, stood on the small platform at the back, myself resplendent with a hat with a feather, and was my father in his mayor robes or did he put them on later?

It was all very exciting and we as children waved to everyone as we passed, this was the occasion when my father was knighted, which did not mean much to us! For having driven in state we namely were sent home in the pony cart!

There were other excitements too and this may have been before the new King’s visit and in fact the evening on the day of the Coronation, a massive bonfire had been erected somewhere on or below Mousehold Heath, and we as small children were invited by two young officers to watch from Britannia barracks which high up looked directly down on the city.

We climbed the steep cold staircase to the Officers room where they had kindly laid out a feast of goodies, but insulted me by asking my nanny if she thought I ought to have bread and milk. At that age when I was all of four and in a blue silk frock with medals for the Coronation.

We looked from the windows as the light faded and saw the massive pile of the bonfire, burst into flames and little people who looked black dancing and rushing around, my father and mother had to hurry back from London, where they had seats in the Abbey for the Coronation ceremony as the Lord Mayor had to light the bonfire.

The other excitement of that festive year was a Garden Party at Sprowston Hall and after the guests had gone we were taken to the tea tent and given our first Ice Cream! Delicious and made in a cylinder packed with ice and somehow you turned a handle to rotate the gorgeous mixture of cream, fruit and sugar what would “Mr Walls” say to that?

==Trivia==

We hear so much about Antique Road Shows and all the joys of taking some special treasure to be looked at, and valued, and to find your possession is worth a prodigious sum of money, and, if you don’t wish to sell, must be insured for a large sum. Possibly very few of us have these secret hoards of excitement and delight, but many of us have little treasures hidden away in some drawer or box that dates back a generation or two.

Of course a flat iron still stands in a cupboard, but I got rid of the heavy stone hot water bottle as it seemed too cumbersome for comfort, several brass lamps are around the house and these date from the time Sprowston Hall first put in electricity around 1911 with their own engine to make it.

They must have been bedside lamps, and one has a screw half way up so that the stand could be bent to bring the light closer, however, perhaps more amusing is an old envelope that contains a little case pricked with holes, neatly ribboned and embroidered with a rhyme on either side, this little case held small sticks of sticking plaster and the words embroidered on one side “if pin or knife should thee offend, this little case relief will lend”, and on the reverse, “may you never feel a wound too deep for this to heal”. Had some little girl made it for a favourite uncle? Where did it come from? In the same box was another envelope saying Bolshevik Money and contained a note printed in Russia at the time of the Revolution around 1918 and sent back from Poland, by an aunt who was doing relief work with the Quaker contingent who did valuable work both in Poland and later in Russia near the Siberian border, living in railway trucks.

Turning away from small treasures, my eyes light on a tin lamp with an opaque glass shade bought at Woolworth's, nothing in those days cost more than 6d, it is still so useful to give a wee light on the staircase when we have a power cut. We have progressed so fast and so far that now all is machinery or time saving, nothing is done by hand, and when the machine breaks down or the telephone ceases to ring, and the electricity goes off, can we still warm ourselves with a fire of sticks or heat a real kettle.

==Sprowston School Treats==

Going back before World War One I think I can remember happy things about Sprowston School, they seem so unlike anything that would happen, now that I begin to think they are figments of imagination. The school was in Tusting close or somewhere near there and seemed to me, a very happy place, we would go for “Empire Day“ which shows how long ago it was.

All the children stood in a big circle and the flag was solemnly raised on the flag pole and broken, then we sang the National Anthem and “ Land of Hope and Glory “ and other patriotic songs. The British Empire was glorious and would go on forever or did we just not know what it was, the ceremony finished with a sweet scramble, such fun but were they nicely wrapped and the ground disinfected first? Did anyone get tummy ache?

The next memory is the school outing to Sprowston Hall, the traction engine went to collect the children and pulled two farm wagons, the children in their best, those long shorts for the boys, and best neat linen for the girls and there must have been a few teachers with them to stop them falling out of the wagons as they waved flags and shouted.
The park had been got ready with swings on iron chains put up in the trees and a track prepared for the races tea was in the stable yard under the chestnut tree that stood in the middle. The tea was very simple thick slices of bread, butter and jam and lots of sticky buns, but it all went down very quickly, there were lots of helpers to hand round, and strong tea was brewed in the coach house.
Later there, two prizes for the races and these may have been money, a threepenny bit or a sixpence, or maybe a penny for a third prize, even a penny would buy a paper packet of sweets.

Tired children, and the long ride back in the wagons pulled by Puffing Billy with smoke belching from his funnel, he was a beautiful engine with all his brass work polished. We used to go with my father to see him on Sundays and had a great affection for him.

More pictures to follow.
[[Category:The Families of Sprowston]]

Catherine Gurney

2015-10-22T18:32:33Z

Ken:

MEMORIES OF LIFE AT SPROWSTON HALL
BY MISS CATHERINE GURNEY

MEMORIES OF LIFE AT SPROWSTON HALL
BY MISS CATHERINE GURNEY

As life begins to fade one looks back on its many years and wonders why things happened as they did. One is apt to think that one rules ones life, but circumstances are different and one finds that one has had to do what one had to, and not what one wanted, In fact one could imagine that some supreme power had all the time dictated what was to happen.

Catherine Gurney? 2nd from left in this photograph.

My Grandmother said “ The way will open” and one just waited for the opening and tried to have the will to seize at the time it came, of course one made a hundred mistakes from lack of force or energy but sometimes just from weakness of the flesh.

After all very few people, in this enormous world are distinguished. To have force of character, brains, real beauty of person or personal charm the rest of humanity gets by with mediocre lives often humdrum and undistinguished, yet here and there, there is a glint of something worth while and something better.

I can’t see there is anything distinguished or better in mine but I have been lucky in some periods with a chance to do a few things and see a few places. Sometimes I have jumped when the way has opened and sometimes I have rebelled at no opening and just the burden of the every day living and now as the flesh weakens and maybe senile dementia drives to the depths of despair I will note one or two facts to amuse myself rather than entertain my relations.

We were a family of seven children all born between 1905 and 1916, spaced with two to two and a half years between most of us. John, the eldest was a charming baby with deep violet eyes and brown rather than fair hair. Boys were very much favoured in the family, girls taking a very secondary place so when I arrived only thirteen months later no one pleased.

My mother at having a second child so quickly and then a girl who was extremely healthy, plain and with nothing to charm or recommend her. John proved delicate and constant nursing, so Catherine could be pushed to one side and fought for her rights as she got older with some determination. Rosamund the third came gracefully, a pretty baby with long limbs, blue eyes and fair hair, followed by two boys and then two more girls, but by the time the youngest arrived I was ten years old and put in the position of setting an example, giving way to the eldest and helping the younger ones.

==Childhood Memories==
I developed rickets early on although my legs were rubbed in Tidmans Sea Salt they never became completely straight and I had no strength in my ankles. This I resented and have never succeeded in walking as far and as fast as the others. With that and no sense of rhythm or music and continuing to be plain all through life one has felt that one had handicaps that were so easily overcome in the rest of the family. I am sure that I was a very tiresome child and when my Nanny complained to my Mother that “Catherine is the ring leader of all evil” from scriptural training I knew that I must be the devil and decided not to try for any worldly goodness for indeed if the devil I would be unable to achieve it.

One can look back really to a very happy childhood, the lovely sunny nurseries at Sprowston Hall just outside Norwich.

The splendid gardens almost a world on their own for short legs to explore and the kitchen gardens to be pillaged for windfalls, and masses of soft fruit in their season. Nanny was particularly fond of gooseberries and we would fill our little baskets for the eleven o'clock feasts in the garden. Usually by the swing, that hung from the large variegated sycamore tree and was shady and cool, on some summer days.
One’s memory is always of brilliant sunshine and heat. Our other special place in the garden was by the aviaries. They had fallen into disrepair since my father and uncle had grown up but used to house cockatoos. There was a small pond and bamboo’s growing and the rest rather unattractive and wild.
A large hedge divided the aviary from the kitchen garden and along this hedge we had our little gardens and there we could dig to our hearts content and grow exactly what we liked. We were very happy there each with our own plot, and, I suppose we produced the odd radish but I don’t recollect any very great triumphs. The other end of the aviary we had our sand pit, this was a place full of amusement as we could get water from the animals drinking trough, the other side of the fence or down to the earth below the sandpit. It was entirely our own bit of garden. I remember my father coming up one day to tell us that we had a baby brother.

This was the fifth child Samuel Edmund, we did not know what to say and did not really believe him, and having told us he went away rather quickly so we probably said the wrong things.

