View From The Church c1965, Saxmundham
View From The Church c1965, Saxmundham Ref: S69029
Memories of View From The Church c1965, Saxmundham
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Saxmundham & local memories
Read and share memories of Saxmundham and Suffolk inspired by Frith photos.
Parham House
Does anyone have any information about Parham House. I believe that it was a residential school in the 60's - 70's run by a Mrs Russell. I wonder if there are any records surviving from this period?
Regards
Hilary Player
Family of 14 And Still Take in Lodgers!
John and Charlotte Freeman lived in the white houses by the motor bike. ( I'm sure I have photos of groups outside the house with this bike!). My great grandfather was a blacksmith with his smithy in Church Road. He made many of the fences that protected trees on the Hurts Farm estate. They had 12 children. 8 boys (Thomas, George, Sam, Fredrick, Sidney, Percy, John and Bill)and 4 girls (Elsie, Rose, Honor and Kate - Percy and Kate were twins). Thomas was a Lance Corporal with the 4th Battalion, Suffolk Regiment and died in 1916 aged 20 and is commemorated on the Thiepval Memorial.
Percy used to cut gents' hair in a shed in the garden in Albion Street where he lived. His brother Sam lived next door. Rose (Hulme) had a laundry the other side of the railway line in Chantry Road and used to have whist drives for the soldiers there. (I think it was later a motor bike shop.) She later lived in Albion Street as... Read more
Blacksmiths
Apparently my Gr Grandfather John Freeman owned a blacksmith shop that was situated just on the left hand side of the road here at the beginning of the 20th century. He also made the 'fences' that protected the bases of many of the trees on the Hurts Hall estate. I've never been able to find any written infromation about him or the 'smithy' though.
THE WOOD AND CHURCH HILL
LIKE JOHN FISHER SAID WE PLAYED IN THE WOODS AND EXPLORED ALL THE SURROUNDING FARMLAND, SCARED OF BEING CAUGHT BY SQUIRE LONG AND LATER MISS ALDOUS. AS FOR THE OLD WELL UP CHURCH HILL, I CAN REMEMBER DROPPING ROCKS DOWN IT WHEN THERE WAS A LOUD BANG AND A FLASH WHICH MADE US DISAPPEAR QUICKLY FROM THE SCENE. I ALWAYS WONDERED WHAT IT HAD BEEN. CERTAINLY TAKES YOU BACK READING THESE MEMORIES.
We Played in The Woods
The woods behind South Entrance were our playground. I lived at 5 South Entrance and knew every nook and cranny, and in the spring I knew where every nest was.
Names that come to mind are our neighbours Julian and Christopher Chilvers,
Doreen, Christine Mattinson (or Matteson) then David Nettleingham, Cookie, Richard Green, Colin Thomas. Our biggest secret was the old well, through the far end of the woods, and up Church HIll. It had been covered with a concrete cap, but we chipped away and made a hole, lighting paper and throwing it down to get a good look. It contained dumped wartime explosives, probably incendiaries, which we threw bricks at. I got my eyebrows badly singed when something went off and a wall of fire shot up. Its been filled in now...but did they fill in the explosives too? I suspect so, which means there are houses very nearby. Oops!
I recall vividly making bows and arrows, carrying an air-rifle, dodging Squire Long's wife in her Morris... Read more
Street Farm Road
We used to live in both houses as my father was the caretaker to the buildings which would have been built to the rear of the photos.
Ethel & Tommy Downes, Normanhurst, Rendham Road
My grandparents were Ethel and Tommy Downes who lived at Normanhurst, Rendham Road, Sax from the early 1900s until their deaths in the late 1960s. They had four children, Gladys (1913), my mum Phyllis (1914), Norman (1920) and Arthur (1921). Grandad Tommy bore a great resemblance to Field Marshal Montgomery and even wore a beret like him. He worked for the Post Office as a telegragh engineer and was a keen member of the British Legion. My gran's maiden name was Gildersleeves. I have fond memories of this house and spending many hours with my cousins, Rita, Judy and Kevin Downes, Shirley and Graham King from Framlingham, and taking out grandad's dog Nell and feeding his chickens! A family called Maplestone lived next door, and their daughter was called Glynis. If anyone knew the Downes family please get in touch on reevelynn@hotmail.com Thank you. Lynn Reeve (nee Creasey)
International Stores
A previous shared memory recalling International Stores reminds me that my father worked there, as a roundsman. He would cycle every day from Leiston, then do the equivalent all over again in Saxmundham, several times a day as he delivered groceries.
He had his own band - he played piano - and met my mother, Joan Spatchet, at a dance in the Market Hall. They married in 1937, my sister Ann was born a year later and I arrived on February 23rd 1944 - just a few weeks after my father was killed on a bombing raid over Germany on January 1/2nd, when his plane was attacked by a night fighter. Two years ago we travelled to Germany from our home on the Staffordshire/Shropshire border, and with the help of a local journalist, the Mayor of Weyhausen, and the townsfolk, we found the crash site of his plane. It was in a forest and has been left undisturbed, with the Mayor pledging to place flowers on the site every... Read more
