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Kirkham Abbey memories

Here are memories of Kirkham Abbey and the local area. You can start now: Add your own Memory of Kirkham Abbey or a Kirkham Abbey photo.

Grandparents in Service at Kirkham Hall

Both my grandparents were in service at Kirkham Hall in the 1920s and 30s. My Grandma, Annie Morris, originally from Newcastle, joined her Aunt Annie (who was cook) there when she was in her teens and started as a scullery maid and later progressed to work "upstairs". My Grandad, Albert French, came orginally from the Yorkshire Dales, and worked at the Hall as a footman. His brother was also a footman at the Hall. We have a photograph of Grandad and other staff from the Hall holding a wreath that we think was for Lord Brotherton's funeral, maybe in the early 1930s. Grandma and Grandad met at Kirkham Hall in the early 1930s and although she then worked elsewhere, they married in 1938, living first in Welburn and then, for many years in Whitwell-on-the-Hill. Grandma ran the post office there and Grandad was the postman. One very cold winter in the late 1940s Grandad broke his hip falling off his bike in the snow on Kirkham Bank, waiting many hours... Read more

Happy Days at Kirkham Abbey

I lived at Kirkham Abbey in a little bungalow called Sunny Side. It is no longer there now as it was pulled down. It was situated where the carpark now is for The Stone Trough. My mother and father in law lived in The Bungalows. He, Ernest James Cook, was the butler for Mrs Brotherton at Kirkham Hall. Mr Robert Hall and his wife lived and farmed there and Mr Eric Batty was station master and lived in the railway cottages. The Stone Trough wasn't a pubin those days, it was the home of Ernest Hepton. He had a garage at Whitwell on the hill. Long before I was married I used to spend a lot of time with Anne Cook who was to be come my sister in law. As children we used to play in the grounds of the abbey ruins (after the man had gone home) We swam in the river and fished in the cut and walked in the fields and... Read more

Memories of North Yorkshire

Norman West

I lived at Crambeck for seventeen years from 1937, enter my name in google to have some insight to life then.

Not A Memory - More of A Family History

Relatives of mine came from Welburn and I came on this site to see if I could find out more about where they originated. They were George Harrison b. 1806 married Susannah Butterworth in 1829. I think they both came from Welburn.
Can anyone out there help me in my quest?

Happy Days

Swing Bridge c1960
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I have happy memories of going down to the swing bridge in the school holidays when we visited our grandma in Huttons Ambo, long summer days going down to Leamans' shop for a block of ice cream and running back up the hill before it melted. Grandma Allen lived at Wolds View Cottages, we would go with her to clean the church and would play in the churchyard till she was ready. She seemed to always to be cleaning for people, she was widowed and lived there with our uncle Steve, he would take us up and down the lane on his tractor. Went to the school there for a while in 1955 when our mother was ill, Mrs Ronald was the school mistress and lived two doors away from Grandma's. Lovely little village which has not changed, and so reminds me so much of my childhood whenever I go back.

Very Happy Times

Swing Bridge c1960
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I spent the early years of my childhood living in the Station House at Huttons Ambo,my dad was the signalman there. I attended the village school from 1958 - till it closed 1962 (?). Both my parents have unfortunately died in the last 4 years, but I still go back to Huttons Ambo when I get the chance. The memories of the steam engines chugging past my bedroom window, the warmth of the coal fire in the signal cabin and the fishing in the Derwent near the swing bridge are vivid. Everybody wishes at some point they could turn back time, this is where I would go, given the chance, without any hesitation!

Gowing up in Huttons Ambo

Swing Bridge c1960
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I grew up in Huttons Ambo and my mum still lives there today. What a wonderful carefree childhood. We lived in Low Hutton for a few years, my mum (Eileen Routledge, brother Simon and sister Sarah), and then moved to High Hutton and lived next door to my Gran and Grandad Gibson. We used to play down by the river and the swing bridge and loved standing in the middle making it swing, on school summer holidays we would take off with a picnic every day and go through the fields making bale dens. We had so many places to go play and hide. I was baptised in the village church. My brother went to the village school but it closed down before I started although I do remember the school teacher Mrs Ronald, she carried on living there after it closed. Leaman's shop was a must every Sunday morning after Sunday School to spend our pocket money on sweets, black jacks, gob stoppers etc. I remember the... Read more

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