Nanny had her own garden in the far corner of the kitchen garden where the bee hives used to stand. We all helped her work there and it was full of London pride and Ariba’s and we thought very beautiful. The bee hives had long since gone but shelves were there to hold the straw skeps as this was the days before wooden hives and the dreadful part was that the bees were burned out to get at the honey. Near nanny’s garden was the rhubarb bed and if we were not discovered it was delightful to bang the leaves with a stick and make holes. They were so lovely and large and green.

Down the path Rosamund had run at me with a four tine fork but only got me with one tine in the hand, it bled profusely but we washed it in the greenhouse water butt, that was full of nice little wriggley things and somehow I managed to conceal the fact from grownups, although I carried a scar for a good many years, it probably served me right for teasing.

One of the most interesting parts of the gardens was just outside the wall with the tool houses and potting sheds, the pig sty’s, the hot beds for the frames of early flowers , and the rubbish heaps for lawn mowing’s in summer and fallen leaves in the autumn. One would stroll along here in our first morning run, and according to the time of year we broke the ice on the water butts, looked in at the potting shed and perhaps found Twisty legs,

Mr Hoare who was the under gardener and much beloved.

There was a little fire place at the end of the shed where the men had their dinners, and then there was the shed for forcing of rhubarb and endive. Further on the pig styes that produced manure for the garden, somewhere along there we kept our bantams, coming back to the house we had to pass through the stable yard with its large quince tree and huge horse chestnut in the centre, then under an archway to the courtyard of the house. We had our own door, passed the stoke hole and the cellar steps into a vestibule where prams were kept and then up comfortable shallow stairs to the first floor where nurseries and schoolroom, and the only bathroom were situated, so we need have no contact with parents or guests.

The servant’s bedrooms were above in the attics, and as a treat we would go and see Elizabeth the head housemaid in her room, she was a dear, and the mother to all the younger maids, but she was firm with us and we got told off for miss-demeaners.

I once went to bed in my moccasins as my feet were so cold but I never did it again! The nursery, as time went on, overflowed with children and John was moved to a bedroom over the front porch.

We thought it a great honour for the eldest, but apparently he resented it and was terrified and lonely, later I had a bedroom the other side, it wasn't’ a particularly attractive room as no one gave way to children to make it special for them. Maybe I was older and just took it in my stride, perhaps I was older for John and I used to come down for dinner in the evening and I had to change.

One day I was late as John and I had been to the laundry where there was a carpenters shop as John was making a wireless set, I rushed through my changing, but the gong went, and then oh! Horrors the footman arrived at the bedroom door, and put down a bowl of soup. I was not to come down, John got away with it but then he did not have to change.
Nanny said it was most unfair and she and I shared the soup and a rather delicious pudding so I felt a bit better.
We certainly had to tow the line but there were many suprisingly understanding things that my mother let us get away with. I read a book called the wide, wide world about a little girl who was sent to an aunt in Canada as her parents had died, a tough life but she learnt to do lots of things. All the neighbours gathered together to do apple peeling. The apples were cut into rings and threaded on strings, fixed across a frame, when the frames were filled the whole outfit was put into a slow oven and the apples dried.

The apple rings were then stored in tins and could be soaked and used through to the next apple crop. I told my mother it would be a good plan if we did likewise and she let the carpenter make a frame and we peeled and dried and stored the windfalls, they took very little space in an old biscuit tin and it was great satisfaction to me. Did the cook ever dane to use the dried apple rings?

Another time I went to my mother and said I would organise a garden fete to make money for the soldiers in hospital, I must have been about ten at the time and we had a wonderful holiday as busy as bees, drawing posters, making things, touring the local village schools in the donkey cart and asking children to come, we borrowed a switch back from the cousins, got the land agent to run a concert party. Everyone in the house helped and lots from further away, It was a great success and daddy counted the money and we had made £22, there must have been a lot of background help behind the scenes, my mother wanted us to be independent and there were always enough of us to make our own plays, provided we came in, in time for meals, (the big bell sounded five minutes before lunch) we could do as we liked and off we went to the woods to build stockades or wigwams, or rode the donkey bare back down the lane, or delivered magazines, what I particularly disliked was being told to do the church flowers, it was quite a walk by oneself carrying the basket to the church, then getting the key and going in through the vestry.

The pews gave strange and frightening creek and I would rush to the sanctuary and clutch the altar for safety, seize a vase and rush to the vestry which was also safe, the vases were brass with narrow necks and I am sure the arrangements were lopsided for my mother’s only comment would be that they did not match very well. Luckily the bogey man, if there was one, never got me but it put me off church flowers for life.

Best of all were outings with my father, he would come into the schoolroom at the end of tea and ask if anyone wanted to go shooting, Rosamund never cared to, so off we went at dusk walking alongside the small covers seeing an owl or a door beetle flying, and perhaps come back with a pheasant or two for the pot.

We might go of a morning to the woods to do a bit of cutting, later we might go for a whole day to his house and laboratory on the broads, getting a boat at Wayford Bridge and him doing the long row to Longmore point, of course there was always the Sunday walk round the farm and through the woods home, but then the bailiff was there and lots of leaning on gates and farming talk.

==Childhood Health.==
Like all children we had our colds and coughs and more serious illnesses, Dr Long, a children’s doctor from Norwich came out to see us when it was necessary, he would look out of the window and say “ is that a blackbird or a thrush singing” you made a wild answer as you did not know but immediately felt better, “ well nurse “ he would say “I think she might get up and go for a good sharp walk and then back to bed“.

He believed in outdoor air at any price, the remedies seemed to be a steam kettle with friars balsam to relieve the chest and a horrible smell it was, or we were rubbed with camphorated oil, our tonsils painted or perhaps a dose of epipectuana but I can’t remember what that was for, we had our doses of syrup of figs or milk of magnesia and in the spring a good tonic malt and treacle or an iron tonic.

The operating theatre was the spare room, number 3, and there Samuel had his mastoid operation and others had adenoids and tonsils removed, not very antiseptic and I don’t suppose the doctor, did more than remove his coat, there seemed to be no side effects, no after effects and no particular treatment.

A cousin at Walsingham was to have her appendix removed, she got the carpenter to make a long narrow table, the surgeon came in his carriage from Norwich 27 miles, Violet came from the upper story in her dressing gown, the butler was horrified that she should walk down, and insisted on carrying her.
The doctor removed his top hat rolled back his cuffs, I presume the local doctor gave an anaesthetic (was it Dr. Sturdee?) and that was that, there must have been a nurse somewhere about, well she lived to nearly 90.

I saw the table that was used at her house at Wimborne in the potting shed! Rosamund had an operation for glands in the neck, she was very ill indeed but the treatment was to live in a tent in the garden, she must have been about 12 at the time.

==Electricity and Preserving things.==
It is difficult to understand or indeed remember what life was like without the amenities that we think of our necessities, around 1911 electricity was installed at Sprowston Hall, an engine with enormous fly wheels was put in a shed and rows of huge batteries alongside for storage, one could hear the engine chug chugging and it must have been quite a major work to start it up. The house was wired while we were away on holiday at the seaside and the parents doing a tour of Canada.

There were lights in the house but the engine could not produce enough power for any thing else, although I think nanny had an electric kettle in the nursery but it must only be used occasionally and with great care, electric fires were unheard of and we still used the flat iron heated on the fire. The nursery had a coal fire but I think in the drawing room, wood was burned and certainly in my father’s billiard room where he sat, there was a huge coal stove, in the kitchen and somewhere a boiler for heating the water, refrigerators had not been invented, and so there was a large larder with slate shelves to keep food cool.
Under the shelves were crocks to hold the eggs, which were stored in water glass, eggs were cheap and plentiful.

In the spring so they were stored for winter use, other crocks contained runner beans pickled in salt, sugar came in sacks of I cwt, soap for the household came also by the cwt in long yellow bars that had to be cut into squares, and put on the kitchen mantlepiece to dry out, really dried they would be stored away and would last ant time. Nothing was paper packeted as, now, and for a big house had to be bought in quantity, the shops were always pleased to deliver and I expect in those days they came in vans drawn by horses. A small boy carried heavy cans of milk the half mile or so from the farm, it was good milk straight from the cow, never cooled or sterilised but good and creamy, butter too was made at the farm, fruit and vegetables came from the garden, the only fruit bought might be oranges or tangerines at Christmas or the occasional pineapple for dinner parties.

There was no means of freezing fruit so everything was eaten in its season, I’m not sure that bottling had come in, in those early days, but around 1930 when I house-kept for my brother I learned to bottle, churn butter and make Gervais cream cheeses, and we sold what we could at rediculously cheap prices.

