People

The building programme was partly paid for by steep rent rises for the old council houses. This impelled many of the original tenants of South Grove to move to Rushden or elsewhere with lower rents, so their houses became available for yet more newcomers. The new tenants were, in many cases, not country people, but townsfolk. Many came from distant parts of the country but were eligible for housing in Bedfordshire because their husbands had been discharged from the R.A.F. at their station at Cardington, near Bedford. Some of them have settled down in the village, but a distinction is apparent between the old residents of the council houses and constantly shifting tenants of what is now a predominantly council house village.

Many of the newcomers who only stayed a short time did so because, from their point of view, the village completely lacked amenities. The bus service to Rushden for shopping is poor, and there is only one shop in the old village, a small Co-operative grocery store. There is a general store and off-licence in New Wymington. Shopping facilities in the village itself are little better than at the beginning of the century when there were no shops at all, as such. Many living rooms and front rooms in the old houses did double duty. Sweets and confectionery were sold from at least four houses in 1870. One of them, in the row opposite the New Inn, belonged to “Sucker Bill” – Mr. William Smith, who sold sweets there until the early 1930s. He sold aniseed balls, sherbet dabs, liquorice bootlaces and a sticky home-made toffee. There was also a “Sugar-ball Billy” selling similar wares from a house on Rushden Road, opposite Church Lane, and there was a beer retailer, Mr. William Lewis, whose house was the Old White Horse, in the High Street. His wife was a dressmaker, an occupation carried on by her daughter and grand-daughter today. There was a men’s tailor, Mark Nobles, who lived in High Street. A Mr. Goosey, a relative of the Wymington Goosey family, owned a property in the village. He came over from Kettering twice yearly in his pony and trap loaded with hampers of drapery, which he sold from a back room at the White Horse. He brought men’s and women’s under and outer wear, socks, stockings, buttons, tapes, laces and ribbons, also bolts of dress materials.

Footwear was available from many of the men who worked in the trade, and shoes could also be repaired in the village. There was a carpenter, Thomas Church, he was probably the village undertaker too, as his house in High Street still has a large front room with shop-type window, and it is still occasionally referred to as ‘the coffin shop’. Milk was sold from the farms, and meat could be bought in the village. Twice weekly a Rushden butcher came over in his cart and sold meat from a shed belonging to a house in Church Lane. This trade was carried on in the shed until the mid 1930s when the old houses and sheds were demolished. There was a baker, Thomas Perkins, who had a bakery in an outbuilding behind the New Inn. His wife, Rebecca, had a carrier’s business.

There seems to have been a distinction between the New Inn and the White Horse, whose owner was described as a beer retailer, while the New Inn had a landlord. It may have been that the inn provided food and lodgings too. The White Horse was bought from Mr. Lewis by Newlands and Nash, the Bedford Brewers, who delivered beer by a steam dray weekly. The old house was demolished just before the second war, and a modern public house was built on the site for Wells and Winch of Biggleswade who have now been taken over by Greene King of Bury St. Edmunds, and they also control the New Inn. When Mr. Willmott, landlord of the New Inn, died in 1969, the farming side of the business was still in being. Twice daily, the cows were driven from their fields on Podington Road to be milked in a shed behind the inn, and calves were kept in the yard where hens wandered at will. Now the milking herd and calves have been sold, and the fields are let to the owner of Brook Farm.

Pillow lace making was a thriving cottage industry in the village until the early 1900s. A group of women used to meet in one house, the home of Mrs. Hill, the stonemason’s wife. They met, not only for social reasons, but for the sake of economy. An oil lamp was placed in the centre of the table, and each worker had before her a carafe of water which focussed the beam from the lamp onto her parchment pattern so that she could pick out the intricate patterns more clearly. The making of this typical Bedfordshire lace died out as fashions changed, but interest in it was revived when a weekly class was organised through the County Council’s Further Education scheme in 1968.

Apart from all the different things obtainable in the village, most families were able to grow all the vegetables they needed. Few of the houses had sufficient garden ground, but allotments were available in the two fields between Manor Farm and the Rushden boundary, and in a field opposite, above the new Windmill Estate. Some men had large enough plots not only to keep their families in potatoes and greens throughout the year, but to keep hens as well. Although most people were poor in monetary sense, they lived as well or better than townsfolk earning higher wages. Only a few of the allotments are cultivated now in the top field above New Wymington estate. The others fell into disuse between the two wars, possibly because the first council houses had very large gardens, and also because there was a growing supply of cheap vegetables in the Rushden shops.

