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Sheppard Family at Chapel Lane & The Glen: Life in Late Victorian Box Jane Sheppard November 2017 How many people have said, "I wish I had asked my ancestor more about their childhood?" It is too late when they have passed away and many of their memories have died with them. That is why it is so important to record our recollections of the past for the sake of future generations. Jane Sheppard has done just that about her ancestors who lived in the centre of Box during the late Victorian period. Right: Fred Sheppard as a young man top right outside the Lamb Inn about 1908 (courtesy Bath Cancer Centre Support group) |
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Grandparents Frederick and Bessie Sheppard
My grandfather, Frederick Sheppard, was born in Box on 11 March 1895 and lived first in Old Schools (now called Springfield House) in Church Lane and then at 17 Chapel Lane.[1] He was the oldest surviving child of Tom and Kate Sheppard and he was followed by a sister Dorothy Kate and brothers Arthur (Little Arthur) and Eric. As a boy of about 12 years old Fred worked on a farm carrying pails of milk on a yoke, but on leaving school he became an apprentice wheelwright. Although this may have been bad timing in the light of developments in transport, he used his carpentry skills all his life, at one time working for Merrett's, the builders in Box. When I knew him in the 1940s and 50s he was building trolleys on which huge blocks of stone were transported at the Bath and Portland stone yard in Corsham. His obituary in 1955 said that he had worked for some 34 years as a valued employee of the Bath and Portland Stone Firms Ltd.[2]
My grandfather, Frederick Sheppard, was born in Box on 11 March 1895 and lived first in Old Schools (now called Springfield House) in Church Lane and then at 17 Chapel Lane.[1] He was the oldest surviving child of Tom and Kate Sheppard and he was followed by a sister Dorothy Kate and brothers Arthur (Little Arthur) and Eric. As a boy of about 12 years old Fred worked on a farm carrying pails of milk on a yoke, but on leaving school he became an apprentice wheelwright. Although this may have been bad timing in the light of developments in transport, he used his carpentry skills all his life, at one time working for Merrett's, the builders in Box. When I knew him in the 1940s and 50s he was building trolleys on which huge blocks of stone were transported at the Bath and Portland stone yard in Corsham. His obituary in 1955 said that he had worked for some 34 years as a valued employee of the Bath and Portland Stone Firms Ltd.[2]
Left: Bessie (at bottom left of the banner) in the 1925 Mothers' Union meeting at Box House (courtesy Philip Martin). Fred and Bessie were both staunch members of Box Church.
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In World War 1 Fred served with the Royal Army Medical Corps and I believe he was in France until injury led to his being transferred to Southampton Docks where his duty was transporting wounded men from the ships to trains and caring for them on the onward journey to hospitals, sometimes as far away as Strathpeffer. It was in Southampton that he met my grandma Bessie, who had grown up in the town and was working in Lowman's Bakery, sometimes taking cakes to the docks for the troops. Fred and Bessie were married in Southampton in 1918 and came to live in Box, initially at Pye Corner where my father, Alan, was born on 6 November 1919.
My understanding is the cottages at Pye Corner were all owned by Mr Cannings who lived in one of the cottages and was a train driver. Mr and Mrs Coles lived in another of the cottages. Mr Coles was a chimney sweep with a huge sooty beard. I don't know much about the domestic arrangements in the cottages except that cooking was done over the fire. |
Life in Quarry Hill and Chapel Lane
In about 1922 the family moved to Quarry Hill, to a house which has since been demolished (and rebuilt) and which still bears the fairy tale name of Dingley Dell.[3] Their next home was number 1 and 2 Chapel Lane and this is where my father Alan and his brother Edwin (Teddy) grew up. It is a cottage at right angles to the road and right next door to the old Chapel. Singing could be heard from the Plymouth Brethren Chapel on Sundays and Bessie's doves, perched on the roof, would coo gently as they decorated the worshipers coming and going below. Until the outbreak of the Second World War, and despite the poor wages which brought hardship to many families, life for many young boys in the village sounds idyllic. Roaming the fields and woods, cooking potatoes over campfires, and eating picnics of foraged food inside the culvert which runs from Washwells under the Devizes Road.