==Laundry for the Hall.==
Those early days before the 1918 war we were all very young, the ways of life changed so rapidly that what is here today is gone tomorrow, one thinks one is up to date and finds one is ten years at least behind the times, I click away on my old typewriter and find it is a thing of the past, many more and easier ways of writing, but my mind turned to washing and the sun is shining and the washing, swings in the breeze, but that would be out, although we country folk still think a good dry in the wind is preferable to all other methods.
How long ago when every house had a copper, true it was the only means of heating water, but it took the place of the washing machine which incidentally must be more expensive to run, In the old days at Sprowston Hall the laundry was about a mile from the house and at least two or three people worked there, I think I the head was Mrs Golden at the time, but there must have been changes. The washing was packed in large wicker hampers and taken in the cart to the laundry, as the household numbered about fourteen people there was a considerable amount of washing besides the bed linen, so many aprons and starched caps, so many cotton dresses, all the numerous nursery stuff, the white starched table cloths and napkins, and menswear with starched collars, starched shirts for dinner parties.

It was not to go to the laundry and see the great tubs of rainwater, the large coppers for boiling, the long tables for ironing and the stove in the middle of the room, with its rack round the chimney to hold the irons as they heated, there was always a clatter of work at the beginning of the week, boiling the linen, hanging it out to dry or putting it through the mangle, a lot depended on weather condition and drying. Later the endless ironing and so many more frisland embroideries and even the ladies might have starched collars to their blouses, at the end of the week the hampers were filled and taken back to the Hall.

With careful unpacking and sorting and checking the lists, In one house there was an upstairs floor to the laundry and there an immense roller was cranked back and forth to iron the sheets laid out on long tables, this must have saved the hardest part of ironing, but it all must have been hard work in the hot steamy atmosphere. Later probably much later the home laundries were given up and the washing went to the laundries, the laundry van would come round and by this time there was far less washing to send, for the fashion in clothing began to change and thicker clothes went to the cleaners.
The next phase was the big laundries doing industrial washing for hotels factories, or now along the coast for oilrigs, meanwhile we again wash at home and all made easy with electric washing machines that will do most of the jobs needed, and materials are so much easier to handle.

Never again to light the copper, never again to turn the mangle, the iron will heat itself and keep hot, and you can watch telly while you work, its all splendid progress but I think our grandmothers or great grandmothers would be surprised?.

==Aeroplanes at Sprowston.==
Air travel is so easy nowadays and gets quicker and quicker, just nip across Siberia from Tokyo without a stop and you have arrived in London, executives dash across the world for conferences and only see the inside of the boardroom, this is still a new of life and a rather exhausting one without the excitement and romance and effort, how quickly life as changed.

The turn of the century when cars had only just started, the 1st world war when horses were still in use and airfields had only just come into existence, Sprowston was still a rural community; Mousehold remained a wide open space of fields, not a house in sight.

I saw my first aeroplane in 1911 and we drove up in the wagon and stood on the road to look over the hedge and see the aeroplane being got ready for the flight, double wings held together with bamboo struts and someone turned the propeller by hand to start the motor, and the engine sprang into life, and the staff rushed for safety and the plane slowly rose and sailed away disappearing into the distance, a miracle of science, later in 1914 the wide flat fields were turned into an aerodrome and the young pilots were trained.

There were many accidents and some amusing encounters, my Father saw a plane, as he thought in trouble and ran across a field or two, where the big Sprowston housing estates now stand, to his amusement the plane was alright and a lovely young lady descended putting up her parasol and walking away, a young man was taking his fiancee up for a joyride, another time a plane landed upside down and he was full of admiration for the pilot who sat nonchalantly on the wing smoking a cigarette with not a shake in his hand, later they got to France and I think it was more dog fights than the bombing, we think of nowadays.

Silver zeppelins along the coast, they looked like giant cigars and I can remember looking out of a window to see one, my father was outside and a great shout from him to draw the curtains and shut windows.

It may have been that a bomb was dropped on Thorpe and we drove up in the pony cart to see the crater, it was on the edge of a wood and had done no damage, there was a nice big hole and we were at that age that longed for souvenirs, we searched for something to take home in triumph and at last whoever was with us suggested we put shrivelled worms into a matchbox which was all we could find. This may seem simple and amusing and just the little things that are remembered by a child of eight and so long ago but there was the other side over in France when the flower of young manhood was laying down its life in the trenches, it was a war to end a war or so we were told but now alas we know a bit better.

==Surgery at home – the operation!==
Lately I was in hospital after a stupid accident to my leg and everything is in a state of hygiene, order and cleanliness, which for some reason put me in mind of a cousin who once told me of her appendix operation that took place in the early part of the century, my cousin has been dead these thirty years or more and appendix operations must have been in their earliest days, Violet lived at Walsingham in a big house and I suppose the local doctor diagnosed the appendix and the surgeon was duly called for.

At any rate Violet had time to get the local carpenter to make a long narrow table for her to lie on, the surgeon had to come from Norwich in his carriage and it must have taken him two hours or more, imagine him in a long coat and top hat, meanwhile a room was prepared for the operation with the table conveniently placed in the best light, presumably the local doctor was the anaesthetist, Violet came down the stairs from her bedroom at the top of the house and the manservant seeing her said you can’t walk to an operation and picked her up and carried her, supposedly the surgeon took of his overcoat and rolled up his sleeves. Oxygen was administered through a mask and the operation was entirely successful, was a nurse in attendance alas I never heard any further details but Violet lived to a ripe old age, determined and active and the kindest of friends and what is more she showed me the operation table which then resided in her potting shed.

==Bicycles – my first one!==
What a huge number of different types of bicycles there are now, they all go faster and faster with less effort and are built for sport rather than a means of necessary transport, one is full of praise for the marvellous endurance tests they achieve, at the turn of the century it was another thing, so few cars and not everyone could afford a cart or carriage for transport, so the penny farthing came in but I don’t think I ever heard of a woman attempting to get on with her long and sweeping skirts, eventually the good old push bike was invented and became the poor man’s transport for many years.

I was not given a bicycle until I was nearly eleven and then it was my pride and joy, my mother more or less taught me to ride, along the garden path, then got bored with holding me up and gave me a big push and told me to get on with it. By the end of the afternoon I could manage rather inelegantly.

There was a lovely hollow in the road by the footpath to the church and if you went down it fast enough you could free wheel to the other side, it was good to have freedom and to be able to go off on ones own, almost better to be out of an evening with father.
Things seemed to happen near the Blue Boar Plantation, a lady coming the opposite way suddenly swerved across his path, nearly knocking him off, I was behind and ran into his back, and he said “Damn” in a loud voice, I was really shocked that he could know such bad words, for although we said it in the schoolroom and were told not to, I had thought it a bit private to us, perhaps we were very innocent.
One kept one’s precious steed cleaned and polished and looked with envy at our governesses who had an acetylene lamp that smelled awful when it was lit but gave a very good light, it must have been before the days of torches, I think her bike was very elegant with a skirt guard so that the long skirt did not get caught in the chain and wheels, we did not need those luxuries, but my brother and I used to go to Norwich together and had the terror of riding down Magdalen Street and avoiding getting stuck in the tramlines. I had to contend with two fears, the one of loosing him if I did not go fast enough and the second of falling in the tram lines, thinking back I am sure he would have come to my rescue!

It was quite safe to leave your bike anywhere, not like nowadays when it would probably be stolen, if not securely chained up, I can’t remember what we did in Norwich, perhaps we just wandered about for we seldom had more than a few pennies in our purses, but of course everything was so much cheaper and there were only three prices in Woolworth’s, a penny, threepence or sixpence , for sixpence you could get a string of pearls and the story was that if you looked carefully you might find a string of real ones and somebody had!

Most of the delightful shops of those days have gone now. We had a long cycle home after our outing and woe betide us if we were back late for lunch.

== St Mary’s Church and going to church.==
We went to the exhibition in St Mary’s Church Sprowston, but sadly arrived just after it had been closed, but it put me in mind of the familiar church of so many years ago, there was something friendly and perhaps almost cosy about the church in those days, was that feeling engendered by the walk up the aisle and over the grating that covered the pit in which was the central heating, heat rose up and warmed your legs almost to the waist, someone had lit the boiler the day before so the church was really warm, we sat in the front pew on the right hand side and just underneath the pulpit, we were allowed to draw when the sermon started and sometimes my Father forgot the paper and so let us draw on the end flyleaf of a hymn book.

