The incessant heavy rain had dwindled to a mere drizzle by 6.00 pm and a good crowd gathered for the unveiling of the decorated window at the Old Stocks.
Kym writes:
No 18 The Old Stocks. Lovely window and great hospitality as always. Thank you Ben, Hannah,Theodora, Edmund and little Antonia. A good turn out and the rain did stop for us all. 😊Thank you all for coming out.
Kym
More photographs on the next page.
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Some notes on the Stocks themselves:
The village stocks were originally situated off Church Street, near to the lych gate, until the land was incorporated into the churchyard. They were then dismantled and lay in the Wootton Builders’ workshop for many years until refurbished and re-erected in their present position. The ironwork is the original Elizabethan.
Photograph courtesy the Gascoigne family.
This charming “boy meets girl” photograph was taken sometime in 1940, seemingly by a passing professional photographer. The “boy” in question was Bernard Gascoigne, youngest son of the then village blacksmith, George Gascoigne. The “girl” was Betty Hunter, newly arrived in the village as one of several wartime “evacuees” who came to the village to escape the bombing in London.
Betty left the village after the war but continued to live locally. Bernard married and remained in the village. Sadly, he died from cancer in his early thirties. We were a very close community in those days and he was greatly missed, being universally remembered as “a lovely man”.
In this photograph from the mid 1940s, Bernard can be seen shooing horses outside the then Forge in Church Street, with his father. The Marcus Linton in the picture was an army officer, home on leave and staying with his mother who lived nearby. On his return to the army he was on some kind of mission to Russia where the helicopter he was travelling in crashed and he was killed.
Colin Wootton