In about 1922 the family moved to Quarry Hill, to a house which has since been demolished (and rebuilt) and which still bears the fairy tale name of Dingley Dell.[3] Their next home was number 1 and 2 Chapel Lane and this is where my father Alan and his brother Edwin (Teddy) grew up. It is a cottage at right angles to the road and right next door to the old Chapel. Singing could be heard from the Plymouth Brethren Chapel on Sundays and Bessie's doves, perched on the roof, would coo gently as they decorated the worshipers coming and going below. Until the outbreak of the Second World War, and despite the poor wages which brought hardship to many families, life for many young boys in the village sounds idyllic. Roaming the fields and woods, cooking potatoes over campfires, and eating picnics of foraged food inside the culvert which runs from Washwells under the Devizes Road.
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Above left: Bessie and Edwin; Right L to R: Alec Cogswell (possibly), Alan and Edwin (both photos courtesy Jane Sheppard)
The boys would play elephant hunting at Spion Kop, the local name given to the hillside leading up to Hazelbury common from the Devizes Road. The name came from the Boer War in Natal, South Africa, in 1900, the site of a battle to relieve British forces trapped in Ladysmith by Boer insurgents. It failed ! For elephant hunting, old tyres were dragged from the rubbish tip at Kingsdown and hauled to the top of the hill at Hazelbury, while halfway down the hill waited boys armed with spears (sticks attached to a rope). The tyres were released and, as these elephants trundled down the hill, boys hurled the spears aiming for the centre of the tyre and a dramatic halt in its progress.
Further entertainments were the outings to Weston-super-Mare or Portishead, the passport to some of which was attendance at talks in the Gospel Hall, Quarry Hill, and the signing of The Pledge. Of course there was always swimming in the By Brook, initially under the tutelage of Dr Martin and his famous harness. In Chapel Lane the boys' bedroom extended over the workroom of Mr Eyles, the boot maker, and the sound of his tapping echoed up through the floorboards. Mr Eyles himself may have been entertained by music from the boys' bedroom as Teddy played enthusiastically on the organ which Bessie bought when the effects from Box Manor were auctioned.
A more disturbing sound was the clanking of chains and booming of metal which came from Millers' Garage on a Friday night when the lorry which delivered coal during the week was transformed into a charabanc ready for weekend outings (football on Saturdays and mystery trips on Sundays). This ritual was achieved by hoisting the weekday body off the axels and lowering the charabanc body in its place.
Further entertainments were the outings to Weston-super-Mare or Portishead, the passport to some of which was attendance at talks in the Gospel Hall, Quarry Hill, and the signing of The Pledge. Of course there was always swimming in the By Brook, initially under the tutelage of Dr Martin and his famous harness. In Chapel Lane the boys' bedroom extended over the workroom of Mr Eyles, the boot maker, and the sound of his tapping echoed up through the floorboards. Mr Eyles himself may have been entertained by music from the boys' bedroom as Teddy played enthusiastically on the organ which Bessie bought when the effects from Box Manor were auctioned.
A more disturbing sound was the clanking of chains and booming of metal which came from Millers' Garage on a Friday night when the lorry which delivered coal during the week was transformed into a charabanc ready for weekend outings (football on Saturdays and mystery trips on Sundays). This ritual was achieved by hoisting the weekday body off the axels and lowering the charabanc body in its place.
Great Grandparents Tom and Kate Sheppard
Fred's parents, my great grandparents, were Tom and Kate Sheppard who were married at the Church of St. Thomas à Becket on Christmas Day 1889. Their first home was in Old Schools before they relocated to 17 Chapel Lane. They had five children but sadly their first baby did not survive and tragedy struck again when Little Arthur, their fourth child, died aged 13 after falling from a bicycle in The Ley. At that time the passing bell would be tolled from the church to announce a death; the number of chimes telling the age of the person who had died. Seventy or eighty chimes and neighbours would know that old Mr So-and-So had finally gone, but a small number of chimes caused people to wonder in dread. At one time Dr Martin's groom, Mr Hinton, had the task of tolling the passing bell.