I gained really bad marks one Sunday by attempting to draw a picture of the vicar, never must you draw a clergyman in his pulpit, all my life I have remembered this, and I have never tried again. To the right in the side aisle was a wonderful and very bright stained glass window, perhaps in memory of a Stracey, perhaps it is there still, we knew all the people who sat in the middle aisle, the Coleman`s, who walked from Oak Lodge, the Gowing`s from White House Farm who filled a pew, and then the Cozens Hardy`s, from the Coltishall Road, who had a huge monkey puzzle in front of their house, he was Editor of the Eastern Daily Press and miss Cozens Hardy always sat very straight holding her elbows so I tried to do that to.

My Father read the lessons so we had to pay attention and although someone had given me a prayer book the pictures in it were dreadfully dull and rather few.

At Christmas we all made decorations and holly wreaths, and sometimes when I was a good deal older I was sent by myself to do the altar flowers, my mother had forgotten it was her turn. The walk to the church did not worry me but getting from the vestry to the altar scared me stiff, the vestry was safe and inside the altar rails but in, between was beset with peril and sometimes the woodwork seemed to give out a sound, or was it a ghost? No wonder the two brass vases did not always match.

The walk from church was pleasant, a nice path along the side of a field, and we looked for all the wild flowers we could find, then onto the road where there was a big “dip” now all flattened away, across the road and into the park where the horses would be standing under the chestnut trees for their Sunday rest head to tail and snubbing each other. A metal gate into the garden and so home, why does one remember those days as full of sunlight and bright flowers, I don’t think anyone drove to church, cars were hardly on the market and you did not take the horses out on a Sunday except for special purposes so there was always time to meet friends outside the church and no rush to get home to cook the dinner.

Now the pleasant country road and rural church is surrounded with a housing estate, and a field side path swept away, and although there are so many people living around, the congregation is probably less, and it is certain that the church is less well heard.

A small girl and her mother came to see me, her form at school was putting up an exhibition of antiques and could I help, at first I thought they wanted me as a real antiques, for the show!

Then it transpired I was what is now called bygones, in fact things not in use any longer, but how little remains, the copper that stood in the back kitchen is now a small pond in the garden. Who would be lumbered up with a mangle? And then I remembered the iron that still resides under the stairs and I got down and pulled it out together with the shoe, what was the shoe for they asked, to keep the iron clean as we probably heated it on the kitchen fire and the shoe protected the white linen, then I found a tiny lamp, bought at Woolworth's.
When everything there was a penny, threepence or sixpence, this little lamp could stand on the stairs and just give enough light to get up them in the dark, there was no electricity except in larger houses and they usually had an engine and made their own and then you had to be careful and not to use it to freely as it might run out, we had an electric kettle but this had to be used with care, otherwise it was only for lighting.

However I found a candlestick and remembered how the candlesticks were all put out in the hall by a table with their matches ready to be lit when you went up to bed, in the bedrooms there were tall candlesticks on the dressing table and perhaps on the mantlepiece, a jug of hot water was on the wash-hand-stand, now that was a real antique, and somewhere I have a jug and basin, and how pretty some of those china jugs, a cold night and a stone hot water bottle was put in our bed, but perhaps fifty years earlier a warming pan would have been brought up filled with hot coals.

These are now so antique and you may see them adorning the walls of pubs with horse brasses and other rarities, I searched the house for an ink bottle, can anyone remember dipping their pen in the ink? We used to do it at school and I am afraid might be caught making tiny blotting paper balls dipped in ink to throw at friends or enemies, then in the garden one always dug up the remains of clay pipes, somewhere I still have a box full, but mostly the shafts, I expect a clay pipe with shag made a pretty good smoke, was it a killer in those old days or just a bit of comfort as you dug and double dug the garden.

Progress such a wonderful and pleasant thing, and I hope my little girl will giggle with her little friends about the strange ways of the past, with her microwave food, let electricity do everything for her, and in time she will laugh at all the new inventions, that are sure to change the way of life of the next generation!

==Market Day in Norwich.==
Saturday was market day in Norwich and from early morning cattle were driven along the road, we loved to go and watch them, but deplored the small boys who rushed around shouting and beating them with sticks. They may have come from many miles away, starting well before dawn, we used to take our little buckets and spades to collect the droppings for our small gardens, it was easy to scrape up as the roads had been given a new surface called “Tarmacadam” and we were told the tar came from a lake in the West Indies.

It was a great improvement on the dusty surface of all the bye-roads, cars were just beginning to appear and as some could go fast as thirty miles an hour they could blow up a lot of dust and there were no windscreens in those days, we used to try and persuade someone to take us to the top of the drive after dark to see the lights of the cars coming along the main road but they could not have been very bright as they had to be lit with a match.

The road to Norwich was full of interest and sometimes, we would walk as far as the mill and go to the shop near by to get 3d worth of bran for our rabbits, that shop is still there and sells bread, it was a long walk for short legs, but always full of interest.

We crossed the park which is now a golf course and came out on the road where there was a deep dip that is now flattened out, then we came to the Home Farm where the herd of red poll cattle were kept, crossing Blue Boar Lane there were two houses called “ Belle View “ which still exist, and then the Blacksmiths shop, we might see a horse being shod if we were lucky and the other side of the road, a wheel might be having a new metal tyre fixed.

Petrol was sold there at 1/6d a gallon, further on we passed the Monkey Puzzle Tree growing outside the carpenters flint cottage, and then the Wood Farm came up, but no time to stop there, and there were open fields, on that side, for the rest of the way until we came to St. Cuthbert’s Church.

The other side were several villa’s “ Egbert” and “ Osbert “ were two with names, if school had finished children would be playing in the road, hopscotch, hoops, whip tops or skipping ropes, it all depended, on the time of year and the road was a good safe place to play!

We had no time to climb up to the mill, but it was a famous landmark. With luck who ever was with us might buy 2d worth of sweets to help us on our return journey and hurry us along as dusk was beginning to fall, we clutched our bag of bran and looked out for our father who might go past on tall bicycle and wave to us. All that is more than 70 years ago.

==Father becomes Lord Mayor of Norwich.==

In 1911 things and events stick tenaciously in one’s mind the picture is implanted and never lost, that year my father became the first elected Lord Mayor of Norwich, some merchant in the city presented my mother with a coach and this of course, she finally gave to the City of Norwich and I expect it is hidden away to this day, we as children were allowed to drive with our parents in the coach from Sprowston to St Andrews Hall to receive the King who then went onto the Royal Norfolk Show at Carrow.

The coachman Orris was dressed in knee breeches and cocked hat, and the groom and footman also splendidly attired, stood on the small platform at the back, myself resplendent with a hat with a feather, and was my father in his mayor robes or did he put them on later?

It was all very exciting and we as children waved to everyone as we passed, this was the occasion when my father was knighted, which did not mean much to us! For having driven in state we namely were sent home in the pony cart!

There were other excitements too and this may have been before the new King’s visit and in fact the evening on the day of the Coronation, a massive bonfire had been erected somewhere on or below Mousehold Heath, and we as small children were invited by two young officers to watch from Britannia barracks which high up looked directly down on the city.

We climbed the steep cold staircase to the Officers room where they had kindly laid out a feast of goodies, but insulted me by asking my nanny if she thought I ought to have bread and milk. At that age when I was all of four and in a blue silk frock with medals for the Coronation.

We looked from the windows as the light faded and saw the massive pile of the bonfire, burst into flames and little people who looked black dancing and rushing around, my father and mother had to hurry back from London, where they had seats in the Abbey for the Coronation ceremony as the Lord Mayor had to light the bonfire.

The other excitement of that festive year was a Garden Party at Sprowston Hall and after the guests had gone we were taken to the tea tent and given our first Ice Cream! Delicious and made in a cylinder packed with ice and somehow you turned a handle to rotate the gorgeous mixture of cream, fruit and sugar what would “Mr Walls” say to that?

==Trivia==

We hear so much about Antique Road Shows and all the joys of taking some special treasure to be looked at, and valued, and to find your possession is worth a prodigious sum of money, and, if you don’t wish to sell, must be insured for a large sum. Possibly very few of us have these secret hoards of excitement and delight, but many of us have little treasures hidden away in some drawer or box that dates back a generation or two.

Of course a flat iron still stands in a cupboard, but I got rid of the heavy stone hot water bottle as it seemed too cumbersome for comfort, several brass lamps are around the house and these date from the time Sprowston Hall first put in electricity around 1911 with their own engine to make it.

They must have been bedside lamps, and one has a screw half way up so that the stand could be bent to bring the light closer, however, perhaps more amusing is an old envelope that contains a little case pricked with holes, neatly ribboned and embroidered with a rhyme on either side, this little case held small sticks of sticking plaster and the words embroidered on one side “if pin or knife should thee offend, this little case relief will lend”, and on the reverse, “may you never feel a wound too deep for this to heal”. Had some little girl made it for a favourite uncle? Where did it come from? In the same box was another envelope saying Bolshevik Money and contained a note printed in Russia at the time of the Revolution around 1918 and sent back from Poland, by an aunt who was doing relief work with the Quaker contingent who did valuable work both in Poland and later in Russia near the Siberian border, living in railway trucks.

