Looking down Church Road. This beautifully clear picture almost certainly dates from the early 1920s – note the pristine state of the memorial and the children’s dress.  The slate roofed cottage on the left has now been replaced but bears the name of a former owner ‘Ede’s Cottage’. The Gate, the property in the centre is still there but the group of four cottages on the right of the picture have now gone.

Notes from Irene Cranwell:

In the house on the left of the picture [Ede’s cottage] there once lived an old lady named Millie Clarke. She used to ‘mind’ babies for 1d a day each while their mothers went to work fruit picking and, in season, gleaning. At that time the house was thatched. This house was also used as a surgery for the doctor that used to come from Newport by horse and trap. It was also used as a dentists’ surgery, the dentist coming from Royston. At one time the Parish Relief was dispensed there. This consisted of 9d per week and a loaf of bread.

Gleaning: collecting heads of corn from the fields after harvest. Once the field was considered cleared by the farmer, a marker would be left to let the village women know that they could go cleaning. The grain they collected would be taken to the local windmill to be ground into flour to make the family bread.

Parish Relief: money and food given to those who could not work through age or ill health. No pensions were available back then!