A hundred years ago, living was comparatively cheap in the village. Bread cost 2d for a 2lb loaf before the end of the century, but many women baked their own at less cost. Best beer was 1d a pint, but many people brewed a herb beer and sold it at a½d for a quart jug full. Tea was a luxury even at 1/- a pound, cocoa, a more popular drink, was 9d for a ½lb tin. Apart from butchers’ meat, rabbits could be bought for 2d each – they abounded on the railway banks.

As today, Wymington people then were fortunate in that anything not available in the village could be obtained in Rushden. A few enterprising traders like the butcher drove their carts over from Rushden, and many Rushden tradesmen were willing to deliver orders of groceries, greengrocery or fish to the village. Coal and coke were delivered from Rushden, but the coke could be got cheaper if fetched by customers from the gas works. There was a laundry van which collected and delivered weekly. There were several furniture shops, grocers, butchers, drapers, a music store and three chemists. There were two photographers, several builders and monumental masons and several hairdressers, but the latter were probably not much patronised by Wymington men as there was a barber, Mr. Dickerson, in the High Street.

Shopping today is not difficult for most of the Wymington people, especially car-owners. The supermarkets of Rushden are at hand, and many people shop in Bedford, Wellingborough or Northampton, where there are markets.

Social Amenities and Organisations

A few hundred years ago, the social life of the village centred mainly round the church. Evening entertainments, sales of work and garden parties were held frequently for its benefit. There are many mentions in the old school log book that the school was closed for half days owing to church functions. In the early days of the school, a week’s holiday was given to celebrate the feast of St. Lawrence, to whom the church is dedicated, and a day was always given for the church tea parties. As late as the 1920s a series of functions was held successfully and the large sum of money necessary for re-roofing the church was easily raised. But the church, once the hub of Wymington’s social activities, now has only an average adult congregation of just over twenty people. There is no longer a Church Sunday School, and the Mother’s Union has a poor membership. There are now very few social activities connected with the church. There are fewer Sunday Services than there once were, just a morning service at 9.30am and one at 6.15pm on most Sundays (but not all). Previously there was an early service at 7.30am followed by Matins at 10.30am. There were morning and afternoon Sunday School services and 6pm Evensong. At Christmas, Easter and Whitsun Holy Communion was celebrated at both the 7.30am and an extra 8.30am service. Even as recently as the second war, the church was a thriving body, now its membership has decayed.

The Wesleyan Chapel which was built in 1870 soon began to have an impact on the village. It had an active and large membership. There were Band of Hope classes for children in addition to Sunday School. They too had a summer tea party, but no day off from school for it. The average membership today is about eighty and the Sunday School has nearly seventy children on its registers (although these are not all regular attendees). There is a branch of the Christian Endeavour organised by Mr. Peter Clark, the Sunday School Superintendent. Folk groups give Saturday concerts and the Women’s Pleasant Hour is on Thursday afternoons. The children have a summer outing, and a winter party and visit a pantomime. There is an annual summer sale of work and garden party. Thus year a special centenary sale was held. Over £100 pounds was raised. Although the chapel itself was built a hundred years ago, there was a Wesleyan Meeting for thirty years before that. For many years the meeting was held in No. 8 Church Lane, the old house described above.

Lack of interest in local affairs seems to be a national trend, but it is marked in Wymington. This may be because it is so close to Rushden that in many respects the villagers are not so community minded as some neighbouring villages. There seemed to be a general running down of organisations and loss of interest in functions in the village after the Second World War. Many different things have been started, many have collapsed and faded out completely. Some have been dragged on by a few dedicated workers for a longer time until they too have been forced to give up for lack of support. The Boy Scouts, Girl Guides, the British Legion Men’s and Women’s Sections are no longer in existence in Wymington. The cricket club has gone, so has the football team, ‘the Wymington Stars’. Various Youth Clubs have come and gone, but at the moment one is run at the Wesleyan Chapel on alternate Friday evenings. There is a Brownie Pack consisting of Wymington and Podington girls, who can become guides in Rushden when they are old enough.

A branch of the Women’s Institute was formed in 1969, but many of its members come from outside the parish. There is a Darby and Joan Club, although again, there are many guest members from Rushden.