Turning away from small treasures, my eyes light on a tin lamp with an opaque glass shade bought at Woolworth's, nothing in those days cost more than 6d, it is still so useful to give a wee light on the staircase when we have a power cut. We have progressed so fast and so far that now all is machinery or time saving, nothing is done by hand, and when the machine breaks down or the telephone ceases to ring, and the electricity goes off, can we still warm ourselves with a fire of sticks or heat a real kettle.

==Sprowston School Treats==

Going back before World War One I think I can remember happy things about Sprowston School, they seem so unlike anything that would happen, now that I begin to think they are figments of imagination. The school was in Tusting close or somewhere near there and seemed to me, a very happy place, we would go for “Empire Day“ which shows how long ago it was.

All the children stood in a big circle and the flag was solemnly raised on the flag pole and broken, then we sang the National Anthem and “ Land of Hope and Glory “ and other patriotic songs. The British Empire was glorious and would go on forever or did we just not know what it was, the ceremony finished with a sweet scramble, such fun but were they nicely wrapped and the ground disinfected first? Did anyone get tummy ache?

The next memory is the school outing to Sprowston Hall, the traction engine went to collect the children and pulled two farm wagons, the children in their best, those long shorts for the boys, and best neat linen for the girls and there must have been a few teachers with them to stop them falling out of the wagons as they waved flags and shouted.
The park had been got ready with swings on iron chains put up in the trees and a track prepared for the races tea was in the stable yard under the chestnut tree that stood in the middle. The tea was very simple thick slices of bread, butter and jam and lots of sticky buns, but it all went down very quickly, there were lots of helpers to hand round, and strong tea was brewed in the coach house.
Later there, two prizes for the races and these may have been money, a threepenny bit or a sixpence, or maybe a penny for a third prize, even a penny would buy a paper packet of sweets.

Tired children, and the long ride back in the wagons pulled by Puffing Billy with smoke belching from his funnel, he was a beautiful engine with all his brass work polished. We used to go with my father to see him on Sundays and had a great affection for him.

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Image:CG (2).jpg|Sprowston Hall 1900
Image:CG.jpg|Catherine Gurney second left? at Sprowston Hall
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Rest of this article to follow.
[[Category:The Families of Sprowston]]

Catherine Gurney

2015-10-22T18:29:01Z

Ken:

==MEMORIES OF LIFE AT SPROWSTON HALL
BY MISS CATHERINE GURNEY==

As life begins to fade one looks back on its many years and wonders why things happened as they did. One is apt to think that one rules ones life, but circumstances are different and one finds that one has had to do what one had to, and not what one wanted, In fact one could imagine that some supreme power had all the time dictated what was to happen.

My Grandmother said “ The way will open” and one just waited for the opening and tried to have the will to seize at the time it came, of course one made a hundred mistakes from lack of force or energy but sometimes just from weakness of the flesh.

After all very few people, in this enormous world are distinguished. To have force of character, brains, real beauty of person or personal charm the rest of humanity gets by with mediocre lives often humdrum and undistinguished, yet here and there, there is a glint of something worth while and something better.

I can’t see there is anything distinguished or better in mine but I have been lucky in some periods with a chance to do a few things and see a few places. Sometimes I have jumped when the way has opened and sometimes I have rebelled at no opening and just the burden of the every day living and now as the flesh weakens and maybe senile dementia drives to the depths of despair I will note one or two facts to amuse myself rather than entertain my relations.

We were a family of seven children all born between 1905 and 1916, spaced with two to two and a half years between most of us. John, the eldest was a charming baby with deep violet eyes and brown rather than fair hair. Boys were very much favoured in the family, girls taking a very secondary place so when I arrived only thirteen months later no one pleased.

My mother at having asecond child so quickly and then a girl who was extremely healthy, plain and with nothing to charm or recommend her. John proved delicate and constant nursing, so Catherine could be pushed to one side and fought for her rights as she got older with some determination. Rosamund the third came gracefully, a pretty baby with long limbs, blue eyes and fair hair, followed by two boys and then two more girls, but by the time the youngest arrived I was ten years old and put in the position of setting an example, giving way to the eldest and helping the younger ones.

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Image:CG (2).jpg|Sprowston Hall 1900
Image:CG.jpg|Catherine Gurney second left? at Sprowston Hall
</gallery>

==Childhood Memories==
I developed rickets early on although my legs were rubbed in Tidmans Sea Salt they never became completely straight and I had no strength in my ankles. This I resented and have never succeeded in walking as far and as fast as the others. With that and no sense of rhythm or music and continuing to be plain all through life one has felt that one had handicaps that were so easily overcome in the rest of the family. I am sure that I was a very tiresome child and when my Nanny complained to my Mother that “Catherine is the ring leader of all evil” from scriptural training I knew that I must be the devil and decided not to try for any worldly goodness for indeed if the devil I would be unable to achieve it.

One can look back really to a very happy childhood, the lovely sunny nurseries at Sprowston Hall just outside Norwich.

The splendid gardens almost a world on their own for short legs to explore and the kitchen gardens to be pillaged for windfalls, and masses of soft fruit in their season. Nanny was particularly fond of gooseberries and we would fill our little baskets for the eleven o'clock feasts in the garden. Usually by the swing, that hung from the large variegated sycamore tree and was shady and cool, on some summer days.
One’s memory is always of brilliant sunshine and heat. Our other special place in the garden was by the aviaries. They had fallen into disrepair since my father and uncle had grown up but used to house cockatoos. There was a small pond and bamboo’s growing and the rest rather unattractive and wild.
A large hedge divided the aviary from the kitchen garden and along this hedge we had our little gardens and there we could dig to our hearts content and grow exactly what we liked. We were very happy there each with our own plot, and, I suppose we produced the odd radish but I don’t recollect any very great triumphs. The other end of the aviary we had our sand pit, this was a place full of amusement as we could get water from the animals drinking trough, the other side of the fence or down to the earth below the sandpit. It was entirely our own bit of garden. I remember my father coming up one day to tell us that we had a baby brother.

This was the fifth child Samuel Edmund, we did not know what to say and did not really believe him, and having told us he went away rather quickly so we probably said the wrong things.

Nanny had her own garden in the far corner of the kitchen garden where the bee hives used to stand. We all helped her work there and it was full of London pride and Ariba’s and we thought very beautiful. The bee hives had long since gone but shelves were there to hold the straw skeps as this was the days before wooden hives and the dreadful part was that the bees were burned out to get at the honey. Near nanny’s garden was the rhubarb bed and if we were not discovered it was delightful to bang the leaves with a stick and make holes. They were so lovely and large and green.

Down the path Rosamund had run at me with a four tine fork but only got me with one tine in the hand, it bled profusely but we washed it in the greenhouse water butt, that was full of nice little wriggley things and somehow I managed to conceal the fact from grownups, although I carried a scar for a good many years, it probably served me right for teasing.

One of the most interesting parts of the gardens was just outside the wall with the tool houses and potting sheds, the pig sty’s, the hot beds for the frames of early flowers , and the rubbish heaps for lawn mowing’s in summer and fallen leaves in the autumn. One would stroll along here in our first morning run, and according to the time of year we broke the ice on the water butts, looked in at the potting shed and perhaps found Twisty legs,

Mr Hoare who was the under gardener and much beloved.

There was a little fire place at the end of the shed where the men had their dinners, and then there was the shed for forcing of rhubarb and endive. Further on the pig styes that produced manure for the garden, somewhere along there we kept our bantams, coming back to the house we had to pass through the stable yard with its large quince tree and huge horse chestnut in the centre, then under an archway to the courtyard of the house. We had our own door, passed the stoke hole and the cellar steps into a vestibule where prams were kept and then up comfortable shallow stairs to the first floor where nurseries and schoolroom, and the only bathroom were situated, so we need have no contact with parents or guests.

The servant’s bedrooms were above in the attics, and as a treat we would go and see Elizabeth the head housemaid in her room, she was a dear, and the mother to all the younger maids, but she was firm with us and we got told off for miss-demeaners.

I once went to bed in my moccasins as my feet were so cold but I never did it again! The nursery, as time went on, overflowed with children and John was moved to a bedroom over the front porch.

We thought it a great honour for the eldest, but apparently he resented it and was terrified and lonely, later I had a bedroom the other side, it wasn't’ a particularly attractive room as no one gave way to children to make it special for them. Maybe I was older and just took it in my stride, perhaps I was older for John and I used to come down for dinner in the evening and I had to change.