When the family left Chapel Lane they moved to The Glen next to the war memorial. In fact the war memorial was built on land which had been part of the garden. It is an unusual house in having the front door on the Devizes Road and the back door on the Corsham Road. It was unusual too in its access to water. The stream, which spouts out by the Church, flowed underneath the kitchen at the bottom of the house and a cave in the kitchen wall gave access to a well from which Kate drew their water.
This has been filled in or covered over now.
Sadly I never met my great grandfather Tom. His full name was Alfred Walter Thomas Sheppard and he was known by all three names at different periods of his life before finally settling on Tom. He was one of about eight children all born in Box to James Sheppard and Mary Jane (nee Gale). When Tom left school he was apprenticed as a baker (and because Benny Drew, the renowned Midnight Baker, had his premises near Tom's house I do wonder if that is where he did his apprenticeship). But at the end of the 1800s Tom became a packer on the railway, a maintenance worker walking the line with a long handled tool.
Tom was a stocky man with large black scars on his face which were the result of his being knocked over by a train in Box Tunnel. Fellow workers carried him home on a makeshift stretcher made by taking the door off the shed at the mouth of the tunnel. He was laid on the table at The Glen and doubtless Dr Martin was summoned from across the road. Tom mended, but the soot remained forever tattooed into his scars.
Tom's wife, my great grandmother was Kate Jane Sheppard (formerly Walker) who had been a dressmaker. I saw her only once when I was about four years old at Fred and Bessie's house in Corsham. Being dispatched to the dining room to say hello to her, I crept round the door and whispered Hello, but she made no response to me at all, and feeling overawed, I fled. How I regret that now. I realised later of course that she probably neither saw nor heard me, but though we never made a connection, I can still see clearly the tall, slim figure, dressed from head to toe in black, sitting motionless in front of the fire. Kate's family had moved to Box from Marshfield in about 1864 and Kate was born and grew up at Drewett's Mill Cottage where her father was a carter at the mill. l wonder if Kate met Tom when flour was being purchased for the bakery! She had three sisters Eliza, Emma and Flora and one brother called William HJ Walker.
Kate was lively lady, often walking into Corsham, and always busy. She kept coopies in the garden adjoining the war memorial and cooked up pots of mash for them which she threw to the birds while it was still boiling hot. They would squabble and squawk, tossing the stuff in the air until it had cooled. Kate was interested in the affairs of the neighbourhood and the staircase window at The Glen gave her a prime view of folk's comings and goings. On Sunday morning she would walk to Church on
Tom's arm (his outfit being topped off with a bowler hat and his watch chain) and in the evening she went alone to Chapel.
I have heard that it was routine in the evening for Kate to say, Bist thee goin' for the beer Tom? The shutters and casements at The Glen would be closed, the poker set into the fire and Tom would depart to the Lamb for a pint of pale and a pint of smalls.
On his return with the jugs, the poker would be drawn from the fire and plunged into the beer to warm it before it was divided: two thirds pale and one third smalls for Tom, and vice versa for Kate. Now they were ready to settle to their bread and cheese supper before the fire.
Fred's parents, my great grandparents, were Tom and Kate Sheppard who were married at the Church of St. Thomas à Becket on Christmas Day 1889. Their first home was in Old Schools before they relocated to 17 Chapel Lane. They had five children but sadly their first baby did not survive and tragedy struck again when Little Arthur, their fourth child, died aged 13 after falling from a bicycle in The Ley. At that time the passing bell would be tolled from the church to announce a death; the number of chimes telling the age of the person who had died. Seventy or eighty chimes and neighbours would know that old Mr So-and-So had finally gone, but a small number of chimes caused people to wonder in dread. At one time Dr Martin's groom, Mr Hinton, had the task of tolling the passing bell.
When the family left Chapel Lane they moved to The Glen next to the war memorial. In fact the war memorial was built on land which had been part of the garden. It is an unusual house in having the front door on the Devizes Road and the back door on the Corsham Road. It was unusual too in its access to water. The stream, which spouts out by the Church, flowed underneath the kitchen at the bottom of the house and a cave in the kitchen wall gave access to a well from which Kate drew their water.
