Each evening from 1st to 23rd December a village window specially decorated in the manner of an Advent Calendar is unveiled before an audience enjoying mulled wine and other traditional refreshments. This evening (Sunday 6th December) featured Wootton House in Little Street and the decorative theme reflected the owners’ poultry keeping interests!
Pictures of the opening ceremony and a little of the history of Wootton House on the next page. (Pictures of the first five windows to follow).
The chosen window blacked out on Sunday afternoon.
Fresh eggs for sale.
All is revealed!
My grandfather, Joseph Wootton with his bride Katherine on their wedding day in 1894. Joseph’s father Isaac ran the family building business, established in the village a hundred years earlier. Katherine was from the Taylor family who were business rivals and it seems that their prospective union was frowned upon. As can be seen from the photograph, Joseph was clearly not a man to be trifled with and so they ran away to Warwick and returned married. However, all was forgiven and the house known as Wootton House was their wedding present from Isaac (the house had no name until about twenty years ago). They had one daughter and seven sons of whom my father was the youngest. The eldest son was killed at Ypres during the first months of the Great War.
The only daughter, Gladys with Arthur, her husband to be, in the early 1920s…..
….married in Sulgrave Church in 1926 (Katherine and Joseph to her left).
Gladys and Arthur had an only daughter, Kathleen, who married Alec Munro in Sulgrave Church in 1945 and as can be seen above they took up residence in Wootton House. Universally known as “Sandy”, Alec had been a navigator on Lancasters during the war. He and Kathleen were very active in the village, being much loved and respected by all. (See more about Sandy).
Earlier this year Sandy and Kathleen’s two daughters, Carol and Hilary, came to a gardens’ open day in the village and stood once more in front of the house where they had spent their childhood.
Colin Wootton