One day I was late as John and I had been to the laundry where there was a carpenters shop as John was making a wireless set, I rushed through my changing, but the gong went, and then oh! Horrors the footman arrived at the bedroom door, and put down a bowl of soup. I was not to come down, John got away with it but then he did not have to change.
Nanny said it was most unfair and she and I shared the soup and a rather delicious pudding so I felt a bit better.
We certainly had to tow the line but there were many suprisingly understanding things that my mother let us get away with. I read a book called the wide, wide world about a little girl who was sent to an aunt in Canada as her parents had died, a tough life but she learnt to do lots of things. All the neighbours gathered together to do apple peeling. The apples were cut into rings and threaded on strings, fixed across a frame, when the frames were filled the whole outfit was put into a slow oven and the apples dried.

The apple rings were then stored in tins and could be soaked and used through to the next apple crop. I told my mother it would be a good plan if we did likewise and she let the carpenter make a frame and we peeled and dried and stored the windfalls, they took very little space in an old biscuit tin and it was great satisfaction to me. Did the cook ever dane to use the dried apple rings?

Another time I went to my mother and said I would organise a garden fete to make money for the soldiers in hospital, I must have been about ten at the time and we had a wonderful holiday as busy as bees, drawing posters, making things, touring the local village schools in the donkey cart and asking children to come, we borrowed a switch back from the cousins, got the land agent to run a concert party. Everyone in the house helped and lots from further away, It was a great success and daddy counted the money and we had made £22, there must have been a lot of background help behind the scenes, my mother wanted us to be independent and there were always enough of us to make our own plays, provided we came in, in time for meals, (the big bell sounded five minutes before lunch) we could do as we liked and off we went to the woods to build stockades or wigwams, or rode the donkey bare back down the lane, or delivered magazines, what I particularly disliked was being told to do the church flowers, it was quite a walk by oneself carrying the basket to the church, then getting the key and going in through the vestry.

The pews gave strange and frightening creek and I would rush to the sanctuary and clutch the altar for safety, seize a vase and rush to the vestry which was also safe, the vases were brass with narrow necks and I am sure the arrangements were lopsided for my mother’s only comment would be that they did not match very well. Luckily the bogey man, if there was one, never got me but it put me off church flowers for life.

Best of all were outings with my father, he would come into the schoolroom at the end of tea and ask if anyone wanted to go shooting, Rosamund never cared to, so off we went at dusk walking alongside the small covers seeing an owl or a door beetle flying, and perhaps come back with a pheasant or two for the pot.

We might go of a morning to the woods to do a bit of cutting, later we might go for a whole day to his house and laboratory on the broads, getting a boat at Wayford Bridge and him doing the long row to Longmore point, of course there was always the Sunday walk round the farm and through the woods home, but then the bailiff was there and lots of leaning on gates and farming talk.

==Childhood Health.==
Like all children we had our colds and coughs and more serious illnesses, Dr Long, a children’s doctor from Norwich came out to see us when it was necessary, he would look out of the window and say “ is that a blackbird or a thrush singing” you made a wild answer as you did not know but immediately felt better, “ well nurse “ he would say “I think she might get up and go for a good sharp walk and then back to bed“.

He believed in outdoor air at any price, the remedies seemed to be a steam kettle with friars balsam to relieve the chest and a horrible smell it was, or we were rubbed with camphorated oil, our tonsils painted or perhaps a dose of epipectuana but I can’t remember what that was for, we had our doses of syrup of figs or milk of magnesia and in the spring a good tonic malt and treacle or an iron tonic.

The operating theatre was the spare room, number 3, and there Samuel had his mastoid operation and others had adenoids and tonsils removed, not very antiseptic and I don’t suppose the doctor, did more than remove his coat, there seemed to be no side effects, no after effects and no particular treatment.

A cousin at Walsingham was to have her appendix removed, she got the carpenter to make a long narrow table, the surgeon came in his carriage from Norwich 27 miles, Violet came from the upper story in her dressing gown, the butler was horrified that she should walk down, and insisted on carrying her.
The doctor removed his top hat rolled back his cuffs, I presume the local doctor gave an anaesthetic (was it Dr. Sturdee?) and that was that, there must have been a nurse somewhere about, well she lived to nearly 90.

I saw the table that was used at her house at Wimborne in the potting shed! Rosamund had an operation for glands in the neck, she was very ill indeed but the treatment was to live in a tent in the garden, she must have been about 12 at the time.

==Electricity and Preserving things.==
It is difficult to understand or indeed remember what life was like without the amenities that we think of our necessities, around 1911 electricity was installed at Sprowston Hall, an engine with enormous fly wheels was put in a shed and rows of huge batteries alongside for storage, one could hear the engine chug chugging and it must have been quite a major work to start it up. The house was wired while we were away on holiday at the seaside and the parents doing a tour of Canada.

There were lights in the house but the engine could not produce enough power for any thing else, although I think nanny had an electric kettle in the nursery but it must only be used occasionally and with great care, electric fires were unheard of and we still used the flat iron heated on the fire. The nursery had a coal fire but I think in the drawing room, wood was burned and certainly in my father’s billiard room where he sat, there was a huge coal stove, in the kitchen and somewhere a boiler for heating the water, refrigerators had not been invented, and so there was a large larder with slate shelves to keep food cool.
Under the shelves were crocks to hold the eggs, which were stored in water glass, eggs were cheap and plentiful.

In the spring so they were stored for winter use, other crocks contained runner beans pickled in salt, sugar came in sacks of I cwt, soap for the household came also by the cwt in long yellow bars that had to be cut into squares, and put on the kitchen mantlepiece to dry out, really dried they would be stored away and would last ant time. Nothing was paper packeted as, now, and for a big house had to be bought in quantity, the shops were always pleased to deliver and I expect in those days they came in vans drawn by horses. A small boy carried heavy cans of milk the half mile or so from the farm, it was good milk straight from the cow, never cooled or sterilised but good and creamy, butter too was made at the farm, fruit and vegetables came from the garden, the only fruit bought might be oranges or tangerines at Christmas or the occasional pineapple for dinner parties.

There was no means of freezing fruit so everything was eaten in its season, I’m not sure that bottling had come in, in those early days, but around 1930 when I house-kept for my brother I learned to bottle, churn butter and make Gervais cream cheeses, and we sold what we could at rediculously cheap prices.

==Laundry for the Hall.==
Those early days before the 1918 war we were all very young, the ways of life changed so rapidly that what is here today is gone tomorrow, one thinks one is up to date and finds one is ten years at least behind the times, I click away on my old typewriter and find it is a thing of the past, many more and easier ways of writing, but my mind turned to washing and the sun is shining and the washing, swings in the breeze, but that would be out, although we country folk still think a good dry in the wind is preferable to all other methods.
How long ago when every house had a copper, true it was the only means of heating water, but it took the place of the washing machine which incidentally must be more expensive to run, In the old days at Sprowston Hall the laundry was about a mile from the house and at least two or three people worked there, I think I the head was Mrs Golden at the time, but there must have been changes. The washing was packed in large wicker hampers and taken in the cart to the laundry, as the household numbered about fourteen people there was a considerable amount of washing besides the bed linen, so many aprons and starched caps, so many cotton dresses, all the numerous nursery stuff, the white starched table cloths and napkins, and menswear with starched collars, starched shirts for dinner parties.

It was not to go to the laundry and see the great tubs of rainwater, the large coppers for boiling, the long tables for ironing and the stove in the middle of the room, with its rack round the chimney to hold the irons as they heated, there was always a clatter of work at the beginning of the week, boiling the linen, hanging it out to dry or putting it through the mangle, a lot depended on weather condition and drying. Later the endless ironing and so many more frisland embroideries and even the ladies might have starched collars to their blouses, at the end of the week the hampers were filled and taken back to the Hall.

With careful unpacking and sorting and checking the lists, In one house there was an upstairs floor to the laundry and there an immense roller was cranked back and forth to iron the sheets laid out on long tables, this must have saved the hardest part of ironing, but it all must have been hard work in the hot steamy atmosphere. Later probably much later the home laundries were given up and the washing went to the laundries, the laundry van would come round and by this time there was far less washing to send, for the fashion in clothing began to change and thicker clothes went to the cleaners.
The next phase was the big laundries doing industrial washing for hotels factories, or now along the coast for oilrigs, meanwhile we again wash at home and all made easy with electric washing machines that will do most of the jobs needed, and materials are so much easier to handle.

Never again to light the copper, never again to turn the mangle, the iron will heat itself and keep hot, and you can watch telly while you work, its all splendid progress but I think our grandmothers or great grandmothers would be surprised?.