This has been filled in or covered over now.
Sadly I never met my great grandfather Tom. His full name was Alfred Walter Thomas Sheppard and he was known by all three names at different periods of his life before finally settling on Tom. He was one of about eight children all born in Box to James Sheppard and Mary Jane (nee Gale). When Tom left school he was apprenticed as a baker (and because Benny Drew, the renowned Midnight Baker, had his premises near Tom's house I do wonder if that is where he did his apprenticeship). But at the end of the 1800s Tom became a packer on the railway, a maintenance worker walking the line with a long handled tool.
Tom was a stocky man with large black scars on his face which were the result of his being knocked over by a train in Box Tunnel. Fellow workers carried him home on a makeshift stretcher made by taking the door off the shed at the mouth of the tunnel. He was laid on the table at The Glen and doubtless Dr Martin was summoned from across the road. Tom mended, but the soot remained forever tattooed into his scars.
Tom's wife, my great grandmother was Kate Jane Sheppard (formerly Walker) who had been a dressmaker. I saw her only once when I was about four years old at Fred and Bessie's house in Corsham. Being dispatched to the dining room to say hello to her, I crept round the door and whispered Hello, but she made no response to me at all, and feeling overawed, I fled. How I regret that now. I realised later of course that she probably neither saw nor heard me, but though we never made a connection, I can still see clearly the tall, slim figure, dressed from head to toe in black, sitting motionless in front of the fire. Kate's family had moved to Box from Marshfield in about 1864 and Kate was born and grew up at Drewett's Mill Cottage where her father was a carter at the mill. l wonder if Kate met Tom when flour was being purchased for the bakery! She had three sisters Eliza, Emma and Flora and one brother called William HJ Walker.
Kate was lively lady, often walking into Corsham, and always busy. She kept coopies in the garden adjoining the war memorial and cooked up pots of mash for them which she threw to the birds while it was still boiling hot. They would squabble and squawk, tossing the stuff in the air until it had cooled. Kate was interested in the affairs of the neighbourhood and the staircase window at The Glen gave her a prime view of folk's comings and goings. On Sunday morning she would walk to Church on
Tom's arm (his outfit being topped off with a bowler hat and his watch chain) and in the evening she went alone to Chapel.
I have heard that it was routine in the evening for Kate to say, Bist thee goin' for the beer Tom? The shutters and casements at The Glen would be closed, the poker set into the fire and Tom would depart to the Lamb for a pint of pale and a pint of smalls.
On his return with the jugs, the poker would be drawn from the fire and plunged into the beer to warm it before it was divided: two thirds pale and one third smalls for Tom, and vice versa for Kate. Now they were ready to settle to their bread and cheese supper before the fire.
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Earlier Generations
Kate's parents were Henry Walker and Mary Ann (nee Bond), my great great grandparents, who were both born in Marshfield where, in 1863, their first daughter Eliza Ann was also born. They subsequently moved to Box and to Drewett's Mill Cottage where Henry worked as a carter and where they had four more children, William, Emma, Kate and Flora. The girls all married and remained in Box. Kate's older sister Eliza married a stone miner called Walter Reuben Oatley from Barberry Cottage, Box Hill. They had four children. Their first born was Oliver Reuben, whose name is sadly on the war memorial in Box. He died at the very end of the war, 4 November 1918, and is buried in France at Crossroads Cemetery in Fontaine-au-Bois. Kate's next sister Emma married Albert Greenman an engine driver at the Brewery and her younger sister Flora, a big, strong lady known as Florrie, married a mason's labourer called William Ford. I believe that Florrie lived at Henley Farm at one time and her daughter Flosanna (known as Flossie) lived in Devizes Road with her little fluffy dog. Right: Walter Reuben Oatley as a child at Barberry Cottage, Box Hill (courtesy Richard Pinker) |
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When Henry retired, he and Mary Ann moved to a cottage at Washwells (then locally pronounced Washalls) and family stories tell how Henry used to ride at speed through Blue Vein Woods astride an enormous horse and that he was once bitten by an adder, the snake having climbed up the table leg! Tom's parents, James and Mary Jane, also my great great grandparents, were married in Box Church in 1853. James worked as a labourer and carter and they lived at Longsplatt before moving to the Old Workhouse or Old Schools.