The Village Hall

The above three organisation meet in the Wymington Memorial Hall. The building of this illustrates clearly the spurt of interest and falling away that seems typical of the village. It was erected as a memorial to the men from the village who lost their lives in the two world wars. The fund was started in 1944 by a gift of about £80 from the old Wymington Fire Brigade, which had not been operational for many years. £900 was raised in about five years and a deposit was paid on a plot in Church Lane. Before a village could be eligible for a grant from public money for building a hall, it had to raise £1000, then the local County Council would give a further £1000. The Carnegie Trust would also have donated a similar sum, but when the goal was in sight for Wymington, the economic troubles of the late 1940s and 1950s resulted in the cutting back of public expenditure and grants for halls were axed. The £900 became worth less than its original value; it was in a current account, and a pound saved in 1947 would only buy about 12/6d worth of goods ten years later. The money lay dormant for about thirteen years, although a few people questioned it occasionally. The matter was revived in 1963.

A Youth Club met in a barn at Poplars Farm, but it was not a convenient venue. Mr. Smith set the ball rolling by suggesting the £900 should go towards a Youth Club building on the Memorial Hall plot. At a public meeting the old officials were castigated for their inaction over the Hall, and a new committee was formed. There was a tremendous burst of enthusiasm and by various means, £1,580 was raised in under three years. The Ministry of Education could be applied to for a 50% grant, and the Bedfordshire Education Committee could also be applied to for a further grant of 25%, £1000 collected in the village could have provided a project worth £4000. In the event, no grants were applied for, and the total cost of the hall was raised in the village. A pre-fabricated cedar building was chosen and committee members laid its concrete base and helped with erection. It was completed in April 1966, and dedicated by the Wesleyan Minister, the Rev. F. Wilson.

The site had shrunk to half its size owing to the Rural Council’s building project, and a twenty feet wide road with footpaths on each side bisected the remaining ground. Only a small parking area was left round the hall instead of the large space which it was once hoped would accommodate the outdoor functions. The letting rates are cheap, 12/6d per hour, including heating and lighting. It attracts outsiders who hire it for dance, parties and wedding receptions. There is little interest in village social functions and the main fund-raising event to cover running costs is a fete and barbeque held annually at Poplars Farm.

The Youth Club, on whose behalf the project began, no longer exists. A resolution passed at a committee meeting stated that the hall would not be available as a Youth Club centre because of possible damage.

Playing Fields

A justifiable complaint made by way of the new residents in Wymington was that there was nowhere for the children to play. The original development plans had included a play area, but under a revision which ordered a much higher density of housing to the acre, not only were many more houses erected in the village than had been originally intended, but the play area in front of the flats never materialised. The Rural Council would not accept responsibility for providing one, even though it had been responsible for bringing in to the village large numbers of new residents, and had also bought up any available land.

Under the Public Improvements Act of 1860, the Parish Council was empowered to obtain a recreation field, and as long ago as 1903 they rented a field at £6 a year. In the meantime several landowners in the village were approached with a view to buying a field. The Rev. Brook, who owned Brook Farm, was the first, but his price was excessive. Mr. Goosey of Manor Farm refused to either sell or rent part of his field, Lillyponds, opposite his farm. Mr. T. Desborough of the New Inn could not persuade the brewers to sell a field, and it was considered too inaccessible as it lay between the two railway lines where they converged towards the tunnel. Mr. Smith of Poplars continued letting his field behind the church and in 1911 a resolution from the Annual Parish Meeting proposed that the Parish Council should buy this field “as a permanent measure to remember the Coronation” but the resolution was defeated. The matter was raised again two years later, but after protracted negotiations the deal fell through as the price (£100 per acre) was considered too high. Nothing more was heard about buying the field until 1933 when Mr. Smith again offered the land at the same price, but the District Valuer for the County Council who would have made the loan disputed the acreage of the plot and the matter was dropped again. Part of the field was bought by the Parish Council for a burial ground when the churchyard was almost full. Negotiations for this began in 1938 and were not concluded until when the ground was consecrated, only space for one grave remained in the churchyard in 1943.

A deputation saw the Rural Council surveyor early in 1968, after much correspondence about a play area, with the result that a very small square in Church Lane was set aside and grassed for children to play on. In the same year, the field which had been let as recreation ground so long ago, was sold by Mr. Smith’s grandson to the Bedfordshire Education Committee as a school playing field. Mr. Knowles, the headmaster, has given permission for children to play there outside school hours.