Draycott

Third World Conditions in The English Countryside.

It is all too easy to look back to the past and remember an idyllic picture of country life and forget how it was in reality, I often think back to when I was growing up in Claverley in the 1950s and 60s. My parents, younger brother, and I lived in a tied cottage which came with my father's job as a farm worker, this was no picture postcard house by any means, in fact it was a semi-hovel. It was the middle house of three and consisted of a small room with a door which opened to the outside. There was a lean-to kitchen with barely enough room for a small table, an electric oven and boiler, a tin bath and a sink with a single cold tap, also there was a tiny room off the main living area which was used to store anything and everything including my mother's vacuum cleaner, etc, and there was a cellar which flooded on a regular basis. Upstairs there was a landing bedroom which... Read more

Gatacre Hall

I was taken to the ruin of the hall which was almost completely overgrown. Shortly afterwards a newspaper article appeared about Lord Gatacre abandoning the property earlier in the century. I recall a tree growing up through an old car but there was still a lot of furnishings in the building. In 1964 I acquired one of the nameplates from the GWR steam locomotive Gatacre Hall which I had for nearly 20 years. I also met one of the Gatacre family who lived near Claverly. I am searching for more information on this fascinating place.

I was working for a builder from Claverley and we were doing work on the Gatacre estate and 3 of us decided to try to see the ruined hall; after hacking through what seemed a "veritable" jungle we came upon the outer walls where there was an ancient car covered in undergrowth. I also remember a farm on the estate which was run by a family named Hyatt who remembered Squire "Calfery" Gatacre when he lived at Gatacre Hall. After the hall fell into disrepair, the squire on his return had a bungalow built to live in. It was always said that whenever the squire went in to any of the farms on the estate he recognized furniture from Gatacre hall, "allegedly". I also remember being told by a man who grew up in the area that he remembered the library just after the hall was abandoned, some of the books (tomes?) were so big, a wheelbarrow was needed to remove them.

My Family

I was born in Burnhill Green in June 1955. Most of my mother's side of my family were born there. My mother's name was Doris Mytton, and my grandfather's was Richard (Dick) Mytton. He worked on the Dartmouth Estate (Patshull Hall) for the 4th Earl.

The Fox And Goose Public House

The Village 1968
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Hello from Australia. I was hoping that someone looking through these "memories" might remember The Fox and Goose Public House on Penn Road. I think that this is the picture of it. My mom was the cleaner there for a few years when my sisters and I were young and I can remember sitting on the steps outside the pub collecting car numbers in an old exercise book and drinking a bottle of Vimto and eating Smiths crisps while I waited for mom to finish cleaning, and then we'd walk all the way back home to Warstones estate where we lived, it was such a long way but we never minded then as we didn't have a car and money was very tight so we couldn't catch the bus. Sometimes mom would stop on the way and if it was near lunchtime she would buy sixpence-worth of batter bits from the fish and chip shop that we passed on the way home  and we'd think it was such a treat... Read more

Hopkins And Tipper

The Village 1968
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I would love to hear from anyone who may remember my great-great-grandfather whose name was Owen William Hopkins. He did live with a lady called Mrs Tipper and had two children, one of who was called Winnie. Owen died in 1937.

Memories of The Old Village.

The Village 1968
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We Davies` lived at 406 Penn Road. My mother Sarah used to be caretaker at Penn Congregational Church and worked also for Miss Dorothy Tweedie whose house `The Crest ` was on the corner of Pennhouse Avenue and is still there. We lived in the cottages, 2 up 2 down, with an outside lav down the garden. This lay back off the road between the post office, run by Miss Roden, and the second row of shops which contained Hickmans paint wand wallpaper shop, Skiltons the newsagent, Taylors the greengrocer & Wilf Hicks the cobbler. We rented our house for 11 shillings and 4 pence from Mr Ferguson whose shop was on the corner of Manor Road. I was there from my birth in 1948 until 1959 when the cottages were compulsary purchased for the Penn Road widening scheme - but the land was never used and is now Tescos car park. There were many characters in the village we knew well; Mr Careless the... Read more