Note from the Editor
The
March newsletter should be available at the meeting on Feb 13. Articles
and material for inclusion should be given to any Committee member,
or to The Editor at Greenman Farm, Wadhurst TN5 6LE or you can e-mail
whs@greenman.demon.co.uk by 29 February please.
Visit our website - www.wadhurst.info/whs
I sincerely hope that he will stick to Chapel and get all the good he can. He needs it poor man. Cloth cutting, is cutting up old clothes, and sorting out the pieces according to quality. He tells me there are twenty sorts of rags to be kept distinct in every sorting. He gets 3/- a cwt! For cutting and sorting the old clothes. It seems cruelly low pay ...
09.04.1881 Called on Mrs. Amos Akehurst of Bowlnans. She told me that she rears 300 to 400 chickens every year.
22.04.1881 I buried poor Rover Maynard. He the 800th person buried in Burwash Church Yard since I came in July 1857. A parish coffin, without a nameplate or a vestige of furniture looks sad, tho' the moment it is covered with earth it is as good as its betters
02.05.1.881 To the school. Spoke seriously about the girls teasing one another out of school. I must put the matter in the hands of the police if it goes on.
13.06.1881 I notice Miss (Noakes) in a very sumptuous dress, and wondered what was the Matter, but Mr. Noakes never even hinted that his daughter had been married this morning at Shovers Green Chapel! Funny people.
9.09.1881 Called on old Mrs. Collies; home shut up, blinds drawn. The poor old lady Had gone to her rest, aged I suppose 87. She was a quaint old being of a singularly happy disposition, a delightful student of the scriptures, and had raised up to herself friends, so that she did not want. Her last earthly trouble was the loss of her pocket book with 2/6 in it: this she missed a few hours before her death, but as it was found again while she was still conscious, she died humanely speaking at peace.
27.12.1881. Called on Mrs. Simmonds the Carter's wife; not at home and children locked Into the house.
Wadhurst - Town of the High Weald
by Alan Savidge & Oliver Mason
Oliver Mason would like to bring to members’ notice the fact that there are now only about three dozen copies left of this book - all are at Barnett’s Bookshop in the High Street: so if you haven’t yet got a copy, go there now - in time for Christmas.
He also would like to think that all who have bought copies are aware of the few errors of one sort or another that exist in the printed text: sticky labels with the corrections are also available at Barnett’s.
They are as follows:
124
Page
Line
Correction
24
2
for Creçy read Crécy
30
12
for grandson read great-grandson
58
21
for Chrissie read Cissie
106
2nd caption: for Mitton read Mitten
123
26
for 14-year old-Rose Eade
126
Caption: for Cross read Medal
Index
Bassett: Cissie [not Chrissie]
Eade: should be Ede
Frankham: for 116 read 109
Mitton: should be Mitten
13.03.1880 ... Lovely day. Fetched out all the old cripples in the village .... (!!)
25.04.1880 Was to have been a wedding, but the heartless young fellow did not turn up...
12.06.1880 Coming from church met Steven Pagden who pointed out that Mr. Bourner's Sheep had got into his wheat; he gave a boy 1d to go and tell him. I gave another boy a 1d to go with him, and Mr. B. I find gave them 6d between them so they did well .
01.07.1880 Called on Mrs. Vine, poor grumpy old body, but she is old (73) and alone, and hard up.
28.07.1880 Called and talked seriously with Willet the carter at Brooksmarle, who was all but dead last week of bleeding after having a tooth drawn. He is still very Weak.
02.10.1880 Wedding ought to have been at 11 but the couple were quite ready at 10.30. So as I happened to be up at the church I married them half an hour before time, a thing I never did before. Robert Blackford and Ellen Coleman, neither quite sharp, but the man sharp enough to do me out of 2/- fees, with the certificate: the money was 10/- but he said he hadn't got not much money as that, and putting down 8/- he added "that's all I can do for you 'smassion". So I gave him the certificate....
10.11.1880 Mr. Gillham told me that in parishes in Kent near the Sussex border forty or fifty years ago bad vulgar language was called "Burwash Grammar" ...
27.11.1880 Mrs. Wm. Maskell speaking off her old mother who had died in the Union said that her husband could not go to see her because he said "If she cries and hangs to me, I must have her out - it would break my heart to leave her in" and yet he had such a family of his own he could not keep her as she required somebody always to look after her.
06.12.1880 Master Watson told me as a positive truth that about 36 years ago his father Mother and 4 or 5 children lived a whole month on raw potatoes, it seems incredible, but the man was so clear and distinct in the point that I do not disbelieve him.
20.01.1881 Poor old John Sheather whom I saw last Thursday, and thought likely to live for a long time yet, and who himself was in trouble lest he should outlive his money (£80) died this morning
26.02. 1881 Called and prayed with Mrs. Js. Weston; quite ill, gave her l0/- as she is a Worthy woman pulled down by her husband
06.04.1881 Js. Watson told me he is a Chapeler and