Mary Jane was born in Uley in about 1828, the oldest of three daughters of William and Kate Gale. As Kate Gale (born 1793) had worked as a cloth weaver in Uley, (making Uley Blue Cloth perhaps), I think that the family may have come to Box when the cloth industry in Uley was increasingly mechanised and there was a period of serious unrest and unemployment among the weavers. In the census of 1841 William and Kate Gale are registered as living in the Workhouse at Box, but I don't know if it was still in use as a workhouse then or was in fact the Old Workhouse. I believe William's birth was registered at Chippenham so perhaps he too was a Box boy returning to his home parish.
Mary Jane was born in Uley in about 1828, the oldest of three daughters of William and Kate Gale. As Kate Gale (born 1793) had worked as a cloth weaver in Uley, (making Uley Blue Cloth perhaps), I think that the family may have come to Box when the cloth industry in Uley was increasingly mechanised and there was a period of serious unrest and unemployment among the weavers. In the census of 1841 William and Kate Gale are registered as living in the Workhouse at Box, but I don't know if it was still in use as a workhouse then or was in fact the Old Workhouse. I believe William's birth was registered at Chippenham so perhaps he too was a Box boy returning to his home parish.
Family Tree
James Sheppard (b 1829 in Corsham, d 18 February 1903) married Mary Jane Gale (1829 - 1902) in 1853. Children:
William (b 1854); Louisa (b 1857); Elizabeth Annie (b 1859); Lucy Jane (b 1861); Mary Sophia (b 1864); Alfred Walter Thomas Sheppard (21 September 1866 - 1937); James (b 1869) and Frederick (b 1871).
Alfred Walter Thomas Sheppard (1867 - 1937) married Kate Jane Walker (b 1869) on Christmas Day 1889
Children: Frederick (b 11 March 1895); Dorothy Kate (b 1897); Arthur (Little Arthur) (b 1904); and Eric (b 1908)
Frederick Sheppard (b 11 March 1895 in Box; d 1955) married Bessie (b 30 April 1893). They lived in Chapel Lane, Box, until 1941 when they moved to Corsham.
Children: Alan, my father (b 6 November 1919); Edwin J (Teddy) (b 8 November 1922)
James Sheppard (b 1829 in Corsham, d 18 February 1903) married Mary Jane Gale (1829 - 1902) in 1853. Children:
William (b 1854); Louisa (b 1857); Elizabeth Annie (b 1859); Lucy Jane (b 1861); Mary Sophia (b 1864); Alfred Walter Thomas Sheppard (21 September 1866 - 1937); James (b 1869) and Frederick (b 1871).
Alfred Walter Thomas Sheppard (1867 - 1937) married Kate Jane Walker (b 1869) on Christmas Day 1889
Children: Frederick (b 11 March 1895); Dorothy Kate (b 1897); Arthur (Little Arthur) (b 1904); and Eric (b 1908)
Frederick Sheppard (b 11 March 1895 in Box; d 1955) married Bessie (b 30 April 1893). They lived in Chapel Lane, Box, until 1941 when they moved to Corsham.
Children: Alan, my father (b 6 November 1919); Edwin J (Teddy) (b 8 November 1922)
References
[1] These notes are a mixture the reminiscences of my father and my own research and memories. I have been as accurate as I can be, but of course memory can play tricks and misconceptions may be perpetuated.
[2] The Wiltshire Times, 3 December 1955
[3] Saxon words meaning narrow, shady valley
[1] These notes are a mixture the reminiscences of my father and my own research and memories. I have been as accurate as I can be, but of course memory can play tricks and misconceptions may be perpetuated.
[2] The Wiltshire Times, 3 December 1955
[3] Saxon words meaning narrow, shady valley