==Aeroplanes at Sprowston.==
Air travel is so easy nowadays and gets quicker and quicker, just nip across Siberia from Tokyo without a stop and you have arrived in London, executives dash across the world for conferences and only see the inside of the boardroom, this is still a new of life and a rather exhausting one without the excitement and romance and effort, how quickly life as changed.

The turn of the century when cars had only just started, the 1st world war when horses were still in use and airfields had only just come into existence, Sprowston was still a rural community; Mousehold remained a wide open space of fields, not a house in sight.

I saw my first aeroplane in 1911 and we drove up in the wagon and stood on the road to look over the hedge and see the aeroplane being got ready for the flight, double wings held together with bamboo struts and someone turned the propeller by hand to start the motor, and the engine sprang into life, and the staff rushed for safety and the plane slowly rose and sailed away disappearing into the distance, a miracle of science, later in 1914 the wide flat fields were turned into an aerodrome and the young pilots were trained.

There were many accidents and some amusing encounters, my Father saw a plane, as he thought in trouble and ran across a field or two, where the big Sprowston housing estates now stand, to his amusement the plane was alright and a lovely young lady descended putting up her parasol and walking away, a young man was taking his fiancee up for a joyride, another time a plane landed upside down and he was full of admiration for the pilot who sat nonchalantly on the wing smoking a cigarette with not a shake in his hand, later they got to France and I think it was more dog fights than the bombing, we think of nowadays.

Silver zeppelins along the coast, they looked like giant cigars and I can remember looking out of a window to see one, my father was outside and a great shout from him to draw the curtains and shut windows.

It may have been that a bomb was dropped on Thorpe and we drove up in the pony cart to see the crater, it was on the edge of a wood and had done no damage, there was a nice big hole and we were at that age that longed for souvenirs, we searched for something to take home in triumph and at last whoever was with us suggested we put shrivelled worms into a matchbox which was all we could find. This may seem simple and amusing and just the little things that are remembered by a child of eight and so long ago but there was the other side over in France when the flower of young manhood was laying down its life in the trenches, it was a war to end a war or so we were told but now alas we know a bit better.

==Surgery at home – the operation!==
Lately I was in hospital after a stupid accident to my leg and everything is in a state of hygiene, order and cleanliness, which for some reason put me in mind of a cousin who once told me of her appendix operation that took place in the early part of the century, my cousin has been dead these thirty years or more and appendix operations must have been in their earliest days, Violet lived at Walsingham in a big house and I suppose the local doctor diagnosed the appendix and the surgeon was duly called for.

At any rate Violet had time to get the local carpenter to make a long narrow table for her to lie on, the surgeon had to come from Norwich in his carriage and it must have taken him two hours or more, imagine him in a long coat and top hat, meanwhile a room was prepared for the operation with the table conveniently placed in the best light, presumably the local doctor was the anaesthetist, Violet came down the stairs from her bedroom at the top of the house and the manservant seeing her said you can’t walk to an operation and picked her up and carried her, supposedly the surgeon took of his overcoat and rolled up his sleeves. Oxygen was administered through a mask and the operation was entirely successful, was a nurse in attendance alas I never heard any further details but Violet lived to a ripe old age, determined and active and the kindest of friends and what is more she showed me the operation table which then resided in her potting shed.

==Bicycles – my first one!==
What a huge number of different types of bicycles there are now, they all go faster and faster with less effort and are built for sport rather than a means of necessary transport, one is full of praise for the marvellous endurance tests they achieve, at the turn of the century it was another thing, so few cars and not everyone could afford a cart or carriage for transport, so the penny farthing came in but I don’t think I ever heard of a woman attempting to get on with her long and sweeping skirts, eventually the good old push bike was invented and became the poor man’s transport for many years.

I was not given a bicycle until I was nearly eleven and then it was my pride and joy, my mother more or less taught me to ride, along the garden path, then got bored with holding me up and gave me a big push and told me to get on with it. By the end of the afternoon I could manage rather inelegantly.

There was a lovely hollow in the road by the footpath to the church and if you went down it fast enough you could free wheel to the other side, it was good to have freedom and to be able to go off on ones own, almost better to be out of an evening with father.
Things seemed to happen near the Blue Boar Plantation, a lady coming the opposite way suddenly swerved across his path, nearly knocking him off, I was behind and ran into his back, and he said “Damn” in a loud voice, I was really shocked that he could know such bad words, for although we said it in the schoolroom and were told not to, I had thought it a bit private to us, perhaps we were very innocent.
One kept one’s precious steed cleaned and polished and looked with envy at our governesses who had an acetylene lamp that smelled awful when it was lit but gave a very good light, it must have been before the days of torches, I think her bike was very elegant with a skirt guard so that the long skirt did not get caught in the chain and wheels, we did not need those luxuries, but my brother and I used to go to Norwich together and had the terror of riding down Magdalen Street and avoiding getting stuck in the tramlines. I had to contend with two fears, the one of loosing him if I did not go fast enough and the second of falling in the tram lines, thinking back I am sure he would have come to my rescue!

It was quite safe to leave your bike anywhere, not like nowadays when it would probably be stolen, if not securely chained up, I can’t remember what we did in Norwich, perhaps we just wandered about for we seldom had more than a few pennies in our purses, but of course everything was so much cheaper and there were only three prices in Woolworth’s, a penny, threepence or sixpence , for sixpence you could get a string of pearls and the story was that if you looked carefully you might find a string of real ones and somebody had!

Most of the delightful shops of those days have gone now. We had a long cycle home after our outing and woe betide us if we were back late for lunch.

== St Mary’s Church and going to church.==
We went to the exhibition in St Mary’s Church Sprowston, but sadly arrived just after it had been closed, but it put me in mind of the familiar church of so many years ago, there was something friendly and perhaps almost cosy about the church in those days, was that feeling engendered by the walk up the aisle and over the grating that covered the pit in which was the central heating, heat rose up and warmed your legs almost to the waist, someone had lit the boiler the day before so the church was really warm, we sat in the front pew on the right hand side and just underneath the pulpit, we were allowed to draw when the sermon started and sometimes my Father forgot the paper and so let us draw on the end flyleaf of a hymn book.

I gained really bad marks one Sunday by attempting to draw a picture of the vicar, never must you draw a clergyman in his pulpit, all my life I have remembered this, and I have never tried again. To the right in the side aisle was a wonderful and very bright stained glass window, perhaps in memory of a Stracey, perhaps it is there still, we knew all the people who sat in the middle aisle, the Coleman`s, who walked from Oak Lodge, the Gowing`s from White House Farm who filled a pew, and then the Cozens Hardy`s, from the Coltishall Road, who had a huge monkey puzzle in front of their house, he was Editor of the Eastern Daily Press and miss Cozens Hardy always sat very straight holding her elbows so I tried to do that to.

My Father read the lessons so we had to pay attention and although someone had given me a prayer book the pictures in it were dreadfully dull and rather few.

At Christmas we all made decorations and holly wreaths, and sometimes when I was a good deal older I was sent by myself to do the altar flowers, my mother had forgotten it was her turn. The walk to the church did not worry me but getting from the vestry to the altar scared me stiff, the vestry was safe and inside the altar rails but in, between was beset with peril and sometimes the woodwork seemed to give out a sound, or was it a ghost? No wonder the two brass vases did not always match.

The walk from church was pleasant, a nice path along the side of a field, and we looked for all the wild flowers we could find, then onto the road where there was a big “dip” now all flattened away, across the road and into the park where the horses would be standing under the chestnut trees for their Sunday rest head to tail and snubbing each other. A metal gate into the garden and so home, why does one remember those days as full of sunlight and bright flowers, I don’t think anyone drove to church, cars were hardly on the market and you did not take the horses out on a Sunday except for special purposes so there was always time to meet friends outside the church and no rush to get home to cook the dinner.

Now the pleasant country road and rural church is surrounded with a housing estate, and a field side path swept away, and although there are so many people living around, the congregation is probably less, and it is certain that the church is less well heard.

A small girl and her mother came to see me, her form at school was putting up an exhibition of antiques and could I help, at first I thought they wanted me as a real antiques, for the show!

Then it transpired I was what is now called bygones, in fact things not in use any longer, but how little remains, the copper that stood in the back kitchen is now a small pond in the garden. Who would be lumbered up with a mangle? And then I remembered the iron that still resides under the stairs and I got down and pulled it out together with the shoe, what was the shoe for they asked, to keep the iron clean as we probably heated it on the kitchen fire and the shoe protected the white linen, then I found a tiny lamp, bought at Woolworth's.
When everything there was a penny, threepence or sixpence, this little lamp could stand on the stairs and just give enough light to get up them in the dark, there was no electricity except in larger houses and they usually had an engine and made their own and then you had to be careful and not to use it to freely as it might run out, we had an electric kettle but this had to be used with care, otherwise it was only for lighting.

However I found a candlestick and remembered how the candlesticks were all put out in the hall by a table with their matches ready to be lit when you went up to bed, in the bedrooms there were tall candlesticks on the dressing table and perhaps on the mantlepiece, a jug of hot water was on the wash-hand-stand, now that was a real antique, and somewhere I have a jug and basin, and how pretty some of those china jugs, a cold night and a stone hot water bottle was put in our bed, but perhaps fifty years earlier a warming pan would have been brought up filled with hot coals.

These are now so antique and you may see them adorning the walls of pubs with horse brasses and other rarities, I searched the house for an ink bottle, can anyone remember dipping their pen in the ink? We used to do it at school and I am afraid might be caught making tiny blotting paper balls dipped in ink to throw at friends or enemies, then in the garden one always dug up the remains of clay pipes, somewhere I still have a box full, but mostly the shafts, I expect a clay pipe with shag made a pretty good smoke, was it a killer in those old days or just a bit of comfort as you dug and double dug the garden.

Progress such a wonderful and pleasant thing, and I hope my little girl will giggle with her little friends about the strange ways of the past, with her microwave food, let electricity do everything for her, and in time she will laugh at all the new inventions, that are sure to change the way of life of the next generation!

==Market Day in Norwich.==
Saturday was market day in Norwich and from early morning cattle were driven along the road, we loved to go and watch them, but deplored the small boys who rushed around shouting and beating them with sticks. They may have come from many miles away, starting well before dawn, we used to take our little buckets and spades to collect the droppings for our small gardens, it was easy to scrape up as the roads had been given a new surface called “Tarmacadam” and we were told the tar came from a lake in the West Indies.

It was a great improvement on the dusty surface of all the bye-roads, cars were just beginning to appear and as some could go fast as thirty miles an hour they could blow up a lot of dust and there were no windscreens in those days, we used to try and persuade someone to take us to the top of the drive after dark to see the lights of the cars coming along the main road but they could not have been very bright as they had to be lit with a match.

The road to Norwich was full of interest and sometimes, we would walk as far as the mill and go to the shop near by to get 3d worth of bran for our rabbits, that shop is still there and sells bread, it was a long walk for short legs, but always full of interest.

We crossed the park which is now a golf course and came out on the road where there was a deep dip that is now flattened out, then we came to the Home Farm where the herd of red poll cattle were kept, crossing Blue Boar Lane there were two houses called “ Belle View “ which still exist, and then the Blacksmiths shop, we might see a horse being shod if we were lucky and the other side of the road, a wheel might be having a new metal tyre fixed.

Petrol was sold there at 1/6d a gallon, further on we passed the Monkey Puzzle Tree growing outside the carpenters flint cottage, and then the Wood Farm came up, but no time to stop there, and there were open fields, on that side, for the rest of the way until we came to St. Cuthbert’s Church.

The other side were several villa’s “ Egbert” and “ Osbert “ were two with names, if school had finished children would be playing in the road, hopscotch, hoops, whip tops or skipping ropes, it all depended, on the time of year and the road was a good safe place to play!

We had no time to climb up to the mill, but it was a famous landmark. With luck who ever was with us might buy 2d worth of sweets to help us on our return journey and hurry us along as dusk was beginning to fall, we clutched our bag of bran and looked out for our father who might go past on tall bicycle and wave to us. All that is more than 70 years ago.

==Father becomes Lord Mayor of Norwich.==

In 1911 things and events stick tenaciously in one’s mind the picture is implanted and never lost, that year my father became the first elected Lord Mayor of Norwich, some merchant in the city presented my mother with a coach and this of course, she finally gave to the City of Norwich and I expect it is hidden away to this day, we as children were allowed to drive with our parents in the coach from Sprowston to St Andrews Hall to receive the King who then went onto the Royal Norfolk Show at Carrow.

The coachman Orris was dressed in knee breeches and cocked hat, and the groom and footman also splendidly attired, stood on the small platform at the back, myself resplendent with a hat with a feather, and was my father in his mayor robes or did he put them on later?

It was all very exciting and we as children waved to everyone as we passed, this was the occasion when my father was knighted, which did not mean much to us! For having driven in state we namely were sent home in the pony cart!

There were other excitements too and this may have been before the new King’s visit and in fact the evening on the day of the Coronation, a massive bonfire had been erected somewhere on or below Mousehold Heath, and we as small children were invited by two young officers to watch from Britannia barracks which high up looked directly down on the city.

We climbed the steep cold staircase to the Officers room where they had kindly laid out a feast of goodies, but insulted me by asking my nanny if she thought I ought to have bread and milk. At that age when I was all of four and in a blue silk frock with medals for the Coronation.

We looked from the windows as the light faded and saw the massive pile of the bonfire, burst into flames and little people who looked black dancing and rushing around, my father and mother had to hurry back from London, where they had seats in the Abbey for the Coronation ceremony as the Lord Mayor had to light the bonfire.

The other excitement of that festive year was a Garden Party at Sprowston Hall and after the guests had gone we were taken to the tea tent and given our first Ice Cream! Delicious and made in a cylinder packed with ice and somehow you turned a handle to rotate the gorgeous mixture of cream, fruit and sugar what would “Mr Walls” say to that?

==Trivia==

We hear so much about Antique Road Shows and all the joys of taking some special treasure to be looked at, and valued, and to find your possession is worth a prodigious sum of money, and, if you don’t wish to sell, must be insured for a large sum. Possibly very few of us have these secret hoards of excitement and delight, but many of us have little treasures hidden away in some drawer or box that dates back a generation or two.

Of course a flat iron still stands in a cupboard, but I got rid of the heavy stone hot water bottle as it seemed too cumbersome for comfort, several brass lamps are around the house and these date from the time Sprowston Hall first put in electricity around 1911 with their own engine to make it.

They must have been bedside lamps, and one has a screw half way up so that the stand could be bent to bring the light closer, however, perhaps more amusing is an old envelope that contains a little case pricked with holes, neatly ribboned and embroidered with a rhyme on either side, this little case held small sticks of sticking plaster and the words embroidered on one side “if pin or knife should thee offend, this little case relief will lend”, and on the reverse, “may you never feel a wound too deep for this to heal”. Had some little girl made it for a favourite uncle? Where did it come from? In the same box was another envelope saying Bolshevik Money and contained a note printed in Russia at the time of the Revolution around 1918 and sent back from Poland, by an aunt who was doing relief work with the Quaker contingent who did valuable work both in Poland and later in Russia near the Siberian border, living in railway trucks.

Turning away from small treasures, my eyes light on a tin lamp with an opaque glass shade bought at Woolworth's, nothing in those days cost more than 6d, it is still so useful to give a wee light on the staircase when we have a power cut. We have progressed so fast and so far that now all is machinery or time saving, nothing is done by hand, and when the machine breaks down or the telephone ceases to ring, and the electricity goes off, can we still warm ourselves with a fire of sticks or heat a real kettle.

==Sprowston School Treats==

Going back before World War One I think I can remember happy things about Sprowston School, they seem so unlike anything that would happen, now that I begin to think they are figments of imagination. The school was in Tusting close or somewhere near there and seemed to me, a very happy place, we would go for “Empire Day“ which shows how long ago it was.

All the children stood in a big circle and the flag was solemnly raised on the flag pole and broken, then we sang the National Anthem and “ Land of Hope and Glory “ and other patriotic songs. The British Empire was glorious and would go on forever or did we just not know what it was, the ceremony finished with a sweet scramble, such fun but were they nicely wrapped and the ground disinfected first? Did anyone get tummy ache?

The next memory is the school outing to Sprowston Hall, the traction engine went to collect the children and pulled two farm wagons, the children in their best, those long shorts for the boys, and best neat linen for the girls and there must have been a few teachers with them to stop them falling out of the wagons as they waved flags and shouted.
The park had been got ready with swings on iron chains put up in the trees and a track prepared for the races tea was in the stable yard under the chestnut tree that stood in the middle. The tea was very simple thick slices of bread, butter and jam and lots of sticky buns, but it all went down very quickly, there were lots of helpers to hand round, and strong tea was brewed in the coach house.
Later there, two prizes for the races and these may have been money, a threepenny bit or a sixpence, or maybe a penny for a third prize, even a penny would buy a paper packet of sweets.

Tired children, and the long ride back in the wagons pulled by Puffing Billy with smoke belching from his funnel, he was a beautiful engine with all his brass work polished. We used to go with my father to see him on Sundays and had a great affection for him.

[[Category:The Families of Sprowston]]